hour I've never actually seen Anaconda, and I will certainly not pay money to see Anaconda 2 in the theater when it opens in late 2004, I have checked out Anaconda from the library once. I never got around to watching it, but hey, it was near my VCR for some time. If I ever check it out again and watch it, I'll add a review here.

In the meantime, the bulk of this page is made up of discussion of Anaconda 2, since it has an interesting trailer with one awesome image that I couldn't resist blogging about. Read on for that.

April 22, 2004

There's a sequel to cult horror flick Anaconda coming out this summer.  Yes, just like The Whole Ten Yards, it's another sequel that no one asked for.  I've never seen the first movie, but after seeing the trailer a week ago, and writing part of this update several days ago, I happened to see the movie in VHS form in the library Wednesday afternoon. I've not sat through it yet, and Malaya, who did see it in the theaters back in 1997, is betting I won't last through more than 30 minutes of its cheesiness.

I'm not going to sit through it if it sucks, but some critics liked it. Not many, but some. Ebert inexplicably gave it a 3.5/4 star rating, for example. The most memorable thing about it, and the only thing that elevates it above the usual "another cheesy horror movie about a giant man-eating creature" is the cast. A surprising amount of which were famous, or became famous afterwards. To quote from Ebert's aforementioned review:

The leader of the expedition is Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez, from "Selena''), who will direct the documentary. Ice Cube plays Danny, her cinematographer. Eric Stoltz is Dr. Steven Cale, a scientist. The other members include Jonathan Hyde as their fastidious British narrator, Owen Wilson as the sound man ("Ever notice how the jungle makes you horny?''), Vincent Castellanos as the sinister boat pilot, and Kari Wuhrer as a production assistant. If the cast seems large, reflect that some, perhaps many, of these characters are required so that they can be eaten by snakes.

The sequel has disaster written all over it, starting with the title. Not "Anacondas" or even "Anaconda II," either of which would have some dignity. Nope, they went the George Lucas sequel way, and called it... well I'm not entirely sure. It's listed as being called "Venom" in some places, "Anaconda 2: The Black Orchid" elsewhere, but in the trailer they clearly say "blood orchid," as in a type of flower they're looking for in the dangerous, snake-infested jungle. So is it "black orchid" or "blood orchid" or something else entirely?

Also, what's up with maybe calling it "Venom?" The whole point in having Anacondas, rather than gigantic mutant cobras or something, is that they aren't poisonous. They're constrictors, and they crush you horribly, giving you time to scream and writhe a bit before you die/are swallowed whole.

In any event, it's a cheesy name.  Perhaps not "The Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones" cheesy, but it's a low-budget snake horror movie. They don't have the budget for that degree of cheesiness.

Whatever it's called, the Anaconda 2 trailer is now online, and while I wouldn't exactly recommend it, you might find it worth watching. I'm posting about it here because there's one scene, showing the actors through waist deep water, that really creeped me out. Here's a still of it.

I don't know if it's worth watching the whole trailer just to see 2 seconds of this impossibly long snake moving through the water around the people, but I enjoyed it. Load the trailer and skip to about 60% of the way through it, if you want to skip the rest of the insipid content.

And whatever you do, stop once you see the water swimming part, since it's all downhill after that. That one works since it's ominous, the characters don't see it so you worry for them, and the CGI is perfect at making the snake look real while it's partially submerged.

One funny thing about the snake strikes, and their wide open mouths... they're opening them far too little. I've owned two snakes, one for over 10 years, and I've seen them yawn a lot, and strike a lot. And in both cases, their mouths go open just about 180º. I'm talking lower jaw straight down, upper jaw straight up.  Way more than you can open up your hand, between the thumb and forefinger.

The movie animators either don't know that, or perhaps they do and thought it looked too fake in their special effect test shots, or maybe test audiences shot it down. Snakes can't at all see what they're trying to bite while they're trying to bite it; they just have to get a fix on the estimated target in advance, and then strike right at where they last saw it. This is probably part of the reason that snake charmer types can block or avoid their strikes. Even though snakes move with blinding speed, they don't change direction in mid strike, and if you can just figure what they are targeting, you can avoid them pretty easily.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.