Giant animal movies have always been around, and we all know the majority of them have been B-movies. The really good, yet cheesy ones were made in the forties, fifties and sixties. Excluding some of the greatest animal films like KING KONG, Jurassic PARK and JAWS, there really hasn’t been anything of recent that has stood out and has become memorable.
The Sci-fi channel seems to be the leader in making bad killer animal movies. There is at least one a week showing on the channel, and with them acquiring the rights to some of the mildly successful films such as LAKE PLACID and most recently ANACONDA, it’s no wondering their going to milk the title for all it’s worth. This is the second ANACONDAS sequel that the Sci-fi channel has premièred on the station and the forth in the overall series. The good news is David Hasselhoff is not in this one. The bad news is; well there’s a lot of bad news.
This forth installment in the series. John Rhys-Davies returns as Murdoch. He hires some doctor to harvest more blood orchids and experiment on small anacondas, and in record time the babies become giant man eating CGI snakes who want to eat everyone. the only people who can stop them are this hot chick named Amanda( Crystal Allen) who’s a herpetologist and was in the third film as well. ( I never saw the third film). But pretty much she started this whole things with Murdoch in the third film and now she’s dedicated herself along with some badass guy named Jackson. Meanwhile, a bunch of mercenaries with guns have been hired to kill Amanda, but they end up becoming snake food instead. So, in a nutshell they end up running from a big snake and a bunch of guys with guns and so on….
Despite it’s very predicable plot and it’s generic storyline, I have to give it credit for at least trying a bit to be different adding in the whole blood orchid chemical and all that to make the snakes bigger. The movie is a lot better than the majority of the sci-fi channel killer animal movies, and it is at least entertaining and watchable to a degree. There are some emotional scenes that were unexpected and there is a pretty decent amount of blood and guts. I’m sure some of it will be edited out on television, but the DVD is rated R, so some of the graphic stuff is there.
The acting in the movie is alright. It’s better than the majority of acting in these B-type films. Some of the lead actors have had roles in plenty of movies and television shows before, and of course the biggest star, although in a small role in this film is Lord of the Ring’s alumni John Rhys-Davies whom pretty much plays the stereo typical bad guy. Crystal Allen is pretty decent in her part as well. Really what it all comes down to is the script and the way the dialogue was written. Some of the lines you can easily tell were right from the script itself and it just seemed like the actors read the lines from cue cards placed off camera right in front of them.
Overall, Anacondas: Trail of Blood is by no means a great movie, but it’s better than the majority of those killer animal films that litter the Sci-fi channel each week. I know there are people out there who really enjoy these films, and if your one of them; I’m sure you’ll really like this one. If your not really a fan of them, like myself, I think you’ll agree that it’s not a good film at all but is at least one you watch and get though, without feeling the need to shut it off. It’s a typical killer animal film with a plot and storyline we’ve all seen before.
The DVD has no special features but does include the film in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Thai, and includes subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Korean and Chinese.
– Horror Bob
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- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
