Tonn Slingdog Remembers the Franchises, Part 5: Anaconda(s)

Here are my vague memories of the big snake shows:

ANACONDA – I remember mostly that Jon Voight turned in the performance of his late career, a campy but high energy turn as an anaconda hunter with an unidentifiable accent who keeps calling this one chick “little bird” and then later is actually regurgitated by the giant snake. I remember the effects were pretty bad, but in a good way. I think Jennifer Lopez was on the boat with everyone, and one of those Ice guys was there, and maybe one of the Wilson brothers, and I’m pretty sure Eric Stoltz was napping the entire time. It was fun in the dumbest kind of way. No nudity, though, since it came during this, the age of the PG-13 exploitation film. Blah on that. But yay for giant snakes!

ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID – A worthy sequel, in my humble opinion. Even dumber than the original, and with no stars whatsoever, it was actually kind of a fun “B” adventure picture. In one of the world’s dumbest twists on a franchise, the adventurers in this one are not hunting for giant snakes, but rather for a pretty flower. But the flower only grows where there are a ton of giant snakes. If you like dumb monster shows, this is a fun one.

ANACONDA 3: OFFSPRING – In a bold marketing move, the franchise starts premiering on the SyFy Channel, proving that you can make movies about giant snakes really, really boring. The effects, as bad as they were in the theatrical releases, are one hundred times worse here, looking like they were rendered on a virus-ridden PC still using Vista. Also…The Hoff! He seems pretty sober in the movie, which is a plus, but he does not have a talking car so basically he sucks. He needs that car.

ANACONDAS: TRAIL OF BLOOD – I’m pretty sure this was shot at the same time as the last one, probably on the days The Hoff wasn’t available. I really don’t remember a damn thing about what happened, but I’m pretty sure a bunch of giant snakes left behind some kind of trail. Maybe made out of blood or something.

3 thoughts on “Tonn Slingdog Remembers the Franchises, Part 5: Anaconda(s)”

  1. Not helpful, Todd. Not helpful at all.

    Did or did not the sequels have nudity, and what was the character and quality of said nudity?

    1. Sorry about that, but given that these silly things are done purely from memory, if I don’t mention any nudity it probably means I don’t remember any which in turn probably means there wasn’t any because I usually remember naked people. In any event, I’ll try to do better next time!

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