Anacondas: Trail of Blood (2009 TV Movie) User Reviews

Can an Anaconda jump the shark? Yes!

[FilmIsPwn · 4/10 · 28 February 2009]

Anacondas: Trail of Blood takes place in the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe, though it looks suspiciously similar to my parents' backyard. I never noticed a film crew back there, but I wasn't over every day, so I can neither confirm nor deny that Anacondas: Trail of Blood was filmed in residential Matthews, NC, but let's start that rumor anyway, okay? The plot involves a crackpot doctor who is cultivating the mythical blood orchid in a isolated shack where he experiments with snakes. The doc's magic blood orchid serum is capable of making snakes grow exponentially and cure cancer, which is why eccentric billionaire John Rhys-Davies, mere days from dying from bone cancer, finances him. The doc is sadly the first victim of his pet anaconda when it breaks loose, and the rampage begins.

Shortly thereafter, a myriad of disparate stories descend on the poor Carpathian Mountains, which never did anything to anyone.

First there's the team of mercenaries sent to retrieve the serum at all costs. Second there's a team of paleontologists going to the area to check on another team that went missing. Third, there's a hiker kid who looks like a younger version of Owen Wilson, without all the muscle mass and machismo that Mr. Wilson brings to the screen, who is in the area visiting his grandmother. Mini-Wilson runs into the fourth set of characters, a team led by the heroine from the previous Anacondas, Amanda (Crystal Allen) who is allegedly trying to destroy the magic blood orchid juice to redeem herself from her sins in the last movie. I honestly don't remember the movie well enough to be sure of what those sins were, but I do recall she killed David Hasselhoff's character, which is inarguably a sin deserving proper penance. Amanda must say three hail marys and appear in five more Sci-Fi Channel original movies.

For the duration of the film, characters manage to successfully outrun the hundred foot snakes. Yet, for some reason, two characters make noble sacrifices to delay a rampaging anaconda for their comrades. Though it is possible the snake was just being sporting, because in the thrilling conclusion an anaconda is able to outpace a CAR.

One locale that plays an important rule in the skulduggery is an abandoned mine shaft lined with fully functioning and operational lightbulbs, though the characters sneaking inside it feel compelled to wave flashlights around anyway. I remind you this is in the middle of the remote reaches of the mountains in Easter Europe where there is no town or discernible source of electricity. This is impressive to me because in my townhouse right now there are two lightbulbs that are out, which I simply haven't gotten around to. Perhaps if General Electric made lightbulbs half as efficient as Acme's Carpathian Mountains Lightbulb Co. -- that run eternally without electricity -- they wouldn't be in the dire straights they're in.

Bottom line: This is one of those so-bad-it's good movies.

Daniel J. Roos film.ispwn.com

Anacondas 4 Trail of Blood: Hopefully the last

[Platypuschow · 3/10 · 6 December 2018]

Anaconda went from Hollywood blockbuster to Hollywood B-movie to Scyfy channel garbage and this 4th outing is most definetly the latter.

To its credit it follows on from part 3 pretty well, though considering the two movies were filmed back to back this isn't all too shocking a fact.

Once again our Dr.Amanda Hayes is involved the anaconda/blood orchid lacklustre adventure though now we've lost the "Hoff" and gained the underrated though a tad hammy Linden Ashby.

The sfx are even worse than the previous movie but thankfully everything else is better, marginally better anyway.

The excellent John Rhys Davies also returns but yet again has a tiny role. Why have the best actor in the smallest role? Heartbreaking, truly.

Though the Anaconda franchise seems to have merged with Lake Placid I'm hoping this is the end of the solo movies, they're simply not entertaining at this stage and the franchise has been milked far enough.

One for big fans of the franchise who don't care about just how far the quality has dipped.

The Good:

Carries on from the previous movie well

The Bad:

Really poor cgi

Plot is really generic

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Someone really needs to have a word with the creators about the anacondas teeth

An oddly large number of people seem to want to be eaten by giant snakes, who knew?

Really bad.

[xheartless · 3/10 · 24 June 2011]

Let's start it of with the acting. When I watch a movie, I expect it to feel real. I expect it to feel natural. When I was watching this movie I felt horrified by how the directors can actually think that people start dialogs like they do in this movie.

The effects does not feel real and the plot has definitely been used before. And the way the movie flow and the way things happen, feel so fake. And not like some kind of Quentin Tarantino movie either.

To top it all of I feel like they made the wrong actors play the wrong characters. None of the voices feel like a fit.

Still, if you are really bored, You could watch it. But you should not watch this film to be amused.

this anaconda should be in the Olympics!!!!

[j-cherry-630-782328 · 1/10 · 28 August 2010]

seriously though, it should, after all its no mean feat for a limbless reptile to out run a jeep! because in this pathetic excuse of a movie that is exactly what happens! the anaconda also seemed to have an in built sensor to detect dumb humans since where ever they are..the snake just magically turns up to wreak havoc. and to top it off the "anaconda" doesn't even look like one,has the director not seen the 1st two films? or at least googled an anaconda before making this film? evidently not! add that to an appalling script, bad editing,boring and underdeveloped characters,rubbish CGI and virtually no story and you have..well..Anaconda 4!! what was really hilarious though were the death scenes..o my gosh! the reaction of trained assassins when confronted with a 90ft snake is to shoot into the air(even though the snake is about 3ft away) and scream..then die,since killing the damn thing would have been too clever. what i also do not understand is how every character can "hear" the snake arriving at some point in the film even though no sound is audible on screen and see the snake and do nothing about it! so overall this film was a great let down, an embarrassing pile of trash that fails by far to emulate the excellent first two movies. frankly counting each blade of grass on my lawn would have been more exciting than this film

A bad film

[ApolloBoy109 · 1/10 · 1 June 2009]

Forget that it's a franchise that extensively detours away from its original source material in theme, action and quality. Forget that. It's how amazingly stupid this screenplay is. It's really, really bad. A jumble of useless dialogue and cardboard characters dragged through a paper think plot idea.

I did not see Anaconda 3 so perhaps I am missing large chucks of the story. Though I can't see how.

Plot: (I kid you not!) Snake lady easily casually befriends young man, a stranger to her, while walking through the wood with two (we are told later) cops, who are easily killed at the next stop on the trail by a very poorly rendered large snake. Enter two couples in an SUV. Who are looking for base camp. We don't who they are.

The snake exists only to kill people (not for food) just to kill them and the snake seems to literally go from one human being to the next.

Lead pretty girl with new friend get chased by a group of assassins hired by John Rhys-Davies (What the F...?) in the first five minutes to kill a scientist who gyped him and his Gal Friday. The 'before mentioned' pretty lady.

A log in the road stops the two couples in the black SUV, they decide to walk to Base Camp. The snake kills more. They showed it way too much.

Pretty girl seems like she knows more than she's letting on. Down in some caves the young man/stranger (who behaves as though giant snakes, assassins and 'blood' flowers' are the norm) the pretty faced women encounter all kinds of trouble and should have been killed at least a half a dozen times.

The SUV people find a corpse at bade camp and one of them gets a bad mosequeto bite. Pretty lady and stranger boy outrun a 90 foot snake meeting up with the SUV people and the assassins at an archeology dig. The snake kills some more people. Pretty Lady gets knocked out. Stranger boy leaves but drops his keys behind for some tension later. Evidently she got knocked out dropping two feet from the ground though she didn't her head. He doesn't hear his keys drop. People do really dumb things. Now there's a serum in all of this conveniently hiding when an SUV guy and pretty lady when the assassins have them prisoners. The snake kills some more people.

Okay the SUV people have no purpose in the story -- they're fodder too. The assassins are seven strong and are only for the CGI snake. Some more people die. And Pretty lady planted those flowers to make up for all the bad she's done. (We assume from the last movie) Stranger boy meets up with SUV people and they know him. Surprise, he was looking for base camp all along too. Evidently the are archeologists on what appears to be a secret dig. They are so self important that you think they have something to do with the story but by this time there is no story left.

Okay and now there's something about a serum and a diary with instructions on to make more serum, which they conveniently discover whenever they need to advance the story (what story?), one vial, a coffee can fill of vials and the diary and then more people get killed by the plastic snake.

An SUV person sacrifice his life for pretty Lady even though he has only known her all of two hours. John Rhys-Davis appears again before getting his head bit off. And Pretty looks sad when she puts time bombs on a small flower bed in caves. There is an explosion and she escapes in an SUV with stranger boy but one last assassin tries to stop them and the movie ends.

I kid you not! We were clueless. We stared at each other the other night while watching it on TV sci-fi channel -- shaking our heads because the narrative was nearly non-existent.

Poorly written, badly directed.

Crap on a stick.

Why do they even bother?

[johannes_a · 1/10 · 29 November 2019]

Seriously, They must have known that this would suck. Yet they still go ahead and produce it. Why?

Complete garbage!

[metalrage666 · 1/10 · 20 April 2015]

They insist on making this trash don't they? One crappy snake movie after another and none of them make any sense.

This 90 minute nightmare picks up where the previous Hasselhoff led nightmare left off. A scientist has been commissioned by a millionaire to develop a serum from the blood orchid to try and cure his bone cancer. While the scientist is out inspecting his orchids, a large anaconda in his lab suddenly breaks out of its enclosure, tracks him down and does what every homicidal CGI snake does best.

After losing contact with his scientist, the millionaire, played by John Rhys Davies, believes that this guy may have received a better offer so rather than waste any time on common sense to at least check on him, he instead hires a hit-man to finish him off along with some other girl that he's been associated with. And that's pretty much the whole stupid story, such as it is.

The serum has remarkable regenerative capabilities as even cutting the head off a snake won't kill it for long as after injecting the serum it will enable the snake to grow a new one. That sound you can hear is the pitiless laughter of every geneticist in the world.

And just when you think that this non-story can't possibly get any worse, it suddenly does. I won't bore you with the finite details of what every single idiot ends up doing when in the presence of a large snake done in bad CGI, but I will say that if you wildly fire a machine gun from side-to-side when the snake is directly in front of you then quite frankly you deserve to die.

I don't know why they continue wasting money in making crap like this and in every movie I've ever seen that has a larger than life snake in it, they just can't manage to make this thing look lifelike. If they can make animals that have been extinct for millions of years look lifelike, then it stands to reason that you can do that for a snake too right? Wrong obviously. Remember the large snake in the original Conan the Barbarian movie? That was more lifelike than this nonsense. You'd think that in almost 30 years it'd be perfected.

This flick is just bad in every sense of the word. Despite the first anaconda movie being as pathetic as it is, it shines like a beacon when compared to this disaster. Anaconda 4 features lots of running, lots of bad driving, lots of arguing and an annoying number of people that just can't shoot straight. That is until you want to hit a fuel can embedded in a snakes mouth a 100 feet away, then after 2 shots you'll be dead on.

I caught this on late night TV and I still feel ripped off. I'm still trying to work out how a giant snake can't manage to outrun a guy stumbling over uneven ground, but it's somehow fast enough to catch up to a speeding car travelling on a sealed road. If someone who actually wrote the screenplay for this can answer that then I'd appreciate it.

Anaconda 4 Trail of Blood... So Cosmo says you're fat

[juliankennedy23 · 4/10 · 2 June 2009]

Anaconda 4: Trail of Blood: 4 out of 10: Anaconda 4 has some surprisingly effect scenes in its 88 minutes.

There is a car chase towards the end of the film; first the snake is chasing a car, all the while a gun fight has erupted among the passengers and an intruder. There is also a silhouetted chase on a sunset drenched hill between three groups of characters that had no prior knowledge of each other with the snake in the mix. Heck there is even some tender moments between an older gun toting woman and a blond man child lost in the woods as a snake watches them.

Much like a previous incarnation, (Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Red Orchid) this movie comes awfully close not needing the snake at all. In fact it, dare I say it, a removal of the anaconda may have made Anaconda 4: Trail of Blood a slightly better film.

The non-snake stuff is fairly simple. John Rhys-Davies, in full pick up a paycheck mode, is a bad guy with bone cancer who has financed a cure which involves genetically altering snakes. He hires a hit man (whom brings along six friends who cannot shoot straight and twirl their mustaches) to inexplicably kill the lead scientist (who has disappeared, read been eaten.) The assassin is also asked to kill a blond chick played by Crystal Allen. She acts like an old west gunslinger but is apparently a herpetologist. The blond chick meanwhile is setting explosives in an orchid bed located in one of those ridiculously well lit caves with light bulbs every foot burning 24/7. She runs into what appears to be a fifteen year old boy whom immediately becomes her love interest in a weird Private Lessons kind of twist. He is looking for the base camp where some other unrelated (non-giant snake creating) scientists are digging up a frozen body out of a UFO or something.

Like I said the snakes are almost crowded out of their own movie. It is probably for the best. While the CGI is better than many other killer snake movies this is damning with faint praise indeed. The snakes in question don’t look like anacondas or even snakes at all. Replacing shark fins with bear claws does not make the shark scarier. And giving anacondas silly rows of over-sized teeth and the ability to regenerate like the T-1000 (Terminator 2 Judgment Day) does not make them any scarier.

Oh and while I picked on the first movie for having anacondas in a jungle, they are after all swamp and marsh dwellers; and picked on the second movie for having them in Borneo, which is in Asia last I checked; I don’t have words to begin to describe the draw dropping silliness of Anacondas in Romania. The Carpathians in fall do not create the proper snake attack vibe unless it is a 60 foot cottonmouth. Also a note to the Sci-fi Channel: If I see “Bear-Shark Claws of Death” on your channel anytime soon I’m coming after you guys. I’m just giving a friendly warning here.

Bad But Still Entertaining

[Marc_Action · 4/10 · 14 December 2013]

This movie was not as bad as expected. The acting wasn't Oscar worthy but for a Sci-Fi produced film, most of the cast gave it all they had. Speaking of the cast, there were plenty of characters in this film, that's for sure. Maybe a bit too many. So much so that the two other people I saw this with kept asking, "Well, who are these people?" or "Where was this guy in the movie before now? I never seen him before now!" And it's true. There were so many characters and competing story lines that it was hard to keep track of exactly what the heck was going on sometimes.

Another problem with cheesy horror films like this is that the writers have characters do the dumbest things just for the sake of moving the plot along or for an individual character to serve as an easy kill for the monster. There are a lot of instances in the movie where this plot device is used. It shows a serious lack of creativity on the writers' part. It makes the characters seem so cliché. And when they continue to do stupid stuff in situations where they should be more cautious or just use plain ol' commonsense, it's hard for the viewer to care when they end up in the mouth of an 100-foot anaconda.

Other things to note: Gore is not too bad although special effects overall are the worse. The film moves along at a consistent pace from start to finish and the ending hints at a sequel, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea. From the first Anaconda on up to this latest effort, there hasn't been anything new added to the franchise. And unless writers start actually being creative, there probably won't be anything added to the franchise that justifies another movie, which might explain why the major film production companies stopped after the second Anaconda film.

Much better than the third, but still a load of poppycock

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 14 March 2011]

The first Anaconda I was not blown away by, the second had me entertained and the third was horrendous. The fourth was better than the previous instalment but in almost every way it is still poppycock. Crystal Allen returns and she is decent and John Rhys-Davies tries hard with his weak material and underwritten character, but that is pretty much the only praise I can give. The scenery/sets I suppose were sort of nice, but they were not given any justice by the dull photography and hackneyed editing. The music is generic and forgettable again, the effects are not that great and don't do anything to enhance any suspense in the atmosphere. The direction is also sloppy, the dialogue is awful with none of it ringing true and the story is an incoherent mess. The acting apart from Allen and Rhys-Davies is very poor and not helped by the fact that there are too many characters so any empathy we try to feel doesn't come out. Overall, a mess but better than the third. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Decent entry, if not overtly spectacular

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 8/10 · 12 June 2015]

Traveling around Eastern Europe, a research team trying to find out the origins of the earlier group run into a scientist concerned with the giant killer snake on the loose and try to outlast the deadly creature.

This one was a decent if decidedly lacking sequel. There's still some rather good stuff here in dealing with the tactics of the snake as the last half is rather full of snake encounters featuring a lot of clever getaways which makes the scenes more enjoyable due to that, with the flower-scent-on-the-clothes trick is rather cool and unique and the several different ways of attracting the snake after different members of the group are really nice. Even just normal defensive tactics such as the traps around the safe-house and the gas-tank bomb make for some great moments spread throughout the film. There's also some rather fun action scenes in here which are the confrontations with the snake. The opening in the mine is one of the better scenes in the film which has a lot going for it in the rather claustrophobic surroundings of the area with the inherent tension, the action in the chasing through the different tunnels and the way it works the different escapes makes it really good, while the chase through the woods after the snake breaks through the camp is really good from the snapping twigs and off-screen noises of the snake breaking through the branches to the need for a hiding spot and really adds some nice action into the mix. There's also the fun to be had with the finale where the film mixes in a spectacular chase concept with the snake going after the fleeing car while a big brawl rages on the outside leading to a fun, exciting and really enjoyable scene. The last plus here is the film's blood and gore, even though there was a couple of things here that didn't work too well. One of the biggest factors here is the film's tendency to lead to a long series of scenes that offer up little excitement, lasting a while before snake attacks. The early parts of the film makes for lots of chewed up screen-time as they travel through the underbrush to get to the camp as well as the back-and-forth styles of the two other groups involved in the action, where the scenes with the mercenaries following them are pretty much there to see the body count get bigger. They don't serve any purpose at all into the film's main plot and feel more like they're in there to tie up the connections from the first one, which didn't need it as all of these different elements severely hampers the pace and the amount of time spent with the snakes. There's also a rather irritating habit of seeing everyone in here purposely put themselves in danger just to get the action going, from exiting out a car the opposite side the snake's attacking on to purposely blowing a hole into a wall where the snake's at as well as trying to run away on foot from a sixty-foot snake, it features a lot of these scenes that aren't so logical just so that an action scene can be brought into the film. The last flaw here is the atrocious CGI used for the titular creature which is pretty-much common-place for these films and doesn't really deserve more than that. Otherwise, these re the film's problems.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Way better than Anaconda 3, but still lacking

[BewaretheBlade · 6/10 · 6 March 2009]

I saw this on Sci-Fi Channel on it's first air date, and I must say it certainly exceeded my expectations after seeing it's predecessor. The acting in this movie is actually pretty well done; something I was not expecting. Gore is also 20 times better, way better than 3's ketchup packet squeeze effect. But, as always giant snake movies have their cons. Don't expect anything special in the graphics department- the snake in the first Anaconda was even better than the one in this movie. The story is also exceedingly unbelievable, and at some points just plain dumb; the snake regenerates it's head after it gets popped...

The conclusion? This installment in the series is pretty much on par with the first one. It has plenty of action, and for once not every supporting character dies (cliche repeated in every Sci-Fi movie). Only watch this only if you have an open mind or if you are in the mood for some good cheesy fun.

6/10

Just when you thought they'd never be another giant computer generated snake on the loose film along comes another

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 25 May 2009]

Yet another giant CGI snake on the loose tale. This time its got something to do with orchids which creates a serum that allows one to heal rapidly but also causes rapid growth, aggression and a need to eat constantly. A billionaire with bone cancer needs the serum to survive but unfortunately the snake it was tested on broke out of its cage, ate its creator and is now loose in the wilderness. Not bad, but there have been too many similar films for this to really be effective (Thank you SCIFI channel for creating an unnatural demand for these sort of films). Worse the effects, while adequate are such that they never generate any real scares because its clear nothing is real. Its not a bad film, but its unremarkable. Wait until this hits cable.

So much running

[staunton-gary · 4/10 · 23 December 2019]

I was exhausted from watching all that running and the snake looked like it was moving faster than them, but could never catch them, unless somebody fell. One of the baddies did this and then fired his automatic weapon in a sweeping motion above the snake, unless the viewer was not seeing from the snakes eyes. The boss baddie (John Rhys-Davies) should have had his sliding remote control with him so that he could have avoiding his overacting attempt at success before losing his head. Some of the CGI could have been a little more polished. A couple of people sacrificed themselves, I'm not sure why, maybe they were fed up with acting in this thing. Anyway, the movie is a solid B-Grade, perfect for a rainy day.

Better than ANACONDA 3 but far from 1 and 2.

[jhpstrydom · 5/10 · 12 May 2009]

This fourth installment in the ANACONDA series is in fact better than the third but miles away from the first two, it features returning actors Crystal Allen who is not a very good actress no offense intended, and John Rhys-Davies who plays his role excellently I might add, the supporting cast which is different than third one is in fact a lot better group of actors then those used in the third one, which is one of the things that made this film better.

Crystal Allen is actually a very attractive woman, but her acting as seen in this one and the previous film is very poor, most of the time she's rubber face and at serious situations she doesn't really play her part very convincingly, she just seems like she doesn't want to put much effort into her acting, like she's just trying to make a quick buck and go home.

Overall, an average snake movie but Ms. Allen would go up for a raspberry award for her acting, the film itself is just a time passer nothing more.

Anaconda 4: Trail of Blood (2009)

[SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain · 3/10 · 22 January 2012]

Shot back-to-back with Anaconda 3, this carries on the riveting saga of snakes, flowers and secret formulas. It's come a long, ridiculous way since it's humble origins. This continues the cheap, made for television feel. The CGI is just an effortless mess which just can't interact with it's surroundings. This snake must be as light as a feather to not disturb the dirt as it slithers. The original had the charm of campy "throat-o-vision" which was actually practical effects. The fourth installment doesn't even have David Hasselhoff. There were a few genuine laughs, which suggest this should have been a comedy. The grenade scene was just unexpectedly goofy, but pleasant.

Every creature feature cliché or your money back!

[Sandcooler · 4/10 · 20 December 2014]

I honestly have no idea why I keep watching stuff like this, it's a strange addiction. With no exaggeration whatsoever, I can say I've seen at least a hundred different scientists create a hundred different murderous creatures for a hundred different far-fetched reasons, usually set in a European country that just happens to have lots of cheap bit part actors. If finding the cure to cancer involves creating an invulnerable killer snake the size of the Eiffel tower, wouldn't the death toll be sort of the same either way? I know this snake is safely kept away behind a fence he can easily break through within seconds, but it still seems dangerous. Granted: a ridiculous plot is a given when it comes to this genre, so I can't rip on it too much.

What I will rip on though is that the cast is too crowded in this one. I know every established writer (the kind that gets hired for "Anaconda 4") says you need to hurt your characters and throw as much adversity towards them as you want, but come on: there's already a huge snake with a voracious appetite on the loose, do we really also need mercenaries to chase our main characters? Worse yet, the mercenaries seem like more of a threat than the title character, there are several stretches of time where everyone basically just forgets there's also a snake chasing them. You know the snake hasn't been in the movie enough when you hear its scream during the climax and one of the characters asks "what was that?". How this character survived I'll never know. Funny terrible moments like that do keep this show on the road though. There's the constant splitting up and then trying to find each other (hey, how about just not splitting up?), the snake that can't catch a guy on foot for over half a mile but has no problem keeping up with a jeep, the hilariously inept blue screen work during the car scenes, the final chick who empties two fully loaded handguns on just one mercenary because maybe the snake will die of old age, John Rhys-Davies chewing the scenery like there's no tomorrow: even if it doesn't have David Hasselhoff, this is just as entertaining as "Anaconda 3" (make of that what you will).

Oh It's Bad Alright

[dickinsonjason-34081 · 1/10 · 3 February 2021]

Yes This One Is Absolutely Bad I Hated Every Last Minute of it

I watched this

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 30 June 2022]

Dwight Little also made Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Marked for Death, Rapid Fire and of course Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home. This time, the researchers are looking for Perrinnia Immortalis (Blood Orchid), a flower that could very well be the Fountain of Youth. And he had less of a budget and therefore less of a cast. Probably the one you'll know is Morris Chestnut.

Hans Bauer wrote the original as well as another reptile gone wild movie, Komodo. He was joined on the scripting for this film by the team of Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. (who wrote Top Gun, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Legal Eagles, Turner & Hooch, The Secret of My Success and Dick Tracy together). Yes, the same team as the original Anaconda.

Can flowers make snakes live forever? Do they really burn like that? Have I watched way too many movies? So many questions.

The end(?)

[kosmasp · 3/10 · 26 July 2020]

Well obviously not - with horror there is never the end. Not really ever in any case. Although thankfully some movies have been left alone. But this is the end of the "story" that began with Part 3. And while the other two movies prior had nothing to do with the last two ... there is an obvious connection here. Still you could watch this, without having seen the other. On the other hand, why watch any of the two (part 3 and 4 that is)? Better watch 1 & 2.

Having said, I assume you have seen the third or don't care enough reading this, otherwise jump this paragraph. David Hasselhoff is no more, but we still have the driving force of John Rhys Davies here - or Gimli as some might still call him. Don't think this will bring him down .. bad jokes aside (which you will get a few of in the movie too), the CGI is bad and the acting isn't really helpful either. Considering the time and budget they had (same director as in 3 and was shot back to back with almost no time to prepare), some departments did a lot more than they got paid for ... it is what is, I guess

Better Than the Third

[Michael_Elliott · 5 April 2010]

Anaconda 4 (2009)

** (out of 4)

Filmed at the same time as ANACONDA 3, this film here is a lot better but it still can't come close to the original. This time out a group of people find themselves in the Capathia Mountains where the billionaire from the previous film is yet again hiring someone to create a cloning like system. This time the blood orchids (from part two) are being used and sure enough, a snake gets into them, becomes huge and this time is able to regenerate itself. This film is certainly an improvement over the previous entry and the main reason is that the CGI is marginally better here. The snake still looks rather fake but not as fake as previously and the gore here isn't really used so that there doesn't have to look so fake. The story is still pretty weak as the main goal is to get a bunch of people fighting for their lives and trying to avoid the snake. Director FauntLeRoy handles the material here much better as the action is pretty good this time out and the actors aren't as bad either. Crystal Allen returns from the previous film as does John Rhys Davies. As expected, we get several death scenes and they're all rather campy as each one seems to try and top the previous in terms of over-the-top ways to die. I'm really not sure what plans are next for these Sci-Fi Channel reboots but let's hope this one here is the last and if the series must continue it comes in form of a big-budget remake. People constantly put remakes down but they usually turn out a lot better than needless sequels like this one here.

Incisive Cautionary Tale and Intense Horror From Award Nominated Director/Cinematographer

[jlthornb51 · 9/10 · 25 April 2015]

Donald E. FauntLeRoy (David Wolper's North and South, Book IV) directs with his acclaimed stellar style and delivers a fine entry in the Anaconda saga. Acting as cinematographer as well, he creates a environment of overwhelming dread and stark raving fear as he uses Romanian locations to stunning effect. Working from a script that is both intelligent and exciting, FauntLeRoy coaxes superb performances from a renown cast of actors, some of whom are returning after their respective triumphs in the previous Anaconda film. With an inspiring score by Peter Meisner, pulse pounding and atmospheric, this is an incredibly intense motion picture experience. Not for the faint of heart, the thrills never let-up and some of the set piece sequences will likely sear fantastic imagery into collective psyche of any audience. Probably the best sequel to the original Anaconda, the film is certainly superior to most sequels and offers a cautionary environmental message that gives it a bit more gravitas. There are indeed rampaging anacondas featured but Anacoda: Trail of Blood rises above the average horror film with production values seldom seen in movies of this type. The special effects are breathtaking at times and the shocks are unrelentingly intense. Simply one of the best horror films produced in 2009.

For a 2.9-rated movie, I quite enjoyed this one!

[jordanclewans · 7/10 · 23 January 2023]

I've heard of Canuxploitation and Ausploitation - but I'd never heard of Romaniexploitation before 'Anaconda III' and 'Anaconda IV'!

As with its predecessor, 'Trail of Blood' is a much more gory movie than the original. Yet, it is not a movie I would consider a slasher as much as I would consider a technothriller. It makes good use of atmospheric horror throughout to keep the tension flowing and the viewer's attention. I would say 'Trail of Blood' has more in common with the original 'Jurassic Park' than it does with the 1997 'Anaconda'.

I wasn't particularly impressed with 'The Hunt For the Blood Orchid', so I wasn't expecting much for this one. It was the last DVD out of the four-disc set I bought for cheap, and I had procrastinated getting to it. But of course, it's when our expectations are lowest are we most easily impressed!

Like in 'The Hunt for the Blood Orchid', 'Trail of Blood' created its antagonist serpents on the computer, with little or no physical props - which is for me always a disappointment. However, compared with its predecessor, the CGI in this one was much more believable. The snake was usually blended seamlessly into the set and didn't look so cartoony as before.

The human side of the story in 'Trail of Blood' was much more developed too than in 'The Hunt for the Blood Orchid'. We see the return of Amanda, the classic farm-gal-next-door whose personality is not an act: she grew up in Camrose in my home province of Alberta (so I am biased in her favour for this) - combined with a sprinkle of Lara Croft on top.

The Romanian extras in the movie had that slimy charisma about them that made them excellent bad-guys. I fell in love with Heather almost instantly (I noticed her remarkable resemblance to the curler Anna Hasselborg!), and I'm happy that she lived. Alex was a pretty likeable character, and was probably the most relatable for the audience, being sort of the bewildered bystander in most of the character interactions. Scott was the only character I didn't much like; his overly-intense personality annoyed me.

Even though John Rhys-Davies was the only big name in the movie, I feel that the storyline was developed enough that he didn't carry the movie all himself.

The main thing I disliked about the movie was the somewhat-unrealistic durability of the characters dealing with wounds. We had our one guy walk back to camp with one arm gone at the elbow, and survived until being shot. We had our other character shot at point-blank range in the chest with a handgun, who not only survived but managed to stay standing and sentient. He found the strength to brawl with another character who had been stuck in the chest with a pocket knife on the outside of a moving vehicle. Meanwhile, another character was shot in the arm with a handgun while driving, and managed to stay conscious and sentient enough to hand the wheel over to one of her passengers.

Apart from that, what more do you want from this that you folks give it a 2.9 average?? (Meaning, many of you have voted it even lower) It's a direct-to-video cash-grab sequel with a relatively obscure Canadian lead, extras whose first language was mostly one other than English, and probably all put together on a very limited budget. Given all of those challenges, I think they did the best with what they had. Definitely my 2nd-favourite in the franchise after the original.

A regeneration serum actually works; but is it for good?

[michaelRokeefe · 3/10 · 9 May 2017]

An attractive young Geneticist Scientist, Dr. Amanda Haze (Crystal Allen), develops a serum for regenerating cells that come with self-healing abilities and possible immortality. Her employer Murdoch (John Rhys-Davies), an evil minded financier, is ramrodding a group to find a fresh supply of blood orchids needed to experiment further with the regenerating nectar. The tail of an anaconda is cut off and almost immediately grows into two ferocious man-eating giant serpents with non-stop hunger. The woods of Romania are ripe for blood-lust.

The CGI is pretty sloppy and goes hand in hand with the less than flawless story line and acting. Almost comical are scenes of the giant snakes flipping their prey into the air before swallowing whole.

Don E. FauntLeRoy directs. Other players: Linden Ashby, Danny Midwinter, Claudia Bleont, Calin Stanciu and Ana Ularu.

Much better than 3

[atecom696 · 4/10 · 28 February 2009]

Anacondas: Trail of Blood is the sequel to Anaconda, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, and Anaconda 3: Offspring. Now in my opinion, three was the weakest entry. Four was better because it had better CGI, acting, and FX. However, this was not enough to save the film.

The film is about the baby Anaconda from the third film who is cut in half and regenerates into two snakes. We also see the return of the blood orchid from the second film. It is explained a lot more in how it works and a new hybrid is created. This was obviously used to establish a connection between the previous films. There are a set of armed men sent into to track down Amanda (The survivor from part 3), who "Knows too much." As usual, the some-what of a plot moves forward as each character is picked off one by one.

It was better than the third installment. The snake was more realistic, but it's still clearly CG. It was nice to see the blood orchid again from the second film. It still had blood and gore, but I didn't mind it in this one because it looked more realistic (even though you can still tell it's fake- an improvement over the third film). I think it showed the filmmakers wanted to improved it, so it could be better than the third. But again, it didn't live up to the first two films. It was just a plain old monster movie the SciFi Channel shows all the time. Instead of making Anacondas 3 and 4, they should have titled it after the Python or Boa films and it would be equally as popular. It is not that bad of a film. It is enjoyable if you keep an open mind, but I would have preferred an Anaconda film with a larger budget and it to be released in theaters like the first two. The ending has a set up for an Anaconda 5, but I don't think it will happen.

I had always hoped that the Anaconda Series would continue in the future since the release of the second film, but what was released was just an insult to the fans of the first two films. These SciFi films are horrid compared to the older films. The snake was pretty cool and some scenes were entertaining, however, this was not enough to save the film.

If you're interested in monster films and don't mind poor CG FX, then I'd say watch the film. Otherwise, don't bother and watch the first two films. The plot is boring, the characters are flat, and it doesn't have any spirit in it. As far as I'm concerned, the last two films in the series have killed off the series.

4/10 only for the improvements over the third film.