SNAKE OUTTA COMPTON. It Goes Wild [REVIEW]

Young rappers from a dangerous neighborhood must save their city from a giant mutant snake — if that description doesn’t make you laugh, don’t go any further; if it does, you’ve just stumbled upon great Z-class film. .I didn’t even have to watch the trailer to burst out laughing — sometimes a title is so good that it sets an almost impossible standard for the movie to live up to. Snake Outta Compton is exactly that kind of case — and yet, the screening turned out to be anything but disappointing. The creators deserve a round of applause for two reasons.

First, after the release of Straight Outta Compton, the internet was flooded with memes riffing on its iconic title card. Turning one of those jokes into a real film is a marketing move worthy of Deadpool. Second, it takes a very specific kind of “sensitivity” to merge a gangsta rap story set in California’s Compton with a giant mutant snake. Director Hank Braxtan (known for fan-made short sequels to Friday the 13th, where Jason crosses paths with the Ghostbusters) did a terrific job — the opening seconds alone are laugh-out-loud funny. “You are now about to witness the strength of snake knowledge.”

This paraphrase of Dr. Dre’s legendary intro to Straight Outta Compton is the very first line we hear, immediately followed by a plane, a snake tumbling out of it, and another reference: “Muthafuckin snakes on a muthafuckin plane.” That famous line from Snakes on a Plane, delivered by Samuel L. Jackson, cheekily hints that we might be watching a kind of spiritual sequel to that glorious monument to camp.

And that’s just the beginning of a flood of pop-culture nods. The young scientist responsible for the mutation is a dead ringer for Steve Urkel from Family Matters. A bus escape sequence mimics Speed. The seasoned cop training a young white rookie parodies Training Day. Joston Theney, doing a spot-on Denzel Washington impression, is arguably the highlight of Snake Outta Compton — his over-the-top “bad cop,” throwing out lines like “I’m your worst nightmare,” kills it in every single scene. Most of the jokes land — and they’re not limited to crude toilet humor or sex gags.

The production budget is painfully low. It shows in the awful CGI, the clumsy editing, and pretty much every frame of the film. And yet, the story is so well-constructed that these technical shortcomings hardly matter. Braxtan (and his co-writers) actually have a story to tell — silly, parody-driven, yes, but far from the mindless recycling of clichés that plagues many low-budget films.

The humor isn’t sophisticated, but it doesn’t wallow at the bottom either — unlike the cheap gags of A Haunted House and similar disasters.

Giant monster movies are having a renaissance. Big blockbusters, aiming for a broad audience and a safe rating, have to hold back — but low-budget, independent productions can go wild. For Snake Outta Compton, that freedom paid off beautifully.

Action, comedy, charming trashiness — the film fully earns its status as “so bad it’s good.” And whatever you do, stay for the post-credits scene — there are ninjas and reptilian superheroes waiting for you…