It took this series 4 movies, but this we’re actually getting an actual sequel… to Anaconda 3, but still, unlike that claimed to be a sequel to Anaconda: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid, Anaconda 4/Anacondas: Trail Of Blood it’s actually a sequel to Anaconda 3: Offspring, and it has the director of that movie, Don E. Fauntleroy, returning, so let the spunk pumps go off in celebration.
As i’ve said before, you gotta treasure the small things in these movies, and a movie claiming to be a sequel actually being a sequel it’s definitely something you can’t trust/take for granted.
I’m gonna spin this into a positive note, for a change. You can’t stop me.
Let’s keep the happy train going by talking about the plot, as it follows from the end of Anaconda 3, with one of the villain’s henchmen, Peter Reysner, that got away with a captured baby anaconda from the exploded building, and experimented on it, creating a hybrid of the Blood Orchids from Borneo that enables the anaconda to live longer and grow larger (as it did before… in Anaconda 2, at least), and eventually synthetizing a serum for cell regeneration.
But after an early successful test of the serum on the baby anaconda, he angers the bigger one, leading to that one escaping and killing him. After Peter “disappears”, his boss Murdoch (still played by John Reis Davis) sends his personal assassin, Eugene, alongside newly hired mercenaries to go and retrieve the serum Peter created, as that would cure Murdoch’s bone cancer.
He also warns them to be on the lookout for Amanda Hayes, the lone survivor of the previous expedition-mission, and rightfully so, as she has plans to destroy the serum and the snake for good.
The CG for the snakes is still shit, but at least it’s not outright shocking in how goofy and bad it is , just a smidge better than Anaconda 3, there’s more ok looking practical gore effect, but from a different prospective, there’s also an undeniable 10 % increase of monkey genitals on display.
Gotta love how now the villain from the previous movie (still played by John Reis Daveis) has “boneitis”, guess it wasn’t that important to mention, as this plot point never existed before.
Fear not that the anaconda will starve, as there’s also a budding paleonthologist roaming in the wooded areas of the carpathian mountains, alongside a group of explorers that you would guess are acquainted/related with/to the student (but aren’t).
And the mercs.
How cheap of a sequel is Anacondas: Trail Of Blood? Cheap enough to randomly have the protagonist remember stock footage of death scenes from the previous movie at least she was in those scenes hence she can remember those, so the movie gets some brownie point for this… and loses them quickly by not having much action or stuff happening until 40 minutes in.
You’ll miss David Hasselhoff, i know i did wish they didn’t “off the Hoff” in Anaconda 3, not to say that Crystan Allen is bad as the main character Amanda, she clearly tries and does a decent job, but she can’t do much when the movie it’s just so very boring, outside of incredibly brief moments.
I mean, this is an even worse movie than Anaconda 3, make no mistake about, but i do wish they still found a way to have Hasselhoff in this one too, i don’t care how, as it would have somewhat helped this movie feel less like the slog it is. Even with a giant regenerating anaconda.
It ends on a cliffhanger as the snake managed to regenerate itself after being blown up to bits, which i would wager “leads into” the follow up movie, Lake Placid VS Anaconda.
But that’s for another time. One that will arrive very soon, as well.
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