Welcome to Cultoween! We’ve taken a few Halloween years off but we felt it was high time we got back into the spirit of the holiday. Since there are a finite number of Halloween-themed movies, it’s always hard to come up with a specific topic or series of films to cover. For this year’s festivities, we are using this Random Movie Generator to suggest movies to watch for our Halloween season, and then we’re going to let you know if they’re worth watching, how Halloweenie they are, and anything else we think you should know. Effectively we are putting in no values except the movie must be horror, and if we’ve already covered it we’re throwing it back. We hope you enjoy the coverage and stick with us throughout the season!
While this is marketed as a remake or reimagining of the 1997 film, this Chinese version of Anaconda from 2024 effectively just takes the main idea – giant snake in rainforest and bad things happen – and runs with a completely different plot and cast of characters. As it stands, the idea of a giant snake is pretty generic in and of itself, so it’s not surprising that the film is truly only reminiscent of the original in name alone.
It’s kind of middling. It really depends on a couple of things – how interested are you in fairly generic creature-feature films, how much do you care about questionable CGI, and how affected are you by cheese thicker than what’s on your popcorn? If your answers to these questions are favorable, then you might get some enjoyment out of Hesheng and Qiuliang Xiang’s iteration of the giant snake movie.
I say that because Anaconda is quite uneven throughout. The overall plot is… mostly nonsensical, about a criminal poacher in the rainforest whose main – only? – goal is to capture the elusive Crimson Anaconda and sell it to prospective buyers for a fortune. He’s joined by a group of circus performers who are brought out to the area for… reasons, and eventually they all realize that they’re in danger. Not just from a massive anaconda, but also from contaminated water, poison stinging bees, burrowing insects, and other horrific elements of the jungle.
Anaconda has a couple of interesting scenes, but for the most part, it’s pretty derivative of any giant creature movie, and worse than that it has a cast of characters that really don’t have much interaction or development. It also doesn’t help that the tone of the movie often wavers between goofily over-the-top to saccharinely dramatic, and it’s never really sure where to land.
The CGI anaconda is also, frankly, not very good, leading to some cringe-inducing scenes. One would think in 2024, with a movie specifically focused on a giant snake, the focus would be on nailing the design, but clearly that was not the case here.
If creepies and crawlies are a staple of your Halloween season, this might somehow fit the bill, but in my expert opinion, sweaty jungle settings and large creatures do not a Samhain film make. Ophidiophobes may apply, though. Otherwise, I’m saying No.
Maybe see it, maybe skip it!
See above questions, and gauge your answers. However, not recommended for Halloween (NRFH).
