Anaconda Movie Download

6 / 10

Not as bad as they say it is
“Anaconda” is a 1997 movie directed by Luis Llosa. Almost 20 years ago, it somehow killed his career as a director as he had been very prolific before that, but only directed one film afterward. He worked mostly as a producer since then. The writer team is the same from the famous film “Top Gun” and they also did a sequel to this one here. “Anaconda” scored quite a few Razzie nominations (the Razzies got it wrong again, as they usually do), but I have to say I was occasionally entertained watching this and I would not even call it a guilty pleasure.

It starts a bit randomly with Danny Trejo (“Machete”) in the first scene committing suicide after the snake attacks him. Who he is or why he is shown we never find out. I am not sure if they just wanted him in there because he was famous (if he was?) or what was the whole purpose of that intro. Other than that, the film has a couple more well-known actors including Academy Award winner Jon Voight, Academy Award nominee Owen Wilson, Golden Globe nominees Eric Stoltz and (incredibly hot) Jennifer Lopez, rapper Ice Cube, Jonathan Hyde and Kari Wuhrer, who has been in quite a few (animal) horror films. The standout is Voight though, sporting a ponytail in this film and portraying a character at least as scary as the snake monster he is after. He saves one guy’s life early in the film, but takes another later on. A true monster he plays here. So it was basically a fight of human beast vs. animal beast. And would you have guessed that swallowing a dangerous tropical bee can save your life from the Anaconda. It did for one character as he was in the cabin pretty much for the rest of the film afterward.

Basically, the film is all about people being in the water and the dangerous situation with the audience wondering if the giant snake will appear or not. I thought this invisible danger was actually bigger than the real danger when the beast occurred. But that’s usually the case for me that invisible danger works better to scare me. That is also why “The Blair Witch Project” had such an impact on me. One thing that surprised me is how Wilson’s character becomes the aide to Voight so quickly in the film. Far too quickly for my taste. Anyway, maybe he saw a strong leader or father figure in him I guess and he was just easy to manipulate. Oh yeah and then there is also the bee scene I mentioned earlier. Man that was scary and gross when they get the insect out of the guy’s mouth, probably tougher on me than the most snake scenes.

What I liked was how they managed to show how everybody felt out of place in the jungle except Voight’s character who was all home and natural in there. I am not sure if I liked the scene in which the team tries to trick Voight’s character (and succeeds), but the “A*shole in 1”-comment was kinda cool. What I did wonder, was how Voight’s character (after he seemed to be dead early) managed to get out of the water with the tranquilizer in his blood. That was not particularly realistic. And I was a bit surprised about how the snake always showed up where the team was.

I liked about the film that, at 90 minutes including ending credits, it was not longer than it should have been and they kept it pretty much very essential. It was also not too difficult to create a connection with all the characters and quickly understand who is who, which is usually one of the most important things about a film. But that also could have been because I was quite familiar with most of the cast. However, I wished that maybe they would have gone for a slightly different ending in which the animal prevails and just kills everybody. Could have made for a nice change. Anyway, decent animal horror film. Recommended.Read More