Anaconda (1997)
There is a particular kind of late-1990s Hollywood product that exists somewhere between genuine genre filmmaking and expensive theme-park attraction, and Anaconda (1997) sits squarely in that territory. The film drops a documentary crew into the Amazon rainforest, where they fall under the control of a dangerously obsessive hunter with a very specific quarry in mind: the largest anaconda ever recorded. It is the sort of premise that practically writes itself, drawing on a long tradition of jungle adventure pictures and creature features that stretches back through the pulp magazines and drive-in double bills of the mid-twentieth century. The Amazon setting carries its own weight in the cultural imagination, a place so associated with the extreme and the unknown that filmmakers have returned to it again and again, from Werner Herzog's bruising portrait of colonial obsession in Fitzcarraldo to the vivid urban mythology of City of God. Anaconda is not interested in either of those registers, of course. It wants to make you jump, maybe laugh a little, and generally deliver a brisk, sweaty ninety minutes of monster movie entertainment.
The film was directed by Luis Llosa, a Peruvian-born filmmaker who had previously worked on a handful of action pictures for producer Roger Corman before graduating to bigger studio fare with Sniper (1993) and The Specialist (1994). Anaconda was produced under the Columbia Pictures umbrella with a reported budget in the region of forty-five million dollars, a figure that feels optimistic given the variable quality of the animatronic and CGI snake effects on screen. The script, credited to Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, and Jack Epps Jr., leans hard into the conventions of the survival horror thriller, borrowing liberally from Jaws in its basic structure without quite matching that film's patience or wit. Filming took place largely in Brazil and on studio sets, rather than Peru itself, which is a small but telling detail about the production's relationship with its own geography. It is worth noting that the film has acquired a curious cultural footnote: it is regularly cited among the most-viewed films associated with Peruvian cinema, almost entirely by accident of its director's nationality and its South American setting.
The cast, on paper at least, is genuinely interesting. Jennifer Lopez was still a year away from Selena making her a genuine star, and Anaconda represents one of her earlier leading roles. Ice Cube, fresh off his work in John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood and his own Friday, brought real screen presence and comic timing that had served him well elsewhere. Jon Voight, playing the unhinged hunter Paul Serone with an accent of uncertain origin, is the one cast member who seems to have been briefed that he was in a creature feature and dressed accordingly. Eric Stoltz and a pre-fame Owen Wilson round out an ensemble that is, in theory, more than sufficient for this kind of picture. Whether that theory holds in practice is another matter entirely.
I watched Luis Llosa’s Anaconda (1997) as part of my World Movie Cup challenge, and it’s somehow listed as one of the most popular Peruvian films. Which is a bit of a head-scratcher, because this isn’t really a Peruvian film in spirit; it’s a proper, campy B-movie creature feature shot in the Amazon. You should always judge a film by what it’s trying to achieve, and on paper, this is just trying to be a fun, scary ride in the jungle. But there’s a fine line between a fun, trashy monster movie and a tedious slog, and Anaconda spends far too much time wandering around on the wrong side of it.
The real misstep here is the cast. You’ve got Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, and Owen Wilson all traipsing through the mud, and they all massively underperform. I’m not saying I expected Al Pacino, but when you assemble that kind of ensemble, you know you’re in for a corny ride, so you just want them to chew the scenery with a bit of gusto. Instead, they sleepwalk through it. And then there’s the snake itself. For a film called Anaconda, the actual monster turns up way too late. A film like this doesn’t need that much exposition and character setup. We’re here for the giant snake, not a 45-minute documentary on documentary filmmaking and jungle boat mechanics.
My expectations were already sitting on the floor going in, knowing exactly what kind of 90s creature feature this was, but somehow it still managed to drop below them. It’s not completely horrible (I’ve certainly sat through worse in this challenge) but it’s firmly, unapologetically below average. It lacks the self-aware charm of a truly great B-movie and the actual thrills of a good horror film. It’s a missed opportunity that leaves you just waiting for the title creature to show up and put us all out of our misery.
Anaconda is the sort of film that tends to find its audience eventually, usually on a late-night cable slot or a streaming platform where expectations have been loosened by context and company. Fans of cheerfully silly creature features, or viewers curious about the earlier careers of Lopez and Ice Cube, may find something to enjoy in its more energetic moments. Those interested in how the Amazon has functioned as a backdrop for genre cinema might find it a useful, if not especially illuminating, data point alongside films like The Serpent and the Rainbow, which wrings considerably more atmosphere from a similar jungle-adjacent setting. Macca's take above lands about where most honest appraisals of the film end up: a polished but unremarkable B-movie that mistakes going through the motions for actually having fun. Sometimes the snake is the most competent performer on screen, and that is not the compliment it sounds like.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 1997 | Watched: 2026-06-09
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Anaconda (1997) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Sky Go · Now TV Cinema
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Starz Apple TV Channel · YouTube TV · Philo
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
