zwolanerd

Last year, the Australian version of Celebrity Apprentice featured David Hasselhoff. He had a “shock” exit, claiming he had sudden family commitments to attend to, but it turned out it was planned and he was only signed on for three weeks anyway. The question is: Why did they bother? Australia, believe it or not, has celebrities of her own (Australia is a lady), but we have such a lack of confidence in them that the idea of hauling in a big name from the US is used in our awards shows as well as our “reality” TV. It’s kind of sad, especially when the very best US Name on offer happens to be David Hasselhoff.

I mention David Hasselhoff because he is in this week’s Dire DVD. I’m going to watch it anyway, because I love you all so much. I thought I’d seen the original Anaconda movie, but I was thinking of Congo which I’ve seen bits of (the bits with Tim Curry in them, mostly), so I am entering this one with no sense of the story so far. I hope it will not impare my enjoyment of this movie. My copy is an ex rental from Blockbuster, isn’t that cute?

The camera flies over a jungle, with all the usual insect and bird noises. A team is hiking through the jungle. The guy at the front hacks a shrub with a machete, even though there’s a path and the shrub isn’t in the way of the path. He’s in full army camo, with a string of bullets across his chest and his face painted. So is the guy behind him. Hasselhoff is in a long leather coat. We now see them from above, as a CGI snake swooshes over the corner of the frame. Hasselhoff tells the weedy guy at the end of the line to take it easy, he should be enjoying the ride! Hasselhoff is proving he can’t even walk convincingly when the huge CGI snake attacks the weedy guy, vomiting blood all over his face. A full minute of shooting follows because they’re all armed with machine guns, and one of them loses an arm in some way.

I don’t know which guy wakes up. Hasselhoff is being all brave and cocky while biting the end off a cigar. It’s the second time he’s done this so far. The snake is laying beside the guy I don’t know, but it’s dying because of all the bullets. Hasselhoff walks off into the jungle, unconvincingly. “God help us all” says the guy, which is a fine sentiment for anyone watching this.

After the title screen, we see a woman jogging through the jungle in lycra and some actual snakes in tanks. A computer prints out research results, various lab type stuff happens – droplets into test tubes, microscope slides and so on. A black car slips by the lady jogging and she’s not in a jungle anymore, just in some woods beside a road. She was in a jungle though, so I bet she’s exhausted now and could use a sit down.

Inside the car, someone on the radio is saying things about genetic testing on animals in secret labs in South America belonging to Wexhel Hall Pharmaceuticals. This chap is an interviewer, and his subject says the testing in these labs is more cruel and grotesque than anything ever and the American people would be super sad to know about it. Wexhal Hall is having a big old deny. The music is all sinister with a back beat and I wish I could turn it off.

The car arrives at a weird looking building, and a grumpy bossy chap named Mr. Murdoch gets out. He’s a big man with a gravelly voice. He’s escorted into the Wexhal Hall offices by a scared manager named Pinkus and is very irate that PETA is talking about their research. PETA is trying to find out more about the facility, so presumably they’re wrapping women in plastic and laying them out on the street somewhere. It’s what they usually do in the face of a problem.

Behind a swipe card security door, Pinkus shows Murdoch a live feed of the Queen Anaconda’s tank. A professor turns up to talk about things. The big snake is 1200 pounds apparently. Don’t question it, if you question it you’ll have to invest too much brain power into the first ridiculous plot point, and you’ll have run out of brain power for the next 70 ridiculous plot points.

The scientists have been injecting a synthetic orchid extract into snakes, because why wouldn’t you? The extract is non-toxic to snakes, and stops them aging, but kills people (which also stops them aging, if you think about it). Mice, dogs and chimpanzees are also killed by the stuff. Fluffy little adorable kitties have yet to be tested. In order to stop it being lethal, the boffins have developed a new strain of orchid which will probably do the same thing but without the dying part.

There’s a big tank in the lab with a huge anaconda in it, which makes Murdoch scream. The jogging lady wanders in and asks a random scientist how the snake is. She refers to the snake as her baby, and her baby is hungry. Spotting Murdoch, she marches over to demand a bigger tank. Her name turns out to be Amanda, just so you know who I mean when I say Amanda later on. Unless a snake eats her, in which case I won’t mention her again. The tanks are small because there’s no time to build new ones. Murdoch mentions that time is something he doesn’t have, so I’m going to take a giant leap and say he wants this anti aging thing to save his own life due to some terrible disease.

The Professor talks to Amanda who confirms my idea because she’s a doctor as well as a snake expert. He’s got cancer, according to Amanda who didn’t bother to examine him at all and just looked him over from a distance. She’s unhappy about her snakes. The professor explains that this work can save millions of lives, but Amanda feels it’s unethical. This bit is really long and boring so I’ll shut up now till the next bit.

Murdoch has grabbed a flashlight and is peering into the tank to see the big snake. Pinkus is all “Don’t do that, you’ll make the snake mad” but Murdoch owns the company and can do what he likes. The snake is angry now, and cracks the glass of the tank with his tail. The nerd in charge of the computers (there’s about 9, all showing the exact same thing so that was money well spent) has a nerd panic and then hits the gas to sedate the snake. Everything calms down, the snake is sleepy, and Pinkus is off to order new tank glass. The nerd turns around to go back to his computers when he is impaled by the snake’s tail, because as well as making them huge and forever young, the extract gives them tailblades. I promised ridiculous plot points, I have delivered. The nerd is hauled into the tank for the snake to eat and the evacuation alarm is set off.

The nerd’s blood soaked body is flung around the tank as the snake .. uh, flings it around the tank. That’s not really how anacondas eat, but alright. The snake is apparently immune to the sleepy gas, so the lab is locked down and they all grab guns as the snake batters the lab door. When it stops battering the door, they assume the gas has worked and prepare to do.. whatever it is they do with a massive snake.

A security guard peers into a ventilation shaft and has his head removed by a fabulously unconvincing CGI snake. This is supposed to be a fright for us, but since looking into the ventilation shaft was a stupid thing to do when a huge snake is on the loose, and because the music was basically saying “Someone’s about to die,” it was not a fright. It was a thing that happened.

In the gassy lab, the professor and Amanda look inside the tank for a second or two and decide the snake isn’t in the lab at all. It’s a big room, there’s other places to look. I’m just saying, if it were up to me, their annual review would have some things to say about observation. Amanda decides that her baby has gone after the Queen Anaconda, so they toddle off to have a look. Inside the other lab, scientist body parts are scattered all over the place. The snake didn’t even eat the nerd, just chewed him up and flung him around. I guess it wasn’t hungry after all.

At least he got written out nice and early

The Queen has also escaped, a close up of the hole in her tank shows it to be the thinnest glass ever so it was only a matter of time. The window is broken and the music is all tense again. There’s a hazy yellow filter over the camera for a second (this is snake eye view) and then the professor gets wrapped up by the big snake and squished to death. The best bit about this is imagining what it looked like before the snake was added in – it would have been an old white guy dancing. Amanda runs out the door and then hangs about just next to the door to have a heavy breathe and tear up. Probably wise, just getting out of there would be stupid. In the lab, the snake bites off the professor’s head and I die laughing. It goes all quiet, so Amanda goes back in and has a bigger cry about it all.

Meanwhile, Murdoch and Pinkus are leaving the main doors. In the background, a bunch of people in white coats run along trying to look like they’re evacuating instead of just jogging about randomly. Pinkus has called professional trackers to find the snakes, which is probably where Hasselhoff comes in but I’m sad because I haven’t missed him at all. Murdoch tells Pinkus that he has to help with the tracking and he gets all tense because he’s a standard weedy manager type. The trackers turn up and none of them are Hasselhoff – maybe it was like the Celebrity Apprentice, just a cameo? A girl can hope.

Oh, no here he is. Inside a bar in South America. The stock footage used to establish the location is circa 1970s and no attempt has been made to clean it up and match the rest of the movie. He’s selling rhino horns to the locals. They hand over $30,000 in $100 bills and Hasselhoff is mugged the very second he stands up by two guys who have South American accents, but only pass as South American if you close your eyes. Hasselhoff is being all jokey and bold and even takes a phone call from Pinkus just after he gets his belly punched. What a guy! He beats up his muggers, lights a cigar and heads off to help Pinkus out with the snake thing.

Guys, could you please be more rag and/or taggier?

Pinkus is briefing the trackers. It’s no surprise to note they are a ragtag bunch of misfits. They aren’t taking this snake thing seriously at all. The lead guy is serious and broody and very annoying so I hope he gets eaten. Pinkus shows them the tracking device reciever which will shorten the search considerably. Amanda is upset because the snakes are going to die. The lead guy refuses to wait for Hasselhoff, who can blame him?

Amanda wants to know why Pinkus hasn’t called the military, but Pinkus is concerned about security, not about people being eaten to bits by pretendy snakes. Amanda demands to join the trackers because she knows the snakes. Two SUVs drive into the jungle, and there’s a shot of Amanda rocking around inside one of them, with a green-screened jungle behind her. She has a flashback to the conversation earlier about saving lives and ethics, and flashes of the bodies. The broody team leader brings her back to reality by handing her a pistol, which should be super effective against a 60 foot snake. She’ll be okay though, because Nick can do punching which is also going to be handy against a 60 foot snake.

In the other car, the rest of the misfits are bouncing around and the actress doing the “driving” is doing that “spin the wheel back and forth really quickly” thing that drives me mental. I mean I know she’s not actually driving because of the green screen, but still. One of the team, Andre, thinks anacondas can hypnotise people before eating them. Another one says he’s afraid of snakes, but will enjoy killing them.

No caption I can come up with is more ridiculous than the picture

In a little farm house in the jungle, the farmer hears his goat freak out and strolls out with his rifle to see what’s happening. The goat is gone, and the snake has cleanly cut the rope that was holding it. I didn’t even know snakes could use scissors, live and learn. The farmer approaches the barn and the music is shouting “He’s going to meet a snake!” For whatever reason, the farmer decides the goat is probably in the loft, so up he climbs. There’s a pile of hay there which he digs through slowly. The snake is behind him, he falls to the ground floor and injures himself. As he sits up, something touches his back, but it’s only the goat. He gives it a cuddle and climbs back up to the loft to get his gun. Instead of climbing all the way up the ladder, he climbs almost to the top and is struggling to reach his gun when he falls off the ladder, knocking himself out on the floor of the loft. Idiot. When he comes to, he’s up to his knees in giant fake snake, which I’ve just noticed has teeth. Sure, why not. That orchid extract gave the snake teeth. Anyway the farmer has been eaten now.

In the SUVs, the tracker is going nuts with the beeping, but there’s only one marker on the screen. They’re either going for the snakes one at a time or they only tagged one, I don’t know. They’ve found one is the point. There’s some shots of the cars going up a rough track, but the green-screen track doesn’t match the track they’re driving up. I wouldn’t have to notice these things if the movie was any good. The cars arrive at the farm and the leader guy who really is irritating sends his people to various points around the house. Amanda and Pinkus have to stay in the car, but Amanda wants in on the hunting because they’re her snakes. No one wants to listen to Amanda, probably because she’s whiny.

Two of the team go into the farm house and poke around. It’s a big house for one guy and a goat. Amanda takes the gun and tucks it into the back of her jeans while Pinkus expresses his sadness about the dead professor. The guy who’s scared of snakes goes into the barn, where he startles a chicken and freaks out at the noise, scattering the building with bullets and screaming. He completely misses the chicken. The rest of the team and Amanda come running and have a chuckle about what an idiot the guy is. They scan the barn and decide there’s no snake. Pinkus sits on a bale of hay and is narrowly missed by the carcass of the goat which drops from the loft. Why did the snake only nibble the goat and not swallow it? This is not how snakes work! Amanda thinks the snake tried and and regurgitated it because sometimes they don’t like meals. One of the misfits says “If this thing only eats meals that look good, I’d be very careful Amanda” which is not really what she said in the first place, and in the second place is a terrible pick up line.

The other girl on the team, Sophia, calls the others out to see a shed snakeskin. The skin leads into the jungle, and the tracker chip is attached to it. Lead guy wants to know how the snake shed its skin so quickly (I was wondering that myself). Amanda tells him it happens when the snake is growing too big for its skin which was not the question, Amanda. Lead guy dashes off, shouting orders at everyone and is impaled by the pointy snake tail of death. The snake is still in the loft, and lifts lead guy up to the window. It would probably be better if the lead guy wasn’t wearing a tight shirt, because I can see the harness under it. While the rest of the team empty their guns into the snake, the lead guy falls to the ground spewing CGI blood. The others all run around spewing bullets as the snake goes off into the jungle, and then circles back to the roof of the barn also which bites the head off the guy who was scared of snakes. Turned out he had reason to be. Amanda thinks she can slap a bandaid on the lead guy, but Pinkus is too frozen with fear to get her bag.

CGI courtesy of MSPaint

Turns out the guy who was afraid of snakes has a special kind of blood that disappears just after it leaves his body. This is known in medical circles as “terrible CGI.” As his headless body falls over, his finger jams on the trigger of his machine gun and he showers the area with bullets, hitting the gas tank of one of the trucks and causing it to explode. His aim is much better in death, have to say. Everyone shoots at the snake some more, and then Nick (the guy who can punch) starts shouting orders. He tells Pinkus to get the fire extinguisher from the other car because that will help with the massive fireball. Pinkus can’t move, he’s staring at the headless body of the other guy who has bled a terrible CGI puddle on the ground.

Despite having been speared through the chest and losing about 90 pints of blood, the leader guy is hanging on to life. Pinkus manages to get to the other car while Amanda screams at him to get her bag. She can’t get it herself because of reasons. Pinkus shoves his hand in the wound because there’s an artery bleeding out (really slowly, obviously) but he’s crying and upset because he doesn’t know what’s happening. Amanda takes this into account. No she doesn’t, she screams her face off at him. It’s not helpful Amanda.

The rest of the team have split into two pairs to circle around and trap the snake in a classic pincer movement. Despite the fact that the combined bullets of 6 machine guns didn’t make a dint before, the seem to think they can do it in pairs. They all run around a bit, and the girl and the chap she’s with keep seeing the tail disappear. The jungle, by the way is now just woods. There’s no jungleness about the woods, just a lot of trees. They’ve run a “jungle” soundtrack over it, but it’s still just the woods. At the farm, the leader guy has died but Amanda is refusing to give up. Pinkus is doing his own screaming this time, and eventually Amanda has to stop her attempts to save him. She has a cry. The car is still on fire. Pinkus goes into the barn, Amanda wanders off somewhere else slowly. She’s so sad. So sad.

The girl and the guy leap out of a bush in front of one of the other team members, which is just stupid. “He’s jumpy and has a gun, better startle him!” They don’t get shot though. The three of them trot off into the jungle-that-is-woods. Amanda is rummaging in the trunk of the car and we see her through the yellow lens of the snake eye. It’s therefore not much of a surprise that the snake is behind her. She goes all tense and starts to slip backwards into the car. Pinkus comes out to see this and tells her not to move, even though she’s a snake expert and probably already knew.

Oh joy, here’s Hasselhoff. He comes speeding into the farm yard and fires a pistol at the snake. How he knew they were at the farmyard I don’t even know. I guess the Hoff just turns up when needed (which is never). The pistol does what the machine guns didn’t – scares the snake completely away. Amanda fires a couple of shots into an innocent shrub and then flings herself at Hasselhoff screeching about how the snake must die. Hasselhoff promises they’ll get it and runs around being a super amazing guy. The others have emerged from the woods at just the right time to gather around and make a plan. He splits them into teams and then has one of them grab a tracking device from the back of his car – how will it track? I don’t know. Magic. Pixie dust. I don’t know. I don’t know. The team drives off, except for Hasselhoff, Nick, and Andre who are on foot. Another thing I don’t know the reason for. The car is still burning. Pinkus decides to stay at the farm alone. He looks around at the bodies, and the headless guy has regrown his chin (bad bad CGI).

Maybe it’s not green screen, maybe the actors really are 2D

Amanda and the others are not using high tech tracking devices, they are able to follow the snake because it’s pretty much just slithering along the road. Helpful snake! Hasselhoff tells Andre to lose the tracker and they forge on based purely on Hasselhoff’s sixth sense for giant snakes. Or something. The others are still chasing the snake along the road, but as soon as it enters a clearing it disappears. They’re all amazed at how fast it vanished, because there’s no way it could be up a tree. Of course it’s up a tree. It swings down and vomits acid blood on Vincent. Sofia hits the gas and they barrel through the forest (or along a track in the woods, whichever you prefer) until she rolls the car. Sofia is thrown from the car and we get a close up of a mediocre make up job of a bone sticking out of her leg (the terrible CGI guys had the day off). The car actually rolls onto the drivers side, so Sophia was obviously flung through the passenger window. Happens all the time. Amanda has had a small and pretty nose bleed, but Victor is dead. Amanda is climbing out of the car to help Sophia, but I bet you know what happens. Yep, toothy snake. Amanda listens as Sofia gets eaten and puts on her tragic expression.

I mentioned the crane, but at least I didn’t mention the random crew member

The others are calling for them and Amanda gets all hopeful, but the snake is looking at her now through the car window. Beside the snake there is a crane, which is what the camera was on before. A big black crane used for crane shots. Just sitting there in the forest.  Oh now the car is on fire. Of course it is. The fire extinguisher should still be in there though because Pinkus never did grab it. Amanda crawls out the back window and runs through the woods as the snake chases her. It’d be awful if she tripped ove.. and she’s tripped over into a mud puddle. The snake sniffs her but doesn’t attack, instead swinging its head from side to side like a happy puppy. Hasselhoff appears out of nowhere and fires a rifle at it, so it shoots off into the woods again. Amanda thinks the mud saved her because the snake couldn’t see her against the trunk of a tree. Sure, I’ll buy anything at this point. Even though she’s not that injured and could probably walk, Hasselhoff keeps an arm around her because she’s pretty. She goes for the hover hand (you know, where you put your arm around someone without actually touching them for a photo?)

At the farm house, Amanda washes all the mud off herself in a small sink and then stares at herself in the mirror. All the deaths we’ve seen are replayed in black and white as she remembers them. She blames herself. Pinkus and Hasselhoff are discussing plans outside, and Amanda wants to know what they are. While she and Hasselhoff are arguing about calling the Army, Pinkus confides in Andre and Nick that he thinks Amanda is hiding something. Andre decides the best thing is the direct route, so he asks Amanda what she’s hiding. She tells them about the orchid extract, and explains that the DNA of the snake has been altered to see why they don’t die from the extract. This explains the spiky tail and mouth full of teeth. Then she tells them the reason she demanded to come along is because the Queen Anaconda is pregnant and due to give birth in less than 24 hours.

There’s some more arguing, and then Hasselhoff says he shot one of the snakes with a tracker, so they’ll be able to find it. He’s also washed his shirt, I note. So has Amanda. It’s good to maintain personal grooming habits when facing death by toothy snake.

The next morning, the snake appears on the tracker. The picture on the laptop shows the icon in the middle of a clump of trees in the middle of the woods, but Andre says it’s at the old industrial park, so who knows? They drive out to the park and leave Amanda at the car with the laptop so they can see if the snake moves. Pinkus is unhappily following the team out into the trees. They reach an old building and rattle the doors, which are chained. I genuinely wish I had the words to describe how Hasselhoff moves to the next door. It’s not a run or a jog, it’s like a dance crossed with a mince. I watched it three times for the giggles. The people who own the building considerately left one door held shut by a stick rather than chains, so the team goes in there. Amanda is on the radio, directing them to the snake. She has a 3D model of the building on the laptop, that tracker is amazing.

Hasselhoff tells Pinkus to cover them from the hallway. Pinkus has a gun about the size of a $1 water pistol, so that’s brilliant. The other three creep up to a doorway. Nick throws a grenade through the door which blows up in a nicely contained way, not even chipping the paint on the door frame. They burst in, guns blazing. Eventually they stop shooting at the walls and look around. There’s a body on the floor. The body has not been in any way damaged by the grenade. It’s Sofia, and the tracker is lodged in her belly. She’s breathing though, because we need at least one breathing corpse in every Dire DVD.

Pinkus is in the hallway, looking around like a startled kitten when he’s impaled on a snake tail and dragged out blah blah etc etc. The snakes are rumbling around outside the building, so Amanda radios for help. She needn’t have bothered, the snakes slide right by her. The others leave Pinkus to die and give chase, following the snakes to the edge of a lake. Amanda asks what the temperature of the water is, and Nick tells her without even sticking a finger in it. He never mentioned his thermal vision before. Amanda says at the temperature of the water, the snakes will stay in for about half an hour and they’re looking for food.

I just have to say, if these snakes are so darn hungry why do they keep not eating the people they kill? I mean sure it’s fun to stab people in the back with your pointy tail of death, but eat your kill. Anyway, according to Amanda this means the lady snake is about to have baby snakes. There’s a town on the other side of the lake, they’re all doomed. Doomed I tell ya!

Nick and Hasselhoff have an argument about calling the Army. Hasselhoff has worked out that within 12 hours the entire country will be covered in baby snakes so there’s just no time for the Army. I’d like to see his work on that particular piece of maths, but we’ll go with it. Nick demands the Army, so Hasselhoff pretends to dial the Army and everyone falls for it. Happier now the Army is (isn’t) alerted, they go off to shoot a snake.

A little boy is playing at the edge of the lake. His mother calls to him and he turns around to see the snakes slip past behind her. Even though they’re less than 10 feet from her, and they apparently growl and rumble as they move, she doesn’t notice them. Andre and Hasselhoff are striding through the jungle, and Hasselhoff finds the trail. Andre doesn’t understand how, but the 4 foot wide path of crushed grass should be a tiny clue. Amanda and Nick are in front of the green screen again, rumbling along a pretend road. There’s a lot of roads in this wood, which is handy for snake hunting I suppose.

Hasselhoff and Andre get to the end of the snake trail, which stops abruptly. They stare at the ground all baffled. Hasselhoff finally remembers that anacondas can climb trees and he remembers it just in time to push Andre out of the way of a falling branch. Andre is saved, but his walkie talkie is all smashed up. Hasselhoff says it’s okay because they already established the meeting point, but he doesn’t know Amanda went off course to investigate a factory with Nick. Andre finds some blood on a shrub, so they follow that trail instead of the trail that dried up which didn’t dry up because they’re walking along it. Nick and Amanda arrive at the factory in time to see a tail slip around a corner. Nick tries Andre on the walkie talkie but of course it’s smashed to bits now. The collar mounted one Andre was using before isn’t working either I guess? Amanda and Nick run off after the snake with a single machine gun and a pistol. Good move, doofuses. Doofii?

The factory is a mess, and there’s a basement full of dripping water and shorting out lights. They creep down the stairs. There’s a lot of zoomy shots of bits of old equipment and I have time to wonder why no one cut off the electricity to the abandoned factory. There’s a close up of “snake blood” which is made of acrylic paint. As they wobble around slowly, we see them through the snake eye lens. Man they’re slow. Get to the snake already I am bored. A nest of rats makes Nick fire half his bullets.

Hasselhoff is stalking though the jungle pretending to be someone who does that sort of thing. He spots the factory and decides that’s where the snakes are, so he and Andre jog toward it. Nick is climbing the stairs out of the basement, but gets picked up by the snake. Not spiked, picked up and crushed to death. Amanda fires her tiny pistol at the snake but that of course does no good. Nick manages to get his hand down between the snake and himself to grab a grenade and pulls the pin, shoving his hand in the snake’s mouth. What a noble if unbelievable death.

Hasselhoff and Andre are still running to the factory while Amanda wanders anguished and scared through the basement. Hasselhoff grabs his phone and talks to someone without even dialing.

Remember Murdoch? The company owner with cancer? His phone rings and his PA answers it. I don’t catch the name of the caller, but it’s someone with a voice and he wants to speak to Murdoch. As Murdoch talks to him, it turns out it’s another tracker/hunter guy. I think it’s the one from the very start of the movie who gets his face vomited on but I might be wrong. He’s in cahoots with Murdoch about something or other.

This should have happened 3 minutes into the movie

Hasselhoff and Andre creep up behind Amanda who still has her pistol and give her a fright. People need to stop doing that to armed people. Amanda tells them that Nick is dead and so is the snake. Amanda looks down and notices a massive dead egg on the ground which she didn’t notice when she walked in that spot five seconds ago. It means the Queen is ready to birth her young. With no sense of urgency, they go into one of the other rooms to lay a bomb. Just as Andre is about to get the bomb out of his bag he is shot in the chest by Hasselhoff. Oh no! He’s trying to save the snakes not kill them, what a twist. Murdoch is paying him to keep the snakes alive. Amanda kicks him and they end up having fisticuffs even though there’s a couple of guns right there. Hasselhoff picks her up by the neck and gives her ample time to get her knife and stab him in the stomach. Hasselhoff gushes CGI blood and does some acting which is terrible.

Amanda goes and grabs the bomb, activates it and throws it at the Queen Anaconda. There’s 60 seconds on the timer, so she wastes 20 of them making witty comments before clearing out of the area. Hasselhoff crawls to the bomb as baby snakes crawl all over him, but he’s too slow and gets blown up. This movie suddenly rocks.

Amanda, sole survivor of the tracking team, drives away leaving the factory burning behind her. The guy who called Murdoch is walking around the factory now. He finds one of the baby snakes which is an actual snake and not a CGI one. He bags it in a hessian sack. He’s driving to somewhere with the snake in the backseat, passing Amanda who is burning her research in a field. Leaving the fire burning in the grass, she drives off into the sunset and the movie is over.

So, let’s recap. Having found that these snakes are pretty hard to kill and it can’t be done with guns, people still take guns out to stalk the snakes. Less guns, even. As though six was just too many guns, and two guns would be deadlier.  I don’t know what the bit at the start was all about, because there was a large snake in that bit too, but I think it was supposed to be an ordinary anaconda, which means that four people blasting it with bullets was overkill. I don’t.. I just.. there was a plot to start with, but it went away and left this movie as “poorly armed people chasing badly rendered snakes.”

I’ve said a bit about the CGI, but I can’t say it enough – the CGI in this movie is woeful. It’s badly painted, badly rendered badly placed. Whatever can be done to make CGI flat and unconvincing has been done.  Little things that can make CGI so great – such as moving the generated image within a panning shot – just weren’t bothered with. People got paid for this, and I hope they never worked in the industry again. At one point I actually paused and googled “Was Anaconda III deliberately bad?” because I can’t believe this dross was seriously released.

The cast was okay. I note some of them returned for Anaconda IV (yes they did make it, no I won’t be watching it). Hasselhoff was just Hasselhoff, dashing about like a manly man with designer stubble and… no, I can’t. I don’t even want to think about him any more. Would I have enjoyed this movie without the cheesy over-acting of one Mr Hasselhoff? No, it was still terrible if you mentally remove him, but it would have been slightly less annoying.

Amanda, who was supposed to be the snake expert doctor with the degree and the skills, hilariously referred to the snakes by colour rather than gender.  “The green one.” “The black one.” She was a terrible character, clearly there because she looks good in a tank top rather than to contribute anything other than hysterical whining and some tears when needed. That’s what women do, whine and cry in tank tops.

So, in short. The plot was either terrible or not there at all, nothing anyone did made any sense whatsoever and the CGI snakes were funny instead of scary. Not even worth a watch in the hopes of “so bad it’s good” because, like others I’ve seen in this series, it’s just bad, but at least this one ended in Hasselhoff getting blown up.

Tags: Dire DVDs