In the spring of 1997, lesser-known filmmaker Luis Llosa hit us with one of the most fun creature features of the ’90s with Anaconda. The film has a shockingly strong cast, bringing aboard Jennifer Lopez, Oscar-winner Jon Voight, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, Owen Wilson, and even Danny Trejo in a small role. Although the film was panned by critics, Anaconda has developed a cult following over the last 20 years.
I happen to be a huge creature feature fan, really enjoyed this film when it released, and still have a lot of fun with it to this day. So, naturally, I couldn’t leave well-enough alone, and decided brave the jungles in a strenuous and demanding expedition through the rest of the Anaconda franchise for the first time.
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Starting with Anaconda, for those who haven’t seen it, the plot follows a team of documentary makers led by J-Lo and Eric Stoltz as they travel the Amazon River in search of the long-lost Shirishama tribe. The group comes across a marooned Jon Voight, who tricks them into blowing up a forbidden wall filled with snakes, leading them down the one section of the river patrolled by giant anacondas. At the threatening hands of a weirdly-cast Paraguayan version of Voight, the crew is forced to abandon their purpose and help him catch the prize snake of his dreams.
Believe it or not, this is the least convoluted plot of an Anaconda film. The performances are fun, and aside from Voight’s weird White-guy Hispanic accent, the cast all do pretty believable jobs, and most of them are likeable in their roles. Even in 2021, the effects are surprisingly good, using a solid mix of a practical animatronics and CG that still holds up well. There’s an especially memorable scene where the camera POV is from inside a giant practical snake’s slimy throat as it consumes an unfortunate victim. It’s a shot I’ve only seen in that film, and haven’t seen since. Making a snake animatronic that moves fluidly is not an easy task. There are reasons not many of these giant snake films exist with effects that are worthwhile.
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After the first film completed obliterated its budget in worldwide gross ($146 million gross to its $45 million budget), director Dwight H. Little (Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers) thought he could still squeeze some life (no pun intended) out of the first film. The Anaconda franchise returned in 2004 with Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid.
The second film moves away from the Amazon and into Borneo (where anacondas aren’t located) and follows a group of scientists into the jungle in search of the Blood Orchid, an almost mythical flower with healing properties comparable to the Fountain of Youth. The only problem? The rainy season takes the group right into the mating area of giant anacondas. The film is all over the place. From infighting to using spiders as weapons, to the realization that the snakes are so big because of the Blood Orchid, and that because they never die of old age, they basically live and grow forever. Not only that, but the snakes are attracted to the flower, using the growing area as their mating den. Most of the group wants to leave, but the “villain” of the film wants to continue on, citing the responsibility to humanity…and honestly, I kind of agreed with him. He gets no such luck, though, as the crew fights back, buries the snakes and flowers under a mudslide, thus ending the Anaconda franchise, right? Wrong.
Fast-forward to 2008 when filmmaker Don E. FauntLeRoy and Syfy team up for Anaconda 3: Offspring. This is when the series totally goes off the rails. John Rhys-Davies (Indiana Jones, The Lord of the Rings) finances a research facility in Romania that has recovered the Blood Orchids from Borneo and is developing cures for various diseases, while simultaneously creating genetically-engineered anacondas. What do I mean by genetically-engineered? I mean they have giant swords for tails and spit acid. Naturally, they break out, and a group of scientists and mercenaries led by David Hasselhoff and Crystal Allen are sent to kill the snakes. Everything about this film is inferior to even the second one. The snakes are all (bad) CG, and most of the kills are as well, though they do throw in a few decent practical gore effects here in there. The film ends with Hoff being the obvious turncoat, and although our heroes think the snakes are defeated, one of Rhys-Davies’s henchmen gets away with a baby snake, only to set us up for the fourth film.
Don E. FauntLeRoy released Anacondas: Trail of Blood in 2009, bringing back both John Rhys-Davies and Crystal Allen, but this time adding Mortal Kombat alumni Linden Ashby in the mix. This time, Rhys-Davies is dying from bone cancer, and one of his scientists is out in the Romanian forest creating a cure with a serum made from the Blood Orchid. The scientist has figured out the serum can now regenerate dead tissue, and before he can leave, a giant anaconda used for testing escapes and kills him. Rhys-Davies puts together a small team to recover the data and serum to heal his cancer and kill anyone that gets in the way.
I continually went back-and-forth with this and the third one about which one was the worst in the franchise. Somehow, the CG effects are better…but the snakes look…dumber? I have no better way to explain that. The snakes no longer have sword tails or acid spit, but they can regenerate from scratch, including if their head is cut or blown off…which makes absolutely no sense. In the end, Rhys-Davies injects the serum right before getting his head bitten off by a snake. But…wouldn’t his head regenerate like the snake’s? Either way, the heroes blast the snake into a million pieces and surely this is now the end of the franchise, right? No. Wrong AGAIN.
We’re treated to one last taste of the Anaconda series in a Syfy crossover film from 2015, Lake Placid Vs. Anaconda. First of all, what? What is this title? Is the lake fighting the snake? In this one, we’re in upstate New York, where a team of scientists are using the Blood Orchid serum and blending it with anaconda blood and crocodile blood. I felt like I was missing a lot of contexts here, but that goes with me not having seen the five Lake Placid films that also exist (don’t worry, retro coming soon!). This film definitely has the worst story and the worst acting in the franchise, but somehow is the most fun after the first two. Crocs are slinging snakes into helicopters, snakes are cutting crocs in half with their tails, topless sorority girls are getting their heads bitten off, and Robert Englund makes a surprise appearance. It’s just some good old-fashioned cheesy, bad, Syfy nonsense. It wasn’t good by any means, but I at least didn’t hate myself as much as I did after watching parts three and four.
I thought by the end of this film, there would be nowhere to go, and the Anaconda series would finally die, but lo and behold, the film ends with eggs hatching and baby Crococondas being born, only to haunt my future self by having to watch whatever is to come. By this point, the franchise has squeezed me to death, swallowed me, and spit my slimy corpse back out on ground in front of J-Lo and Ice Cube. I highly suggest checking out the first film, and even the second if you still want a little Anaconda adventure…but ye be warned past that point.
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