When it comes to the (sub) genre of the animal horror film, as a lover of ravenous beasts in bloodthirstiness you often have to endure a lot of rubbish. With its countless “Sharknado” and other creature trait trash comics, the mockbuster forge The Asylum alone has caused this genre to become increasingly discredited. That is a pity, because the released animals on land, in the water or in the air always have their own fascination.
“Anaconda” was a huge hit in theaters in 1997, but was largely poorly received by critics. Meanwhile, the jungle adventure with Jennifer Lopez (“The Mother”) enjoys a certain cult factor, which is also due to the appeal of the production – and that’s a good thing! Because even if “Anaconda” isn’t better than its reputation, the genre break is much more fun than one would often like to acknowledge.
Haven’t seen “Anaconda” yet? Then you can rent it as video-on-demond or buy it from Amazon Prime Video. If you are looking for a haptic home theater review, you will unfortunately be disappointed, because although the jungle horror is largely out of print on DVD in this country, no Blu-ray review of “Anaconda” has yet been released in Germany. So catching up is definitely needed!
That’s what “Anaconda” is about
The members of a film crew (including Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz) left for National Geographic in the Amazons. Here they meet the obscure Paul Sarone (Jon Voight), who stranded his boat and claims to have once worked as a priest. Because of his excellent local knowledge, he offers himself to the group as a guide to track the crew to the mysterious Indian tribe about which a documentary is about to be made.
But Sarone actually has no intention of satisfying the interests of the group, because the truth is that the man is a hunter and is obsessed with one thing: he wants to track down and hunt a giant anaconda. Intriguingly, he leads the film team deeper and deeper into the jungle, taking advantage of the wound of expedition leader, Dr. Cale (Stoltz) shamelessly. Soon a hunt for life and death begins…
Funny genre cinema with a giant beast
A visit to the site shows that “Anaconda” is not particularly popular Rotten Tomatoes. The proportion of positive reviews here is below average at 40 percent. The ratings are even worse. With over 250,000 votes cast, the positive share of reviews here is a very, very weak 24%. In my opinion, that’s pretty unfair, because while “Anaconda” isn’t a masterpiece, it’s still a lot of fun as a genre snack.
With a sharp running time of less than 90 minutes, director Luis Llosa (“Sniper – The Sharpshooter”) consistently puts his foot down and not only quickly releases the ravenous giant from the line to cause plenty of fear and terror (and yes, too the CGI in this case is pretty awful from today’s point of view!), but the second danger is also allowed to dig into her madness quickly: Jon Voight. Here he is the absolute model psychopath and brings a lot of fun by making his way through the film with a goofy look.
The rest of the top class surprising ensemble, on the other hand, seems rather pale and Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Owen Wilson and co. provide unobtrusive service to the book. But that is fine in this kind of genre film, because as a relatively expensive B-movie ($45 million), the focus is of course on the tense threatthat somewhere in the Amazon waters lurks a giant jungle beast that loves nothing more than to devour humans (or black jaguars).
In addition, “Anaconda” not only makes fun with its completely simple stupidity, but also has a very clear power that cannot be out of control: The sweaty, stuffy jungle atmosphere is really effectively staged. This is not only thanks to Luis Llosa’s experienced staging, but also to Bill Butler’s really good camera work. And he knows all about animal horror, because he was already responsible for the pictures on “Jaws”!