Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004)

Directed by Dwight H. Little [Other horror films: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), The Phantom of the Opera (1989)]

So when I revisted Anaconda, I was surprised the film wasn’t that fun. I didn’t expect it to be good, by any means, but I did expect to have fun while watching it, and I really didn’t. Gotta lay it on you all straight, though – I had fun with this one.

Not that Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is a great movie, and certainly I think the cast of the first movie was quite a bit stronger, but I actually enjoyed sitting through this one, which wasn’t something I could really say for the first, and that’s got to count for something.

Here’s one random note. Not sure if it’s interesting or funny, but I’ll mention it anyway. Throughout the film, I thought that the boat captain was played by Matthew Marsden. Why? Because to me, the boat captain looked really similar to Michael Madsen, and I guessed they were brothers. Unfortunately, there’s no “r” in Madsen, and these two weren’t brothers, and the captain was played by some guy named Johnny Messner, and I feel like an idiot.

That aside, we have a nice cast. Johnny Messner (a name I don’t know at all) did great as the captain, and he was a solid character throughout. He even wrestled an alligator. KaDee Strickland (another name I don’t know) was a cute, bad-ass chick willing to fight snakes and shit. She also had a southern accent (she was born in Georgia), so that added to the charm. It’s like watching Anna Paquin fight snakes (only when she’s using her southern accent, not the one she normally has since she’s Canadian).

Matthew Mardsen (no relation to Michael Madsen) was good as a scummy piece of trash. I don’t think he really got as much as he deserved, but I’ll take it. Eugene Byrd, Karl Yune, Morris Chestnut, and Salli Richardson-Whitefield were all perfectly enjoyable also.

The snakes here don’t look great, but you do have a solid jungle adventure, including poisonous spiders, leeches, trees, and other things you might expect to find in a jungle. It’s nothing original, but I had fun, which can be said for the movie, and is more than I can say for the first movie.

7/10