Anaconda
USA 1997. Director: Luis Llosa
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, John Voight, Eric Stoltz, Kari Wuhrer

The shame about the animated snake and the oddly overblown performance by John Voight aside, Anaconda is a pretty good old-fashioned jungle-thriller. A TV-team and a group of scientists arrive in Amazonia in order to search for a lost indian tribe only to discover snake-hunter Voight and instead they end up searching for killer snakes. The cinematography is good, the actors very good - a plus for rapper Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez - and it's actually rather creepy. It's always nice to see a film which knows that horror movies are supposed to be scary. Not funny. Anaconda is creepy where it's supposed to be creepy. Director Llosa is an old Roger Corman graduate, so he knows his B-movie formula and uses all the tricks he have in stock. There's no stupid stand-up comedian adding "comic reliefs" (although Ice Cube is a pretty entertaining character in himself) and no strained romance between lead characters. Just the basic suspence and action. The killer snake, however, is very realistic when showed in close-up, but in full-figure it looks like it has been animated by someone with an eye-sight disorder. And what do Eric Stoltz do in the cast? He really only lie on a bed, sick from a wasp sting. Maybe he should get a better agent.