IT is doubtful Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece The Godfather would have gained such critical acclaim had it been called Sicilians Killing Each Other. However, with little expectation or interest in such media favour, David R Ellis' new film has the does- exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin title Snakes On A Plane.

And that's just what you get; 500 of the slimy creatures, both real and CGI, terrorising passengers on a 747 flight to Los Angeles.

It has very little to say, but through a tantalising website and the tireless promotion of its leading man, Samuel L Jackson, it has engendered hype on a scale unseen since The Blair Witch Project. Unlike the micro-budget indie horror, however, this break-neck paced and shock-filled thriller delivers.

The project has endured a protracted production. It was sidelined when its subject matter was deemed insensitive to memories of the 9/11 tragedy. It's a reminder of how such fear is now a part of our lives, that its eventual release this week coincides with a foiled aircraft terror plot on a potentially even larger scale.

The film makes the most of the claustrophobia and vulnerability of air travel. Ellis does well to have the entire running time taking place on the plane. Previous airplane-set movies such as Wes Craven's Red Eye last year, dissipated any suspense with a messy last act on the ground.

The set-up here is that an orphaned Hawaiian surfer has witnessed a brutal murder. He is to be flown to LA to testify against the mob boss responsible for the killing under the protection of FBI agent Neville Flynn (Jackson).

The mob boss has made arrangements to, as it were, wipe out the surfer, as well as everyone else on the plane, by releasing the deadly snakes.

Ellis is the director of Final Destination 2, a horror film which displayed a winning inventiveness in the manner and method of the fataliities of its doomed teens. The same ingenuity is used here and it is satisfyingly gruesome and shocking in parts. There is plenty of B-Movie kitchness and humour but the snakes do scare and man, women and chihuahua meet some very unpleasant ends.

One scene will make any future flyers check their falling oxygen masks very carefully before putting them on in times of decompression.

Ellis neatly introduces passengers and crew members so we either mourn or rejoice when they have their snake one-to-one scene. Like Wolfgand Peterson's recent Poseidon remake the economy of cast and setting focuses the action and involves the audience far more. It has the linear, accelerating progress of a roller-coast ride.

Of course, it's no great trouble to cheer on someone such as Jackson. He doesn't exactly shed some skin for the role, he is just playing his usual cool, fast-talking self. Still, the charismatic actor has some marvellously profane anti-snake dialogue to boom out and he gets the film's butter-wouldn't-melt seriousness just right.

Here's to more movie straight talking.