Snake Outta Compton (2018)

"Massively Silly"

And I mean that in a good way, as Hank Braxton's charmingly daft hip-hop giant monster crossover comedy gets a DVD release courtesy of Altitude Film Entertainment.

A snake gets thrown out of a plane, and gets run over in the Compton district of Los Angeles. Teenaged nerd wannabe mad scientist Vurkel (Donte Essien) picks through the remains and finds an intact snake's egg. When it hatches he subjects it to a growth ray in his bedroom-cum-laboratory. 

Our hero

The now giant snake escapes to terrorise the neighbourhood, eating a well-spoken hobo ("I'm just going to defecate in public because restrooms are for customers only") and pursued by insane police officer Denz (Joston Theney) and his rookie sidekick Ethan (Jon Kondelik). But the only hope for the city lies with a hip-hop band on the verge of signing their first record deal in between finding the money they owe to white gangster Alley Jaws (Eric Paul Erikson) and attending a rap battle (featuring some of the worst I have ever heard) in a strip club.

A villain (note our hero on the ground)

SNAKE OUTTA COMPTON is very, very silly indeed. Its depiction of Compton and the characters who inhabit it feels like a TV show for the under fives. The CGI snake is ropey and the makeup effects for Vurkel as he slowly turns into a reptile himself are of Eddie Romero quality. In fact, so tatty and silly is the whole endeavour it feels like MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND meets an episode of RENTAGHOST. 

But if you think that means I didn't enjoy SNAKE OUTTA COMPTON that's not the case at all. In fact I found the whole thing quite charming and found myself laughing myself silly on a couple of occasions. 

If John Waters made a rap movie

If you do brave it, and have as good a time as I did, stay tuned during the closing credits for a couple of really silly superheroes, followed by a lunatic reappearance by Denz that rounds the whole thing off. And I haven't even mentioned that the script appears to be crammed with gags related to song lyrics as well as touching on popular cultural icons (the dream sequence featuring dead rappers is as bold as it is ridiculous). 

Snake's eye view (the PR pack contained no shots of the snake itself, which should be all you need to know)

Altitude's DVD doesn't have any extras, which is a shame as I would have liked to have at least had some outtakes. Even so, if you like silly films, SNAKE OUTTA COMPTON is much better than anything from the SHARKNADO series. The characters are engaging, the script has plenty of jokes and if there was a sequel to this I wouldn't think of missing it. 

Hank Braxton's SNAKE OUTTA COMPTON is out on UK DVD from Altitude Film Entertainment on Monday 28th January 2019