Anaconda (1997)

Directed by Luis Llosa. Starring Jon Voight, Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer, Vincent Castellanos, Danny Trejo. [R]

A documentary crew searching for a long-lost indigenous tribe travels down the Amazon River, crosses paths with a giant killer snake and (even worse) a stranded snake hunter played by Voight, hammier than a Smithfield smokehouse. Whether as a model or rendered in CGI, the snake looks rather silly and has even less personality than one might expect (though the legendary Frank Welker is given a voice credit!); the rest of the snake-food cast members are alternately boring, stuffy, horny, stupid, etc. The whole show is Voight, muttering laughable jungle aphorisms, throwing around monkey blood, wearing expressions as if he was trying to pass himself off as a Paraguayan Don Corleone, and pausing to wink while on Death’s doorstep—his performance is positively awful, but also sorta endearing, and never boring. If only the rest of the movie could be so grotesquely campy; instead, it’s just standard killer animal nonsense with cardboard victims and zero suspense. At least some of the scenery is nice to look at. Followed by several sequels, including (because why the heck not?) a crossover movie with Lake Placid.

31/100