REVIEW: Anaconda (2024)

Snakes On A.... Forest? Well, yeah that's where they live.

(this movie is also known as Hundred Poisons Rampage)

I think we’ve finally reached the point where Chinese monster movies are now - easily - the best in the world, with the only exception being the big budget American blockbuster films.

I say that because when it comes to realistic looking snakes, I’ve never seen anything better.

What China lacks in horror movies, it more than makes up for in its Monster and Creature Features titles. Unburdened by the shackles of theatrical censorship, and fresh with the knowledge that snake movies have universal appeal, they’ve been producing a steady diet of pure popcorn delight: Monty Python 2, Rising Boas In A Girl’s School and now this.

And you can tell they are doing something right, because this movie features quite a few recognisable Hong Kong actors, such as Paul Che from Fruit Chan’s Coffin Homes and Terence Yin as the main bad guy, whose been a whole host of Hong Kong and American action films such as Cold War 2 and Tomb Raider.

PLOT

A group of circus performers, on their way to what they think is a new performance location, become stranded in a lush rainforest after the boat they were on, and the captain leading the way, are eaten and destroyed by an anaconda with a special red marking.

They cross paths with a deadly poacher who is hunting the anaconda, who realises that he might now have enough bait to catch him.

But being circus performers, they have a few survival tricks up their sleeves.

ABOUT THE FILM

As fun and wacky as the movie is, and that’s certainly established in the opening twenty or so minutes where the movie wants you to know that it has a few very sexy girls in the cast, it’s unfortunately not as great as it could’ve been.

Certainly there are a lot of positives going for it. A genuinely likeable cast of characters - including a Taoist priest and his hopping zombie costumed cousin - makes their death scenes a little personal, while the impressive CGI snakes will have you wondering if they really found a 60ft long anaconda and trained it to be an actor in the film!

There’s also a hilarious dream sequence that looks fantastic, and a decent cast of well-known actors only hams up their performances at the appropriate moments. This doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of your typical low-budget straight-to-streaming schlock.

But it does lack in a coherent story, if that’s the thing you’re looking for. It’s implied multiple times that the performers are actually being sold off, but we never find out who they’re being sold off to and what the purpose is (amendment: this is explained, I made a mistake). We also don’t really get to understand the motivations behind our evil poacher other than money.

Then again, this is a creature feature. Do we really need to know this much about the characters?

What are my overall thoughts?

The most important thing is that this movie is fun. And by golly it surely is. Make sure you hunt this one down.

In fact, no need to, here is a link to watch it for free on YouTube:

EDIT: (20/3/2024: it appears the video below has been set to private. Give it time, it’ll be back!)

MOVIE DETAILS

Genre Snake Creature Feature
Director Qiuliang Xiang, Hesheng Xiang
Starring Terence Yin, Ruoyan Xia, Xingchen Wang, Paul Che
Original Title 狂蟒之灾
Alternative Title Hundred Poisons Rampage
Country of Origin China
Release Date 1 March 2024

anaconda chinese snake movie creature feature 2024 webstreaming full movie movie review