Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Jaws of Satan Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 15, 2015

Note: This film is currently available as part of the double feature Empire of the Ants / Jaws of Satan.

There must be something in the air, or perhaps the water, for a number of new(ish) Blu-ray releases are featuring one of the hoariest tropes in horror films, namely marauding beasts of one sort or another. Some of these outings actually feature giant beasts, as is the case in another recent Scream Factory double feature which paired The Food of the Gods (giant beasts) with Frogs (good old normal size nasties), but in case more outsized creepy crawly villains are your particular cup o’ tea, there’s also the new VCI Entertainment release The Giant Spider Invasion . This Scream Factory double feature is somewhat similar to The Food of the Gods / Frogs, in that one film features mutated creatures (and is the product of the fervid imagination of Bert I. Gordon), while the second deals with putatively more mundane (if admittedly still kind of large) slithering entities.

Jaws of Satan is at times a risibly awful motion picture, but it deserves a few bonus points for being one of the oddest mash ups in horror cinema history, with elements drawn from entries as disparate as Jaws (it's no mere coincidence that this film's title shares its first word with the Spielberg outing) and The Exorcist (and, no, that isn’t a typo). Like any number of post-Jaws “monster” movies, Jaws of Satan posits a marauding beast, in this case a king cobra (evidently an alternate title for the film, and one which it actually bears in its credit sequence on this Blu-ray), which is out to do in a rather alarming number of humans. However, unlike a lot of these rampaging animal stories, the serpent in the film actually has a motive other than pure “lizard brain” instinct. In a frankly bizarre religious element, this serpent is “that” serpent, meaning Satan himself (more or less, anyway).

In the case of Jaws of Satan, there’s not an open air beach under threat by an underwater creature, but instead a dog racing track (a dog racing track) that is the “pet project” (sorry) for the town’s mayor (Jack Gordan). Weirdly, Jaws of Satan never really capitalizes on the threat to the general populace (or at least those who frequent dog racing tracks), but instead focuses more intently on a priest named Father Tom Farrow (Fritz Weaver), a guy with a “history” with snakes (both genetically and experientially), who is the main target of the king cobra. It’s all patently ridiculous nonsense, none of which is helped by equally absurd dialogue and a couple of laugh out loud attack scenes, including one in a graveyard where the good Father has any number of potential routes of egress but who chooses to fall into an enclosed newly dug grave instead.

A patent rip off of Psycho’s iconic shower scenes replaces a certain Norman Bates with a rattlesnake in order to put this film’s damsel in distress (Gretchen Corbett) into hot water (as it were), another haphazardly assembled “scare” sequence that never really delivers. A better (and related) scene finds Corbett lounging on her bed when a snake slithers in to keep her company, but Jaws of Satan never really works up much bite one way or the other.

Jaws of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jaws of Satan is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Much as with its double feature sibling Empire Of The Ants, Jaws of Satan offers quite good detail, sharpness and clarity in brightly lit environments, whether inside or outside. While this film doesn't have many issues with optical effects like Empire of the Ants, it is hampered by a pretty murky, ill defined quality in several dimly lit interior scenes (including the set piece with Corbett in bed with a little "visitor"). Colors look very good, and grain structure in intact. The increased resolution of the Blu-ray only makes some aspects of the practical effects (like safety glass separating snakes from humans) easier to spot.

Note: While this disc loaded perfectly well on my PS3, when I tried to play it with PowerDVD on my PC drive to check the resolution of supplements, it kept stopping at a black boot up screen with a 00:25 (second) timing. Only when I manually dragged the slider to the end of the 00:25 timecode did it then boot to the first menu allowing access to either film.

Jaws of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jaws of Satan features an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 mono track which offers good support for the film's often silly dialogue and rather nice score by jazzman Roger Kellaway. Fidelity is fine, with good prioritization and no issues of any kind.

Jaws of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:51)

Jaws of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Had Jaws of Satan decided to focus on only one of the two routes it ping pongs between, things might have felt more focused, and scarier as a result. As it stands, the kind of occult religious aspect just seems downright absurd, while the marauding beast angle never works up much bite. Performances are very good (including turns by the wonderful Norman Lloyd and a very young Christina Applegate), but my hunch is a lot of horror fans may feel like they've been duped by a serpent in good old Adam and Eve fashion once they get to the end of this largely silly enterprise. While this doesn't have much in the way of supplements, technical merits are generally very good for those considering a purchase.