Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Encyclopedia
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is a 2004 horror-thriller film and sequel to the 1997 film Anaconda
Anaconda (film)
Anaconda is a 1997, adventure-horror film, directed by Luis Llosa, starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Owen Wilson, and Eric Stoltz. It centers around a film crew for National Geographic who are kidnapped by a hunter who is going after the world's largest giant anaconda, which is...

. It was directed by Dwight H. Little
Dwight H. Little
Dwight Hubbard Little is an American film director, known for directing the films Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, The Phantom of the Opera, Marked for Death, Rapid Fire and Murder at 1600...

 and was released in the United States on August 27, 2004. The plot of the movie entails a group of explorers looking for a sacred flower that they believe will bring humans a longer and healthier life, or maybe even cure cancer. The origin of the giant anaconda
Green Anaconda
Eunectes murinus is a non-venomous boa species found in South America. It is the heaviest known snake species...

 of the first film is also explained. The movie was followed by the made-for-television sequel Anaconda 3: Offspring.

Plot

A team of research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

ers sets off into a jungle in Padrang - Borneo
Kalimantan
In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....

, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 to search for a "blood orchid", a flower they believe can be used as a type of fountain of youth
Fountain of Youth
The Fountain of Youth is a legendary spring that reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in writings by Herodotus, the Alexander romance, and the stories of Prester John...

. Though their guide Bill Johnson (Johnny Messner) has misgivings about which path to take, Jack Byron (Matthew Marsden
Matthew Marsden
Matthew Marsden is an English actor and singer. In the United Kingdom he is widely remembered for playing the character Chris Collins in the popular soap opera, Coronation Street. However, he is best known in the USA as a film actor. He has played the roles of Paris in Helen of Troy, Dr...

) bribes him to take the path he doesn't think is safe. The team ends up going over a waterfall and having to wade through the river. A giant anaconda
Green Anaconda
Eunectes murinus is a non-venomous boa species found in South America. It is the heaviest known snake species...

 emerges from the water and swallows Dr. Ben Douglas (Nicholas Gonzalez
Nicholas Gonzalez
Nicholas Edward Gonzalez is an Mexican-American actor, best known for playing Alex Santiago in the TV series Resurrection Blvd..-Early life:...

) whole, while the rest of the team escapes the river. Bill tries to assure them that it was the largest snake he's ever seen and that it should take weeks' for it to grow hungry again, however most of the team demands that the expedition be called off.

They decide to travel to Bill's friend John Livingston (Andy Anderson
Andy Anderson (actor)
Andy Anderson is an actor best known for his roles on both Australian and New Zealand television.-Career:...

) who lives on the river to see if he can borrow his boat and his whale. While traveling to the boat, Bill tells Sam (KaDee Strickland
KaDee Strickland
Katherine Dee "KaDee" Strickland is an American actress currently known for her role as Charlotte King on the ABC drama Private Practice....

) about Jack bribing him into taking the unsafe route. Along the way, Bill finds an infestation of leeches on Cole's (Eugene Byrd
Eugene Byrd
Eugene Byrd is an American actor.-Career:He has been in movies including Dead Man, Sleepers, 8 Mile, Lift and Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, and has the leading role in Confess, for which he won the Break-Out Performance Award at the 2006 Method Fest Independent Film Festival...

) back and burns all of them with his lighter while Tran (Karl Yune
Karl Yune
Karl Yune is an American actor.Yune, a Korean American, was born and raised in Washington, D.C.. He studied business, literature, and philosophy before switching to a major in theater at Columbia University's School of Arts, New York, after winning the role of Romeo for a presentation of Romeo...

) finds a poisonous spider in Gordon Mitchell's (Morris Chestnut
Morris Chestnut
Morris L. Chestnut is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles as teenage father Ricky Baker in the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood, groom-to-be Lance Sullivan in the 1999 film The Best Man, as Tracy Reynolds, NBA star in the 2002 film Like Mike, and as the Visitor Ryan in the...

) shoe. Jack decides to take the spider along for further study and then everyone resumes the journey to the boat.

However, Livingston is killed by another anaconda and his boat crashes into the riverbank. The team sees an explosion and finds the boat wrecked and are disappointed for losing their chance for escape from the jungle and find only a few essentials for their quest. While continuing their journey, they find Livingston's chewed up corpse. Bill realizes that it must be mating season, which means all of the male anacondas come out of their territories to find the nearest female in its mating pit.

They find themselves in a small native village consisting of thatched huts where a disemboweled anaconda
Green Anaconda
Eunectes murinus is a non-venomous boa species found in South America. It is the heaviest known snake species...

 with a pair of human legs hanging out of the snake's abdomen is displayed. The team speculates that the snakes are unusually large in size because their lives have been extended through the orchids, which are a part of the local food chain. Jack says that since they must be close to the orchids, they should press on. However the others contend that there is no evidence that the orchids will have the same effect on humans and still want to leave, so they start building an escape raft.

Meanwhile, Gordon discovers that Jack had secretly obtained Livingston's private case containing a radio and a gun and realizes he could have called for help long ago. When Jack is unable to convince him to allow the expedition to continue, he paralyzes him using the spider. As Jack joins the others at the raft, Sam discovers a paralyzed Gordon and notices the spider bite on his arm. An anaconda drops down from the rafters and swallows Gordon alive soon after she leaves the building. The others arrive just as it finishes, so Bill sets the building on fire. Jack uses the commotion to steal the raft.

With no more material to make another raft, they decide to bushwack through the jungle to beat Jack to the orchids and get back their raft. On the way they fall into a cave trying to escape an anaconda. Cole gets lost and panics after finding a skeleton. He runs into Tran. Together they make their way back to the others. Along the way, Tran falls through a hole in the cave floor. Unable to escape, he is eaten by an anaconda underwater. The terrified Cole manage to make their way back to the team, escaping the caves behind them seconds ahead of the snake. It follows them through the hole, and attacks them. Sam uses a machete to behead the snake, but Cole is captured by another giant anaconda. The team follows and find him being constricted, but still alive. Bill throws his knife and impales the snake through the head, killing it and freeing Cole.

The group finds the raft just as Jack finds the blood orchids, hanging precariously above a pit in which a ball of male anacondas are mating with the female. Jack shoots Bill in the arm, and forces the party to accompany him to the orchids. He has Sam cross the pit via a thin log to fill a backpack with orchids. As she makes her way back, the log starts to crack. Jack orders her to throw him the backpack, but Sam counters to threaten to drop the flowers into the pit unless he drops the gun. The log breaks and she falls, landing halfway down the pit. As the others help her climb out, Jack tries to get the backpack. The spider he used to paralyze Gordon escapes its jar and bites him. Jack falls into the pit and is devoured, as Sam and the others escape.

The female anaconda notices them, but Gail (Salli Richardson
Salli Richardson
Salli Elise Richardson-Whitfield is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role on Eureka and her voice acting on Gargoyles.-Early life:...

) tricks it into biting their fuel container. Bill tries to shoot the container, but the gun is empty. Cole shoots it with a flare, causing a chain reaction that kills the snakes, along with all the blood orchids as well. Bill, Sam, Cole, Gail, and Bill's pet monkey Kong make it back to the raft and leave.
As they set off with their raft, Bill suggests another shortcut, but the others suggest that they won't take the shortcut.

Cast

  • Johnny Messner as Bill Johnson
  • KaDee Strickland
    KaDee Strickland
    Katherine Dee "KaDee" Strickland is an American actress currently known for her role as Charlotte King on the ABC drama Private Practice....

     as Sam Rogers
  • Matthew Marsden
    Matthew Marsden
    Matthew Marsden is an English actor and singer. In the United Kingdom he is widely remembered for playing the character Chris Collins in the popular soap opera, Coronation Street. However, he is best known in the USA as a film actor. He has played the roles of Paris in Helen of Troy, Dr...

     as Dr. Jack Byron
  • Salli Richardson
    Salli Richardson
    Salli Elise Richardson-Whitfield is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role on Eureka and her voice acting on Gargoyles.-Early life:...

     as Gail Stern
  • Eugene Byrd
    Eugene Byrd
    Eugene Byrd is an American actor.-Career:He has been in movies including Dead Man, Sleepers, 8 Mile, Lift and Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, and has the leading role in Confess, for which he won the Break-Out Performance Award at the 2006 Method Fest Independent Film Festival...

     as Cole Burris
  • Nicholas Gonzalez
    Nicholas Gonzalez
    Nicholas Edward Gonzalez is an Mexican-American actor, best known for playing Alex Santiago in the TV series Resurrection Blvd..-Early life:...

     as Dr. Ben Douglas
  • Karl Yune
    Karl Yune
    Karl Yune is an American actor.Yune, a Korean American, was born and raised in Washington, D.C.. He studied business, literature, and philosophy before switching to a major in theater at Columbia University's School of Arts, New York, after winning the role of Romeo for a presentation of Romeo...

     as Tran Wu
  • Morris Chestnut
    Morris Chestnut
    Morris L. Chestnut is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles as teenage father Ricky Baker in the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood, groom-to-be Lance Sullivan in the 1999 film The Best Man, as Tracy Reynolds, NBA star in the 2002 film Like Mike, and as the Visitor Ryan in the...

     as Gordon Mitchell
  • Denis Arndt as CEO
  • Andy Anderson
    Andy Anderson (actor)
    Andy Anderson is an actor best known for his roles on both Australian and New Zealand television.-Career:...

     as John Livingston

Box Office

The film debuted second in the box office for the week, grossing $12,812,287. It averaged $4,410 at 2,905 sites, and earned a total domestic gross ticket sales of $32,238,923. Worldwide, the film grossed $70,992,898

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. The review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

 reported that the film received 26% positive reviews, based on 114 reviews. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

reported the film had an average score of 40 out of 100, based on 28 reviews. The fact that Anacondas are not native to Borneo was not much appreciated by reviewers either.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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