Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid Movie Review:


Does anyone remember those old jungle serials? How about the Tarzan films of the 1930s and 1940s starring Johnny Weissmuller? What about the Tarzan TV series of the 1970s with Ron Ely?

Well all of these in some shape or another came to mind as I watched the low-budget horror sequel, “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid”.

“Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid” is a sequel to the 1997 thriller, “Anaconda” which starred Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Jon Voight. The film solidified J.Lo’s acting career after coming off the huge critical success of “Selena” and the film also resurrected Jon Voight’s struggling acting career. Voight’s over-the-top performance as an insane “Ahab-like” hunter is still talked about today.

Director Dwight H. Little (“Rapid Fire” and “Murder at 1600”) takes the helm to the sequel which finds a group of scientists hacking and slashing their way through a Borneo rainforest in search of the mythical “Blood Orchid” which is supposed to contain the pharmaceutical equivalent to the “Fountain to Youth”. The group hires river-master Bill Johnson (Johnny Messner) to lead them on their expedition.

The expedition begins to fall apart when Johnson is bribed to take a riskier route than advised and the river boat ends up crashing over a waterfall. Now the party must find a way to walk out of the rainforest but unbeknownst to them it also happens to be anaconda mating season.

There is no better word to describe “Anacondas” than “cheese”. It is your typical B-grade monster film with all the clichés that go with it. What it has going for it is that it is also a lot of fun.

The antics of macho-river captain Messner and his passengers are fun and thrilling when they are embroiled in a life and death struggle. But when the film relies on dialogue and acting from the “motley crew” then the film hits a snag. The acting scenes feel like they came from a film-school project.

I kind of liked the performance of Messner’s Tarzan-esque captain but he was really only impressive in the action sequences. Uncannily Messner was also one of the stars of the recently cancelled WB series “Tarzan”.

I also really enjoyed the smarmy performances of Salli Richardson-Whitfield, who in a lot of scenes reminded me a lot of J.Lo in the first film. Richardson-Whitfield’s biggest claim to fame was that she was the voice of Elisa Maza in the critically-acclaimed animated series, “Gargoyles” for three seasons.

But as stand-outs go Messner and Richardson-Whitfield are probably the best bets.

I had really hoped that in this cast of mainly no-names that there would be a break-out star or at least a credible one who could save the picture’s more dialogue laden scenes. But there wasn’t really one among them.

Don’t get me wrong I love cheese and I also love jungle/Tarzan films. There are a lot of great moments in this film from Messner’s roll with a croc to a harrowing escape from an underground lair. The film is a lot of fun in so many ways but bad in so many others. But the truth of the matter is that I also enjoyed it.

(3 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

After discovering that a compound found with the flower of the illusive Blood Orchid could hold the secret to extending life, Dr. Jack Byron (Marsden) sees this as his chance to make billions. The problem is that the flower is only in bloom for another two weeks and will not appear again for seven years. In a race against time, Bryon gathers together a team and heads to Borneo only to find that the rainy season has started and he cannot charter a boat to take him up river. Local riverboat owner Bill Johnson (Messner) agrees to take them for $25,000 but they soon discover that it is not just the river that is dangerous in the jungles of Borneo.

The original Anaconda movie was extremely poor but seven years after the original, can the sequel be any better? Yes but that doesn’t take very much.

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is a popcorn movie, plain and simple. Built on a flimsy greed and eternal life plotline, the film is all about who is going to be devoured by the snake next and who is going to survive. You just sit down, switch your brain off and let it flow over you. This isn’t life changing or life affirming stuff but it is slightly above average harmless fun.

It is the cast that makes the movie that much more watchable. Unlike the original, which had Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Ice Cube and John Voight, this is a cast of relative unknowns but the film is better for it. When you have a collection of stars you know that most of them are going to survive or at least live for most of the picture, with this cast you don’t have a clue who is going to be eaten. This slightly increases the tension and makes the scares a bit more unpredictable.

Out of the cast there are a few possible future stars. KaDee Strickland is starting to make her name known and her role, as Sam Rogers will help her gain more attention. She plays the scream queen of the piece who conquers her fears to kick some butt. Matthew Marsden makes the transition from Emmerdale and Coronation Street to Hollywood to play a typical role for a young British actor, the villain. Salli Richardson and Morris Chestnut are also good as two arguing colleagues that are probably attracted to each other.

The star of the film is Johnny Messner. He is an old school, action hero type who shows a lot of promise. He plays adventurer and riverboat captain Bill Johnson with great gusto, making the character a lot better than he should have been. He shows great potential and possible leading man aspirations.

Anacondas: The Hunt of the Blood Orchid is a throwaway popcorn flick that is more entertaining than it should have been. The special effects are passable with the giant snakes looking scary enough to eat the cast at any time. The main problem with the movie is with the setting of the story, as Borneo doesn’t actually have any indigenous Anacondas, they are only native to South America.

Star Rating = * *

Jamie Kelwick

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