In 1996’s Scream, movie aficionado Randy (played by Jamie Kennedy) laid out the basic rules for surviving a horror film, the first of which was “Don’t have sex”. It’s sage advice; in most ‘80s slasher flicks, the characters that did the nasty often ended up on the wrong side of a machete.
But not even Randy could have predicted the insanity that occurs in 2019’s Snatchers when high school student Sara (Mary Nepi) has sex with her boyfriend Skyler (Austin Fryberger). In a bizarre turn of events, Sara discovers the very next day that she’s pregnant. In fact, she’s so pregnant that, a mere 24 hours after sleeping with Skylar, she goes into labor!
Clearly, there’s something otherworldly at play here, and with the help of her former best friend Haley (Gabrielle Elyse), Sara hopes to get out of this mess before her doting mother (J.J. Nolan) catches wind of it. But when Sara gives birth to a giant insect, it sets in motion a series of events that may ultimately destroy her home town, and maybe even the world!
A fun, funny sci-fi / horror mash-up co-directed by Stephen Cedars and Benji Kleiman (both of whom also penned the screenplay), Snatchers features lots of snappy dialog (filled to its breaking point with teen slang) and some truly impressive practical effects (especially late in the film, when we finally discover what’s really going on).
Occasionally crude yet also kind of endearing, Snatchers was an absolute blast!
Rating: 9 out of 10
