Search - Anacondas: Trail of Blood on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 4/26/2020...

Solid Anacondas plotline! A must watch for horror and snake fans, and of course Anacondas series fans!

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Not Really A Trail Of Blood....

brownie | ca | 07/06/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Anacondas: Trail Of Blood DVD Review

Grade: C-

Now the third Anacondas may have been ridiculous, but Trail of blood is just bad. Starting right after the third, Anaconda 3: Offspring, it quickly introduces us to a scientist working alone in a lab, enhancing the blood orchid--which was introduced in Anacondas: the Hunt For the Blood Orchid--and growing a giant snake. With the power of the blood orchid, the already-giant snake can now regenerate itself, and withstand everything from explosions to bullets.

Sounds cool, right?

Wrong. There are about a billion characters, all just there to be fodder to the snake, which you never really see. When you do see it, the CGI looks even worse than the CGI in the third one. Now I've been watching Sci-Fi channel movies for a long time, but this has to be some of the worse CGI I've ever seen. I withstood the CGI in the third one only because the third one was fun, but Trail of Blood's is just bad.

Back to the characters--boring!!! Their only purpose is to just either A) sit around and talk, or B) sit around and get eaten. Or one character chooses C), which is run wildly shooting (and missing) into the giant Anaconda's open mouth. These people are seriously suicidal.

Another thing I didn't like was that the snake would disappear for long periods of time, making the film even more boring. Even though the movie is only 88 minutes long, at times it feels like hours, with the actors and their inane dialogue--which feels exactly like filler material. For a movie with the term 'trail of blood' in it, I don't want to see people sitting around and talking! (And there's hardly any blood in this one, compared to the last one.)

The only redeeming qualities in Trail Of Blood are the fact that there are the occasional fun scenes. The snake, as bad as it may look, is still pretty awesome, (you gotta love these giant, very fake looking snakes....) and there is some decent action. To bad the entire movie looks like it was filmed with whatever money they had left from the last one.

(And Hasselhoff is missing--he was the fun part of the last one! To top it off, there's even a Hasselhoff look-alike in this one....)
"

(1.5 STARS) Slightly Better Than the Third Entry, Still Very

Tsuyoshi | Kyoto, Japan | 11/03/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Shot back-to-back with terrible "Anaconda 3: The Offspring," the fourth installment "Anaconda 4: Trail of Blood" is slightly better than its predecessor. That's what reviewers say and, yes, they are right. At least there are no useless "anaconda hunters" that only made the entire film look so stupid (not in the good sense). Still this time technically things are not much better as most of the actions lack tension and special effects still look so cheap. Most disappointingly the film is poorly written with a dearth of action.

Once again Crystal Allen stars as Dr. Amanda Hayes, a gun-toting scientist (and explosives expert) determined to stop all that she has foolishly created in the laboratory owned by a dying billionaire Mr. Murdoch (John Rhys-Davies). In the meanwhile, Mr. Murdoch hires a group of mercenaries to obtain what he thinks is his property - serum that can cure him of any disease. Also, Mr. Murdoch orders them to take care of Dr. Hayes should they come across her.

The problem is, of course, there is a giant snake at large in the woods of the Carpathians, where Amanda (guarded by two soldiers), the mercenaries and other characters including unsuspecting research team members walk around, looking for what they want.

Unfortunately for us, nothing big happens in the first half of the film. Obviously it was a bit tough for director Don E. FauntLeRoy to handle all these characters and narrative threads simultaneously. They walk, talk, sleep (or lose consciousness) and walk and talk again and we don't have many actions involving anaconda for which the film was made.

Though the film gets a little better in the second half, where things start moving faster, flat and inept direction kills potential "campy" fun the film's cheesy effects could have provided. Actors are doing their best, but "Anaconda 4" remains bad throughout, and this "bad" is not something you can enjoy watching as it was in the first "Anaconda" film with the scenery-chewing Jon Voight."

Anaconda 4 Trail of Blood... So Cosmo says you're fat

Julian Kennedy | St Pete Florida | 02/18/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Anaconda 4: Trail of Blood: 4 out of 10: Anaconda 4 has some surprisingly effective scenes in its 88 minutes.


There is a car chase towards the end of the film; first of all, the snake is chasing a car all the while a gun fight erupts among the passengers and an intruder. There is also a silhouetted chase on a sunset drenched hill between three groups of characters that have no prior knowledge of each other with the snake in the mix. Heck, there are even some tender moments between an older gun toting woman and a blond man-child lost in the woods as a snake watches them.

Much like a previous incarnation, (Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Red Orchid) this movie comes awfully close to not needing the snake at all. In fact it, dare I say it, a removal of the anaconda may have made Anaconda 4: Trail of Blood a slightly better film.


The non-snake stuff is fairly simple. John Rhys-Davies, in full "pick up a paycheck" mode, is a bad guy with bone cancer who has financed a cure which involves genetically altering snakes. He hires a hit man (who brings along six friends who cannot shoot straight and twirl their mustaches) to inexplicably kill the lead scientist (who has disappeared, translation: has been eaten.) The assassin is also asked to kill a blond chick played by Crystal Allen. She acts like an old west gunslinger but is apparently a herpetologist. The blond chick meanwhile is setting explosives in an orchid bed located in one of those ridiculously well lit caves with light bulbs placed at foot long intervals, burning 24/7. She runs into what appears to be a fifteen year old boy whom immediately becomes her love interest in a weird Private Lessons kind of twist. He is looking for the base camp where some other unrelated (non-giant snake creating) scientists are digging up a frozen body out of a UFO or something.

Like I said the snakes are almost crowded out of their own movie. It is probably for the best. While the CGI is better than many other killer snake movies this is damning with faint praise indeed. The snakes in question dont look like anacondas or even snakes at all. Replacing shark fins with bear claws does not make the shark scarier. And giving anacondas silly rows of oversized teeth and the ability to regenerate like the T-1000 (Terminator 2 Judgement Day) does not make them any scarier.

Oh, and while I picked on the first movie for having anacondas in a jungle, they are after all swamp and marsh dwellers; and picked on the second movie for having them in Borneo, which is in Asia last I checked; I dont have words to begin to describe the jaw-dropping silliness of Anacondas in Romania. The Carpathians in fall do not create the proper snake attack vibe unless it is a 60 foot cottonmouth. Also a note to the Sci-fi Channel: If I see Bear-Shark Claws of Death on your channel anytime soon Im coming after you guys. Im just giving a friendly warning here.

"