Anaconda (1997) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

There have been endless monster flicks and if you’ve seen shit wackier than Gremlins, Anaconda is the kind of film that’ll beg to differ.


PLOT


The 1997 film follows a film crew entering the Amazon River hoping to document a long lost tribe, the Shirishamas. The crew includes: director Terri Flores, her boyfriend anthropologist Steven Cale, childhood friend Danny Rich who does the camera work, production manager Denise Kalberg, her boyfriend Gary Dixon who does sound design, narrator Warren Westridge and boat skipper Mateo (Vincent Castellanos). The trip quickly changes trajectory when picking up stranded snake hunter Paul Serone who claims to know where the tribe is. Everyone quickly gets uncomfortable around when he & Cale clash over Shirishama lore and when the latter gets stung by a wasp, an allergic reaction leaves him unconscious. After Serone saves his life by performing an emergency cricothyrotomy does he admit he has been looking for a giant anaconda, measured to be 25ft/7.6cm long. No one believes him until he shows off his facial scars and the giant skin it shed. Proof of the snake’s existence is further implied when Danny & Mateo join him in searching the wreckage of another boat and Mateo gets killed by the reptile. Serone then convinces Gary to help him with a promise of a $1million prize. When later using a dead monkey as bait, it does lure the creature to the boat and it ends up killing Gary when he tries protecting Denise. Terri tried shooting it down, but Serone stops her, knowing it’s more valuable alive. As punishment for getting Gary killed, the group ties to a pole on the boat; They also call him out for his secrecy since they found a newspaper photo that he hunted with Mateo before. The next day, the remaining group see a waterfall blocking their way. When Westridge goes with Terri and Danny to winch it loose, Denis tries to kill Serone but he defends himself by using his legs to strangle her and dump her body in the water. The snake returns to attack the group, resulting in Westridge to distract it at the cost of his life. Terri shoots the reptile point blank when it starts coiling Danny, but Serone breaks free and tries to kill them for it but is stopped by Cale who wakes up and uses a tranquilizer dart on him. They dump him in the river, but he catches up to use Danny & Terri as bait for a bigger anaconda, estimated to be 40ft/12m long. The snake does get trapped in Serone’s net, but it quickly breaks out to swallow him whole. Terri & Danny do break free from restraints too and as they escape, the former does see a nest of newborns nearby. As she is chased by the parent anaconda up a smokestack, Danny pins the creature down with a pickaxe  and starts a fire so that the two can escape with their lives. The snake does make one final attempt to kill them before Danny finally finishes it with an axe. As they leave with a recovering Cale, the film ends with them still getting to film their documentary when finding the Shirishama.


THOUGHTS


For someone who has a soft spot for monster flicks that includes real life animals fucking shit up like Jaws, The Birds or Cujo, I totally thought it sounded a like cool idea for a giant snake to do the same. I thought this when I was a kid, but it just doesn’t age well compared to said better movies. Since this came out in the 90s, you’re gonna get a big balance of VFX & animatronics for the big snakes and it’s the latter that is more believable than the former, which is a bummer because you can tell it’s aiming for the same luck as Jurassic Park. Whether or not you’re rooting for anyone, you’re still gonna be stunned with how intimidating it is for even coiling a black jaguar; And I do respect Frank Welker coming through with impressive vocals for the creatures. What really pulled me apart here was how the characters in this one are far more one dimensional compared to what’s given in the 2025 meta reboot. I can say Jon Voight is a believable treacherous antagonist as Serone, but his Paraguayan accent is annoying as hell. Getting into the character though, he doesn’t try hard enough to earn anyone’s trust especially when Mateo remembers him. If he was upfront about the snake, whether or not they were gonna take him serious, he’d get along with them much better. And staring at Terri early on definitely doesn’t help you either. What truly made him an asshole is risking to capture it alive because he knew he was gambling with their lives and didn’t care. I mean a skeleton of a giant snake has to be enough of a profit to be content with. So of course he gets what’s coming by the end of it. Again, the rest of the people were supposed to root for make it hard to do so because their motives are far more straightforward. They don’t come off being exploitative per se, but the fact those that remain still get to meet the tribe they’re looking for forces that narrative good things happen to good people. Jonathan Hyde made Westridge the most condescending since he only chose to get on the same page with Danny until the going got rough, so I couldn’t feel much either for him when he died. I can buy the fact that Owen Wilson was far too naive as Gary, hence considering to help Serone, but then there is nothing interesting for me to notice about Kari Wuhner other than the fact she makes Denise come off needy. Because you can relate to the heartbreak she goes through losing someone she loves, it was totally on the others choosing to leave her alone with Serone, knowing damn well she would’ve wanted to kill him. Eric Stoltz gets shelved big time as Cale because just when we get to see flex his brain and exposit enough of anacondas and the Shirishamas to express his good nature, as well as enough skepticism to point out Serone couldn’t be trusted. Having said that, it was annoying he’s basically shelved after getting poisoned and having no choice but to do the bare minimum when the climax occurs. The only characters that come off most interesting are easily gonna be Terri & Danny due to the star power Jennifer Lopez & Ice Cube bring to the table in said roles early into their acting careers. Lopez makes the former most interesting due to having they determined & resourceful attitude that helps her survive, and it is her professionalism that’s shown from the beginning that makes her a believable pair with Cale compared to the bare minimum shown with Gary & Denise. Cube still makes Danny likable too because his pragmatism and cautiousness is believable before having to step up against the snake, which does define why he’s a good friend to Terry. The only thing that bothered me about him was that he’s far too lucky that his camera didn’t break when the tree crashed onto the raft, or the fact he didn’t even bother with using the camera when looking around the wrecked boat. The stuff he could’ve documented before seeing the tribe could’ve been enough of a documentary to establish even if the climax didn’t happen the way it did. If you can ignore all these issues, then you can say Director Luis Llosa makes the ideal campy monster flick you expect from similar stuff like a Tremors sequel and roll with long enough to be considered solid entertainment. If those are the kind of movies you’re into, then check this out when you can.