Do you hear that? Yeah, it’s the sound of a million of furries masturbating in front your local movie theater screen as they watch James Cameron’s Avatar movie. Don’t worry though, for every furry that’s turned on by the giant blue cat people in the movie, there’s at least five other folks in that same movie theater eye-humping the special effects on the screen so hard you can practically hear a Velcro-like ripping sound every time they have to blink. I realize it sounds crass to say such things out loud, but I swear I’m only doing it to prepare you both mentally and emotionally for what you’ll encounter you when you enter that soggy dungeon down that street to watch one of the most gorgeous action movies of the past year.

Today’s Monday Music mixes of the sweet electronic rhythms of the band “Orbital” and the mad movie rantings of that awesome man-cobra from the UK, Christopher Eccelston. The quotes in the song come from a 2004 mini-series that Eccelston did, called “The Second Coming,” in which he plays the son of God. As soon as I heard this voice clip from this song, I knew I had to track this movie down. Luckly for me, Netflix has it in stock and I’ve got it in my queue. (Hurray!) If it turns out to be as good as the clip used in the song, I’ll make sure to post a review here (along with a complete count of how many times Eccelston sprays his venomous spittle on people while ranting throughout the film :P)

While we’re on the subject of Orbital, Christopher Eccleston and general nerdiness, I felt it imperitive that I include this remix Dr. Who theme. Much like “You Lot,” I couldn’t find an offiical video, so I’ve included a fan video some nice person made complete with lot’s of pics of Doctors 9 and 10.

Sand Serpents isn’t going to when any awards, but it’s a decent way to kill an hour and half. Despite being a B-movie, the special effects are at least several notches above the drek that normally appears on the SyFy channel every weekend and the acting was passable most of the time. The story of a group of soldiers being terrorized by giant underground earthworms in the mountains of Afghanistan is really nothing new since Kevin Bacon did is better and with a bigger budget back in the 90′s with Tremors. Still, I enjoyed myself even though I wish the film had spent a bit more time actually dealing with the titular sand serpent menace rather than spending valuable film time on increasingly repetitive battles with Taliban terrorists.

Oh, that reminds me, it was quite refreshing to watch a horror movie that didn’t bash the military or our mission in Afghanistan while still taking the time to depict the Afghani people as normal people who are NOT all terrorist sympathizers. This middle of the road approach was a nice pace to the preachy anti-war, anti-military, global warming propaganda that’s been so pervasive in the horror film industry as of late. Thankfully, it appears that you can still make a silly low budget movie these days without including that kind of retardness.

Bottom Line:

Sand Serpents is a passable B-movie that with better than average production values compared to previous SyFy channel productions. It’s not going to set your world on fire, but the unintentional camp and the lack of any sort of heavy handed political brow-beating made it far more enjoyable than I expected it to be. I suggest you watch it off Netflix’s instant queue as I did or wait for it to air on the Syfy channel again.

Final Score: 3 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by: LC1
Review Format: Netflix streaming video via Xbox Live

It’s been rumored to be in the works for awhile, but according to the email I received just a little while ago, PS3 owners can finally look foward to an end to all those lonely nights of crying themselves to sleep because they couldn’t watch Netflix on their console like those cool Xbox 360 kids next door. Yes, it’s true. Playstation owners will finally become apart of the in-crowd when they gain access to Netflix’s online streaming library of films and TV shows next month.

To view the full press release, hit the jump.

I must say that Mutant Chronicles actually turned out to be better than I had originally expected. It’s always a pleasant surprise when this type of movie manages to rise above the rather low bar I set for it. With a likeable cast of second and third tier actors and an interesting retro design aesthetic that permeates every scene, I just couldn’t help having more fun with this movie then I had originally intended to have…even if the heavy use of CG and less than stellar storyline made it feel like a violent Looney Tunes episode at times.