Anacondas: Trail of Blood (Anaconda 4) (2009) Movie Review, Film Still and Poster

Romania, USA 2008
Director: Don E. FauntLeRoy
Cast: Crystal Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Linden Ashby, Calin Stanciu, Danny Midwinter, Ana Ularu
Rating: R
Release Date: 28 February 2009 (TV)
Running Time: 1 hour 28 minutes 30 seconds

The Movie Review

Anacondas Trail of Blood film still 1


ANACONDAS: TRAIL of BLOOD (Anaconda 4)
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The big snakes just won't die, will they? You can try to chop 'em, burn 'em, eat 'em, whack 'em or whatever, but if the budget still exists there will always be a new big fat snake. It's not that I'm against it though, I just hope that at least a sequel is equally better than its predecessor, especially being the 4th sequel. I just won't feel right if I deliberately skip to review the 4th film while I've reviewed the other three anacondas. Besides, it was shot in Romania, so I guess that's at least worth a look, right? No! Unless you dig so much the forest.

Deep in the forest of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, a scientist, Peter (Zoltan Butuc), is experimenting with a new serum that could make a human near immortal. However, this experiment involves a very dangerous ferocious creature, the Anaconda. Eventually the serum works! The Anaconda is now able to regenerate itself as long as its internal organ isn't heavily damaged. This means, it becomes scarier than ever. The worst news is, the Anaconda escapes the lab. And so the evil one who's responsible for all this mess, Murdoch (John Rhys-Davies) sends mercenaries led by Eugene (Emil Hostina) to retrieve the serum and to kill Peter and also Murdoch's former scientist who defies him, Amanda (Crystal Allen). Amanda, along with a young man Alex (Calin Stanciu) whom she meets on the forest and 2 cops, is on her own quest to destroy the serum and the anaconda once and for all. As both parties are busy with their mission, another clueless party of 5 Archeologists got dragged along and caught in the middle of the hunt. Will our heroine finish her mission? And what happen to those people caught in the middle?

Being released by Sci-Fi channel in 2009. The official title for this horror movie is Anacondas: Trail of Blood, which I say it should have been named Anaconda 4: Trail of Blood. Okay, this suggestion seems very nitpicky, but it's important to avoid "False Advertising" labeling, because if you blind-rent or blind-buy this movie, some of you might think that it's a totally stand alone movie, while it's not! In order to appreciate the whole storyline, you should watch the 3rd one first as they're very closely related. That being said, it does not mean that Anacondas: Trail of Blood would've been such exciting horror movie. It would still be a boring one, but at least you know what it is actually about.

It's a wonder why did the filmmakers spend their budget to go to Romania just to film this boring horror movie. This 'traveling' thing is some sort of a habit in the Anaconda franchise, with the first one in Brazil and the second one in Fiji, and continued by the third film also in Romania. Well, this 4th entry was shot back-to-back with the 3rd one, so being in the same location is understandable. Nevertheless, the budget should have been put for better use, it should've been distributed to other department. Mainly, the visual effects! What's with all the green screen driving scene?! I just wish they could get rid off that, my my my it's so not-2009! Luckily, the actors and actresses could make do with whatever they got. Not that they deliver such astounding performance, but at least most of them could perform decent and make that green screen scenes at least bearable (for the very tolerant moviegoers that is). Moreover, the CGI snake is just as below-mediocre as in the 3rd one, I just glad that all the actors that fall victim to that CGI could express their fear quite well.

On the level with you all, to enjoy this animal-gone-wild horror movie, you need to be a die hard fan of snake movies or as I always did, you just gotta to have a very comfy chair with a big bucket of popcorn or chips and a very delicious drink with maybe a magazine just to get over the tedious 40 minutes before the real action begins to show up.