My review was written in August 1989 after watching the movie on TWE video cassette.
This gory horror film brings back snakes as a screen menace, but is defeated by an uninteresting storyline and listless action.
Originally titled "The Bite", it's been renamed "Curse II" by video distributor TWE to follow up producer Ovidio Assonitis' 1987 release "The Curse" (a/k/a "The Farm"). That unrelated pic was directed by David Keith from an H. P. Lovecraft tale.
New one, filmed in New Mexico, plays as a road movie. Jill Shoelen and boyfriend J. Eddie Peck, are driving to Albuquerque but take a dangerous shortcut through Yellow Sands. Peck gets bitten by a snake and, quite improbably, is given the wrong antidote by Jamie Farr, a traveling salesman posing as a doctor (for no good reason).
Nuclear testing and waste dumping have upset the balance of nature in the region, which (along with Farr's wrong antidote) causes Peck's arm to mutate into a giant snake's head that attacks people. Courtesy of outrageous makeup effects by Screaming Mad George, this yields some fun for gore fans but makes no sense. When Peck cuts the snake's head off with a meat cleave, it simply grows back again.
There's an exciting climax set in a mudpit. Acting is acceptable in a pic aimed squarely at monster snake fans, a rather small group among general film enthusiasts.