Brand New Sealed DVD Swarm of The Snakehead
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Swarm of the Snakehead
Directed by Frank A. Lama
Joel C. Denning
Produced by Seth Hurwitz
Frank A. Lama
Written by Seth Hurwitz
Starring Gunnar Hansen
Frank A. Lama
Jamie O'Brien
Rigg Kennedy
Lisa Burdette
Tim Gilliss
Maggie Denning
Elizabeth Denning
Sharon Graves
Gerry Paradiso
Barry A. Hurwitz
Brandon Mason
Oksana Mazurovsky
Leanna Chamish
Release dates
2006
Running time
98 minutes
Language English
Swarm of the Snakehead is a 2006 comedy/horror feature film directed by Frank A. Lama and Joel C. Denning and written by Seth Hurwitz. It is the first feature from producers Lama and Hurwitz's Baltimore-based production company Ten Pound Films.
The ensemble cast includes Gunnar Hansen (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Rigg Kennedy (Slumber Party Massacre) and Miss Maryland Teen USA 2006 Jamie O'Brien.
Swarm of the Snakehead was shot on 16 mm film in and around Easton, Maryland between 2002 and 2005. Post-production was completed during the summer of 2006. A rough cut of the film was premiered for friends and family at The Charles Theatre in Baltimore (where John Waters premiered many of his early films) on June 21, 2006. The sold out screening led to several articles in Maryland papers including The Baltimore Sun, as well as radio and television appearances. During one such appearance on the Baltimore CBS affiliate WJZ-TV, anchor and longtime Maryland personality Marty Bass called Swarm of the Snakehead " in the style of John Waters
Jamie Linck O'Brien (2008’s “From Within”), a former 2006 Miss Teen Maryland, is given top billing here but really has very little to do, minus a couple of make-cute scenes with fellow child actor, Timothy Stultz (2002’s “Max Magician and the Legend of the Rings”). Interestingly, it’s the two grown-up female leads in the cast, Sharon Graves and Lisa Burdette, who steal the show. These two women are absolutely magnificent. Playing Abigail Parker, Sharon Graves (2008’s “The Church”), comes across as vulnerable early on in her scenes with Emerson, and later, as a tough as nails hellcat karate kicking her way through locked doors. You’d swear that she’s channelling Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in the film’s last half. Contrasting the tough-girl bluster against the introductory scene in the shop where she -- still carrying the scars of a heartbroken teenage girl -- softly mutters the singular line, “We deliver… too” is so sweet in its delivery that it’s near tear inducing.
Far and away the sum of my praise is reserved for Lisa Burdette (2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum”), who, as Mayor Janice Appleyard, absolutely runs away with the film. A beauty in every sense of the word, Burdette compliments her looks with heaping helpings of talent. She deftly crafts a character so despicable that you’ll be hard pressed to forget her long after the film has ended. Greedy, vindictive and mean-spirited, Appleyard is the type of vile character that places more emphasis on her mangy pooch than on her own son. She’ll irk you like few others. Burdette, like Graves, is also called upon to get physical in a handful of scenes, namely the hilarious blood-soaked scrap to the death in a bathroom stall that I mentioned. Even though she’s tussling with a prop, she never flinches. Director Joel Denning as William Emerson, has a few good scenes with Graves but for the most part, his performance is wooden and because of that he fails to connect with the audience in any real way. He feels less like a character and more like a device to connect the various plot points. Rigg Kennedy (1982’s “Slipping Into Darkness”) playing a prickly mad scientist type seems to be having a ball here. His presence will surely leave viewers wondering where they’ve seen him before. Here’s a hint: "The Michael Jackson Trial".