Anaconda (1997)

I first heard of this horror movie as an eleven-year-old preteen--and yes, at the time I thought it was kick-ass! It was original; it was heart-stopping; it was gripping! But now, fifteen years later, it has gone sour. It is what I thought it was now. It is now a movie full of wooden characters, cheesy effects and blatant inaccuracies. Give it some credit: at least these events take place in a real jungle in the Amazon, not in some studio; J-Lo and Ice Cube star leading roles and the unforgettable puppetry that outpace the elementary computer effects of the 1990's.
Here's how a monster movie, ANACONDA, has turned out to be one of the most unbelievably lackluster movies of the 1990's.

 We go to a prologue that sets the whole story in the Amazon--WRITTEN IN RED on a black background! Who on earth thought a normal person can read that?! That is enough to strain the eyes! Good job, people! We are told  that anacondas can grow to forty feet in length, and that--this one is downright implausible!--they have an insatiable appetite so that they regurgitate and then kill again! Hello?! This is a load of tripe! Anacondas are not psychopaths: they only kill when at their very weakest and are threatened! And another thing: if these snakes kill, why would anybody worship these creatures!? Implausible! Talk about slander! This prologue is pure tripe! I'm skipping this crud!

Now we jump to the scenes near the river itself while the opening credits are rolling, until we zoom into a boat that turns out to be stranded with a poacher in it. He appears to be agitated about something--why? Other than the piranhas which can't harm anyone unless they are in the water, I don't see why he should believe his life is in peril. But then we see why: an unknown creature is stalking him, and demonstrates its brute force by impaling the wooden floor of the boat. Okay, if this thing can break through the wooden floor, why does it take long to track and devour its victim?!

Alright I don't see any point in this nonsense just to start up the fear factor. FAIL!!! (Even the ominous music wasn't enough to instill the fear into me.) And the poacher has a pistol--why doesn't he use it to shoot the creature which just progresses very slowly?! And at the end he just turns the gun on himself--pointless! He already is about to be devoured, so why kill himself?! Not a convincing start to a monster movie. This where I say was a moment of unintentional humor.

We jump to the next scene with this leading documentary personnel Terri Flores and Steven Cale. They are on a mission to track down the "Shirishama"--I don't even want to look deeper into this!--and the boredom begins! Wow, I never saw the beginning of this to the movie as a child, and now I am glad I didn't. For a horror movie, it just throws at us a boring start with mishaps by the characters aboard the boat. It is from this point when the characters begin to mortify themselves with random, laughable dialogues. As they venture down the Amazon they film their progress for their documentary. As they do so they encounter a stranded adventurer, Paul Serone; something about this guy appears to implicate him as a sinister character as we find out that he and the driver of the boat, Mateo, are at loggerheads--not helped by Serone's creepy look on his face.

After they rescue him, he agrees to find the Shirishama tribe--they put their trust in a man that Mateo clearly distrusts. Now tell me, should they trust a man they have never known in their entire lives even though he just revealed that he traps snakes for a living?! Unfortunately they do, without asking Mateo if he knows about him at all! There is no explanation whatsoever! Mateo never even warns them of his devious tendency. <Whaa,Whaa,Whaa> They are definitely asking for trouble!

Let's skip to a scene where things really start to unwrap: Mateo is the first to be killed by an anaconda--yes, the same one that killed the poacher earlier and even killed an innocent jaguar which was just sitting around doing nothing threatening! One minute Mateo was looking into the marshes while trying to recover himself in the water; the next minute they suddenly jump to the first attack by the killer snake as if Mateo knew it was just there the whole time and yet stood there waiting for it to strike! Was he posing for a C.G.I. scene design or something, and they forgot to insert the scene for suspense? Seriously, the suspense was just not there! This is no way to make a horror movie! Meanwhile back on the boat, Serone unravels a roll of snakeskin, and this freaks everyone out. Really? Anacondas are supposed to be that big?! Sorry, not buying it; and I'm certainly not buying the fallacy of snake facts:

• Anacondas are not a perfect killing machine;
• They do not crush bones and explode blood vessels;
• They may smell heat, but they do not have heat pits;
• They cannot grow to forty feet in three or four years;
• And most importantly, they do not eat people!

I keep on forgetting to mention the occasions where he makes that nightmarish grin on his face! Gee, stop that, you're even more ghoulish than the snake is fearsome! This guy is definitely disclosing his dream goals to the passengers on bold--really, did they actually believe he was going to help them on their documentary expedition? Please.

We skip to the centerpiece of the movie: yes, this is the most notorious scene in the movie--snake-fishing! Serone actually uses the dead monkey as bait, with the crew on board! Now tell me: do anacondas actually inhabit the water as fish? NO!!!! Snakes are reptiles, NOT FISH!!! Who thought this was a good idea?! Who thought it would be innovative to portray an anaconda as a shark?! This is a crock of s**t!!!!! Well Gary, you assured us that Serone would help get you lot out alive, even though he clearly revealed his intentions to catch an enormous anaconda, even if it meant compromising a human life! What is wrong with you, man?! Now you're dead! Too bad. And this is where the C.G.I. of the time looks obviously fake: where the snake coils around Gary, it does not blend with the background. After Gary's demise, Serone turns authoritarian on the remaining members on board, and boy I wonder if they regretted ever rescuing him from earlier on.

Let's move forward. The boat runs aground, and the crew have to force it back into the river--leaving Serone alone on the boat with Denise who can barely harm a fly without hesitating or yielding to his snares! Gee, how dumb: have they forgotten how devious Serone is even when tied up?! These people are so dense!!! Of course, he kills her, dumps her body into the river and then reaches for the knife to liberate himself. That is when the snake strikes again--this is one of scenes where the audiences couldn't help but raise their eyebrows. Here, the snake enacts one of those tensions where it stalks like a shark in the water before making a kill--remind you of anything!? Is this movie trying to be original?! Nope. Just a ripoff from the blockbuster Jaws. It kills another crew member, Westridge (Thank goodness! This guy is so annoying when trying to fake a posh accent!), but does not devour him even after hanging from a tree and crushing him to death. (There is no snake that has the strength to do all this with ease.)  I continues to make a kill, by targeting Danny (played by the African-American rapper, Ice Cube) (Really, it killed and them dumped Westridge who is much more slender only to prey on Danny who is much larger?! I can't imagine it actually trying to gorge on him so easily even if it actually kills him! Does this snake like to kill anything that moves?! It sounds like the Hellraiser or something!) But its rampage comes to an end when Terry picks up the rifle and shoots it in the head three times. Now Surely, a single shot to the head is enough to kill it, isn't it? This angers Serone, who happens to then turn the rifle on Danny--like why? He did not kill your prized snake! Well thankfully, Cale recovers and then sedates Serone before he could commit another atrocity on the boat and Danny jettisons him from the vessel.

Now we finally enter the climax, where we happen to find another snake! Now wait a minute, I thought this movie was called Anaconda, not Anacondas! Did the filmmakers think that one wasn't enough! I mean please, what more torture do these people want to subject us to?! Yes, Danny and Terri wander into an abandoned warehouse where they find plenty of fuel for the boat; only to be ambushed by Serone. He entraps them as bait and soils them in monkey blood (what does this guy have against monkeys anyway?!) and demonstrates powdered human bones. (Dude, wake up. No snake can crush human bones to dust; it's nowhere near possible.) Then the black anaconda emerges from the rooftop. There are so many features that play with one's intelligence:

Did this thing actually float its way down like it was lightweight, because it cannot be any longer than forty feet to recede unto the ground level?

Who thought that anacondas could climb up a ladder and a smokestack at breakneck speed faster than Serone could and the poacher from the opening scene? Who thought anacondas could propel themselves forward at such unimaginable speeds? No way. It's not possible.

Did these writers do their homework at all? No anaconda can ingest and regurgitate their prey in an instant; they take up to two hours to do that. This is the very scene which rather disappointed the audience and critics alike, and lovers of snakes.

How is it that the same snake that could break free from the net, is unable to break free from a simple pickax and a grapple iron?

These implausible feats were all amassed into this very scene, and I am going to sum it all up. The snake is killed when a tonne of fuel ignited below sets it ablaze and then Danny strikes it in the head. They remaining crew find the Shirishama and finish the project before setting off into the sunset (so cliched!).

What can I say about the movie? Well, it so bad it's good; but it spawned a generation of monster snake movies which tanked at the box office and attracted more negative reviews than this movie, and spawned a generation of wooden acting, risible dialogue, stereotypical and cardboard characters, poor scripts and weak stories. If anyone loves snake movies, please avoid its loose sequels as they have done worst than this one.