Two thousand years ago, in what is now known as Libya, a king, carrying a serpent shaped gold scepter with a giant crystal for its eye, battles a basilisk. The basilisk appears during a total eclipse. It is said that the basilisk guards a treasure. The venom of the basilisk acts like acid and the eye of the creature can turn people to stone. The king defeats the basilisk, turning it to stone by reflecting the creature's gaze back at it. The monster along with the scepter, are buried in an avalanche of rocks.
In present day Libya a group of archaeologists led by Dr. Harrison ‘Harry’ McColl (Jeremy London) are excavating the site for the Colorado University. His team includes Sierra (Sarah Skeeters) and Rudy (Griff Furst). They unearth the scepter. The scepter has similar markings to what is on a scroll that the college found the year before. In addition to the scepter the group unearths some stone statues and the stone basilisk. During the dig they are warned by some local Bedouin tribesmen that the area they are digging in is evil and is the home of Satan. Undaunted they cart everything back to the university to display in their museum.
Back at the college Harry meets Rachel Donegal (Wendy Carter), a new hire who teaches history and mythology. The museum puts on a big show for the unveiling of the basilisk and the scepter as well as some of the stone statues not realizing that the basilisk and the statues use to be real. In keeping with the mythology of the find, the head of the university, Carlton (Stephen Furst), wants to do the unveiling during the next eclipse.
In the crowd are two benefactors of the dig, Hannah (Yancy Butler) and her husband Brock (Doug Dearth). As the eclipse occurs, the basilisk comes alive and begins attacking the guests. In the turmoil, Hannah steals the scepter. She then goes looking for the scroll that Harry found the year before. She believes that the scroll is a map to the treasure and with the map and the scepter she and Brock will be rich beyond their wildest dreams. But the basilisk has other ideas.
“Basilisk: The Serpent King” was released in 2006 and was directed by Stephen Furst, who also has a part in the film. It is a science fiction horror comedy produced by the Syfy channel.
It is your basic Syfy channel romp in the camp film. When your hero is basically an antihero the tone of a film can be either drama or comedy. Here it is done as a comedy with some fake blood, guts and gore. The Syfy channel isn’t known for having great CGI so the camp is elevated even more. The story isn’t great, and the action is strange with Yancy Butler running around holding a scepter, but it did end up being mostly fun to watch.
The movie uses every ancient serpent style movie trope. Also present are the usual action movie situations including the destruction of a mall and a creature haunting underground sewers and subway systems, not to mention the Army bulldozing their way into things.
Stephen and Griff Furst were father and son in real life. Griff Furst plays the comic relief, Rudy. At first his character was a little annoying, but as the film went on, I began to root for him. He ended up being my favorite character. For once I was hoping that he would make it to the end of the movie.