My review was written in October 1984 after watching the program on VCI video cassette.
As a home video release, "Copperhead" is something of an anomaly. Though packaged as a feature film (even labeled "The Snake Movie" as a subtitle), picture was made last year in Missouri with video cameras, giving it that "live" look rather than the traditional shot-on-film style.
Unfortunately, this feature-left program has the hallmarks of an amateurish backyard production, with variable direct-sound recordings and very bright lighting, creating none of the required horror picture atmosphere.
Although prefaced by a gruesome teaser of a snake slowly ingesting a mouse, "Copperhead" does not bring on its unscary title creatures until nearly an hour into the story, which concerns a nutty, gun-toting patriarch who is on the run with his family after killing a man in Peru and stealing a rare necklace. Plot concerns his tyrannical behavior towards his wife and children and frequent run-ins with local authorities and a neighbor who is a wildlife artist.
Snakes are involved as an instrument of revenge in the program's unconvincing last-reel plot twist, as well as symbols of evil from the point-of-view of the ultra -religious wife, while conversely, the artist is interested in protecting the creatures. Video makers Leland and Crystal Payton are ambivalent, having several snakes realistically blown away on screen by gunfire but seemingly siding with these "misunderstood" reptiles.
Tech credits are weak and likely to disappoint horror picture fans. Acting is in the rustic school of wilderness-family adventures.