Fire Serpent (2007 telefilm)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Telefilm: D

 

 

William Shatner may be a respectable actor finally, but as a writer, he is still in the doghouse and his goofy tale Fire Serpent is now a 2007 TV movie that is very, very, very bad.  Yes, it is even worse than any of his 1970s genre films, which at least were funny and comparatively ambitious.

 

Shatner does not star in this silly tale of a fire monster that lands via meteorite and then starts inhabiting person after person.  Unfortunately, none of them inhabit a good script thanks to the pedestrian approach Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens did with whatever Shatner came up with.  We have seen this done better hundreds of times before and sadly like many Shatner projects, it is not even unintentionally funny.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is soft and shot on older digital high Definition video.  The digital effects are especially lame.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is barely better than the 2.0 Dolby and both reveal the low-budget nature of the sound recording, which is ironically the highlight of this turkey.  Extras include a few previews.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo