Synopsis
The McGuffin here is the titular Blood Orchid, a plant that blooms only once every sevenyears, and which seems to hold the secret to eternal youth. A team is dispatched by amultinational drug company, but the expedition arrives in Borneo (where, as numerous reviewshave already pointed out, anacondas do not exist) at the height of the rainy season, andeverything goes wrong very quickly. Soon our heroes are slogging through the jungle, beset bypoisonous spiders, treachery from within… and giant, hungry, CG snakes.
The original film was completely preposterous, but hugely enjoyable for that very reason,and featured a memorable slice of ham from Jon Voigt, along with plenty of creature actionfrom the snake. Here we have no Voigt, and far too little screen time for the snakes. This meansthat all the jungle action isn’t exactly boring, but we don’t care much one way or the other, andthe anacondas only really show up far too briefly at the climax, and have relatively little to dowith the plot. The film is now in its proper home on home video, and it should never havestrayed into the theatres in the first place. For my money, viewers seeking cheap creature thrillsof this kind would be much better off with Frankenfish, which at least delivers on its B-movie promises.
Audio
No complaints about the sound, however. The dialogue never distorts, and is never drownedout by the copious sound effects. The sound of rain in particular is impressive, and the placementof the effects is very good (one scene where this really comes into play is when one charactergets lost and cannot determine where the voices of his friends are coming from). The music has aterrific big sound, too.
Video
The film also looks terrific. Much of it takes place in the dark, but is never murky, thanksto fine contrasts. The colours and blacks are very strong, and the grain is kept to a bare minimum.Both fullscreen and 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen formats are provided — you know which oneto select. The image is as sharp as could be desired.
Special Features
Not a lot going on. There’s a short (10:36) featurette on the FX, wherein all sound very proudof what are really rather dubious accomplishments, and there’s a 9-minute montage of deletedscenes. Now, can someone tell me why all the trailers that are included are for romanticcomedies? The menu’s main screen is animated and scored.
Closing Thoughts
Simply not enough cheesy fun here, though the film manages to avoid actually being boring.But only just.
Special Features List
- FX Featurette
- Deleted Scenes
- Trailers
