In a recent review of the godawful movie ‘The Eden Formula’, a film that I easily recognize as terrible, but still somehow managed to enjoy immensely, I gave props to actor Tony Todd for always finding a way to deliver his A-game no matter how crappy the production or how little he may be being paid.  This is an actor who I’m fairly certain never considers himself above the material.  Or if he does he doesn’t show it.  Contrast that to actress Sandrine Holt who is some kind of beautiful son.  I have a new list I’m setting up on the FCU which will feature women possessing major hotness, but you have to be AT LEAST thirty-five to be on my list of hotness.  Anybody can be hot and twenty-three, but I like my ladies to have some maturity to them.  Ms. Holt is a few months away, but she will be included on this list when her birthday rolls around later this year...2007... joining the likes of Halle Berry (40), Kelly Hu (39), Sophie Marceau (40), Gabrielle Union (35), Monica Belluci (42), and others who I’m certain would give an ovary to be on MY list.  I mention this because it takes space which keeps me from talking about ‘Fire Serpent’ and pointing out that Sandrine sure did look like she’d rather be getting a novacane-less root canal than having to perform in this terminal piece of dreck that falls under the moniker of the Sci-Fi Original motion picture.  She sure is purty though.

Apparently the sun is evil.  Sometimes it tosses off solar flares, and though most of those flares float harmlessly and dissipate out in space, as you would think that anything having anything to do with fire would immediately just disappear without oxygen to support it would, but sometimes these flares make it all the way to earth and house these little fire demons which ain’t nothing but bad news.  These things set stuff on fire, kill people, possess people and char them from the inside, grab people and toss them into raging infernos and all kinds of mayhem for no other reason than just because they can.

Firefighter Jake Realm (Nicholas Brendan) is fighting some unexplained flare ups with his buddy Dave (Steven Boyle) when this little bitty flare that Dave is trying put out runs under the lunch trucks, ignites the gas can and makes the truck go kablooey.  Dave is pretty much safely out of the way, that was until one of the flames reaches out and grabs Dave, accompanied with an evil demon face and brings him into the explosion making him all crispy like.  His buddy Jake saw all of this, but manages to convince himself that he was hallucinating or something.  At least that was until he meets an old man by the name of Dutch Fallon (Randolph Freaking Mantooth).  You see Dutch was a firefighter forty years ago and saw something similar when this flame got all up in his girl, possessed her, and turned her into a fire eye zapping possessed monster.  Now Dutch spends his time hunting down these creatures and devising ways to kill them.

Now the beautiful Sandrine Holt plays fire investigator Christina Andrews who is trying to figure out what is causing this rash of fires and is soon visited by homeland security director Cooke (Robert Beltran).  Why is homeland security concerned about brush fires?  It’s the Gub-Ment!  You know there covering up SOMETHING!  But besides the gubment coverup, director Cooke has other religious issues he’s dealing with as well.  Eventually the good guys have to get together to stop the monster as well as the deranged security director in an effort to save part of Wyoming.  Or wherever the hell this thing is located.

There are a couple of things that will keep this crap movie out of the garbage corner.  The fire effects were pretty decent and the deaths were pretty cool too.  Like when the monster possessed a human and sliced a pretty lady in two.  That was actress Patrice Goodman by the way who could very well luck up and get on the list as soon as I find out how old she is. 

That’s it for the good.  The rest of this film was fairly artless.  The cinematography consisted of turning the lights on bright on walking away, the acting was some of the corniest and stifled I’ve ever seen with the exception of Patrice Goodman, on the off chance that I meet her one day and need to use this review as my in.  Then they threw in this whole apocalyptic religious nut angle which totally didn’t work and was completely silly, and finally they totally confused me on how they ended up killing the monster.  SPOILER:  They led the monster to a fuel tank, where it wanted to go anyway, and basically set the monster made of fire ON fire and it died.  Huh?  In an unrelated note did you know that actor Randolph Mantooth was on Emergency AND was in episodes of Ironside?  Dude is like a living legend.  At least to me. 

Anyway, if you want to see beautiful actress Sandrine Holt sleepwalk to a paycheck or beautiful actress Patrice Goodman get sliced in two, then ‘Fire Serpent’ is certainly your movie.  If you want to watch bad cinema that is actually worth watching, just pick up a copy of the ‘Eden Formula’.  Trust me.