24 Random Thoughts While Watching Anaconda (1997)

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As someone who watches a lot of movies (you can check out my Letterboxd to see how frequently I'm watching something), I spend an inordinate amount of time talking to myself. The more frequently I revisit something, the more in-depth I can become on trying to deconstruct the world in which things are presented.

Last week, I went on a bit of tear at home about Anaconda, the 1997 cheese-fest about a group of beautiful dummies who travel to the Amazon jungle and have an encounter with the mother of all snakes. Anaconda is a guilty pleasure for me. I've seen it pretty more than most people should. So when I randomly asked on social if people would want to read the random thoughts I have about this movie, I was shocked that more than one person said yes. (Shoutout to Rosie Knight, especially!) So, here we are, the various threads I think about while watching Anaconda. Be sure to leave your thoughts on the movie in the comments below (as well as whether I should ever do this again).

Note, these are all in good fun and, yes, I know this is a movie at the end of the day. Any comments that start with "The screenwriter didn't do this for a reason" or some variant of that will get a side-eye from me.

The plot in a nutshell: A professor (Eric Stoltz) takes a group of filmmakers – consisting of indie director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) cinematographer Danny Rich (Ice Cube), sound guy Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson), production manager Denise Kalberg (Kari Wuher) and narrator Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde) – out on a river in the Amazon in search of a mysterious tribe of native Indigenous people. Along the way, they meet the shadowy Paul Sarone (Jon Voight) who, through a series of events, takes the crew down a different path in hunt of a big ass snake.

• Honestly, until putting together that plot summary above, I had no idea at least three of these characters had last names.
• Jaws (1976) is clearly a primary influence on Anaconda. Outside of its creature feature trappings there's even a moment wherein the primary snake who becomes the main focus (who I'll be referring to as just "Anaconda") is finally revealed and Lopez gets the Chief Brody dolly shot treatment. With Jaws, though, there was no long text crawl explaining what sharks were. So it's a bit funny that a movie literally called Anaconda needs to explain what a snake is.
• This movie also implies that it's one vengeful anaconda that wants to take everyone out and not just a species of snake that just live around there. This is what I call "Twister-izing" wherein we turn something non-human (twisters, anaconda) into the equivalent of a serial killer. Never mind that said anaconda has reason to be pissed at a bunch of dirty Americans walking through her jungle starting shit.