Movie Review: Anaconda 4

Anacondas: Trail of Blood

The fourth in the killer-snake franchise was shot back to back with last year’s Anacondas III, with director Don E. FauntLeroy and stars Crystal Allen and John Rhys-Davies returning, and picks up where that one left off.

The plot? Eh, I'm not sure really. Something about John Rhys-Davies character being terminally ill, and he somehow needs the Blood Orchid flower to keep on living. I think? Well, it makes perfect sense that these snakes protect the flowers, so why not make mutated giant versions of them? It's all just so simple! Anyway, he thinks one of his scientists is selling his top secret research to a rival company and he sends a group of mercenaries to kill him, and also Crystal Allen for some reason. Perhaps because she's the only sexy woman in the area and also shaves her pits. Another bonus is that her entire wardrobe seems to consist of only tank tops.

So now running around the woods of Eastern Europe are Crystal and her group of snake meat, some other group of scientists looking for some friends (who were earlier snake bait) and the mercenaries... and of course some terrible looking giant CGI snakes, who despite being anacondas I guess would rather chomp people than squeeze them and instead of just eating when they're hungry are all sorts of pissed off and want to snack on everybody that moves. Fortunately that's just why we suddenly have so many people wandering around aimlessly in the woods.

The Sci-Fi Channel has vomited out so many of these giant snake films it's hard to tell them apart, and unfortunately this one stands out because it sucks worse than any of them I've seen. Yes, part 3 was bad but at least there was David Hasselhoff and his immortal sucktitute to entertain me. This one is just too many terrible effects, a super-thin plot, slow pacing, completely silly actions of the humans involved and a giant snake that can actually move faster than an SUV hammering down the road. It's just dreadful all around.

But still, I'm going to give it a point for being a movie about giant snakes (I mean, that's always going to be cool), an extra point for having ultra-sexy Crystal Allen in it and another point for causing several good laugh out loud moments, although they were unintentional I'm sure.

3/10