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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Spoilers ahead, including the ending. Snakes on a Train is a 2006 direct-to-video horror film from The Asylum. Its train-bound snake threat is only the setup: a Mayan curse gives the story a supernatural body-horror turn, culminating in a giant snake swallowing the train.
What is Snakes on a Train about?
Directed by Peter Mervis and written by Eric Forsberg, the film stars Julia Ruiz as Alma and A.J. Castro as Brujo. The Asylum released it in the United States on August 15, 2006—three days before Snakes on a Plane opened theatrically. That timing and the obvious title-and-premise association explain why it is often described as a mockbuster; the term is a useful shorthand, not a formal classification.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
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Snakes on a Train (Unrated Director's Version) | $29.95 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Snakes on a Train / King of the Lost World | $14.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
![Snakes on a Train [Import anglais]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RKB1T6PDL._SL160_.jpg)
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Snakes on a Train [Import anglais] | $56.62 | Buy on Amazon |
The two films are not presented as sharing a story. Snakes on a Plane supplies the familiar image of a confined vehicle overrun by snakes, while Snakes on a Train gives its danger a supernatural cause: Alma is afflicted by a Mayan curse. The difference matters most in the film’s final act, which leaves ordinary creature-feature peril behind.
Plot synopsis: how the curse reaches the train
Alma’s journey
Alma’s family placed a curse on her after she married Brujo. It causes snake eggs to hatch inside her, with the snakes eating their way out. Alma and Brujo head toward Los Angeles, hoping a powerful Mayan shaman there can lift the curse. Alma carries the snakes in small jars as they board a train.
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The snakes escape
Bandits attack the train, and in the resulting disruption the snakes get loose. The passengers, at first unaware of what is happening, become targets as the creatures move through the train. The enclosed setting supplies the expected trapped-passengers tension, but Alma’s condition makes the danger more than an animal-on-the-loose scenario.
The giant-snake finale
Brujo chants a spell meant to ease Alma’s curse, but it has the opposite effect. Alma transforms into a gigantic snake, devours Brujo, and slithers outside to swallow the moving train whole. Six passengers escape before the train enters her belly. One of them uses a talisman to make the giant snake disappear. The final suggestion that another girl has been bitten leaves the curse’s continuation unresolved.
Rank #2
- Factory sealed DVD
Does the premise pay off?
As a concept, the film does not stay within the narrow promise of snakes loose in a train. Its Mayan-curse premise connects Alma’s body horror to the passenger peril, and the transformation and train-swallowing sequence push the climax into deliberately outsized fantasy. That escalation is the clearest reason to choose this over a straightforward “snakes in a confined vehicle” pitch; it is also a sharp shift in scale from the earlier threat.
The production history helps explain that final image. Co-producer David Rimawi said international distributors at Cannes asked whether the giant snake and train shown on the poster were real. The filmmakers then added the sequence, which was not part of the original story. The anecdote places the film’s most extravagant set piece in a marketing context rather than treating it as an inevitable extension of the initial premise.
How was the film received?
Rotten Tomatoes listed four critic reviews and an 18% Tomatometer when accessed on October 8, 2026. That is a small critic sample, not a broad measure of viewers or cult audiences, and the aggregator figure can change. Variety critic Joe Leydon, in a review reproduced by Rotten Tomatoes, wrote: “Unfortunately, neither undiscriminating action fans nor connoisseurs of high camp will find much bite in this latest direct-to-video product from The Asylum.”
For a documentary-minded viewer, the most revealing angle is the contrast between the film’s simple, recognizable transport-threat hook and the supernatural twist that overtakes it. Its ending is not merely a larger snake attack: it turns the train itself into part of Alma’s transformation and leaves a small opening for the curse to persist.
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