Anaconda: the return of the horror franchise is all about laughs

Griff is an actor from Los Angeles who struggles to get significant roles, stuck for years between TV cameos and humiliating auditions. His best friend Doug remained in Buffalo, their hometown, where he makes a living making wedding videos. The two have been deeply connected since childhood and share a passion for cinema, particularly for Anaconda (1997), the cult film with Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube that obsessed them as kids, when they shot amateur films in their backyard. Now, in the midst of a mid-life crisis, Griff convinces Doug that it's time to realize their dream: remake that beloved film on a ridiculous budget, directly in the Amazon jungle.

In Anaconda, having recruited old flame Claire and friend Kenny as director of photography, the group heads to Brazil, where they rent a boat and, with amateur equipment, prepare to shoot that adventurous remake. But what was supposed to be a prank project quickly turns into a nightmare when they discover that a giant anaconda specimen is actually hiding in the filming area. However, the big snake won't be the only danger the protagonists will have to contend with...

Anaconda, from before to after

When director Tom Gormican presented the hilarious The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022), a kind of peculiar meta-film about Nicolas Cage's career, where he was extraordinary and self-deprecating, many wondered what the American director would give us in the future. With Anaconda, written with his usual collaborator Kevin Etten, he returns to similar territory, building a film that exists in the same universe as the 1997 original and that celebrates its status as a trash classic, creating a kind of reboot-parody based on the chemistry between Jack Black and Paul Rudd, here in the roles of the protagonist duo.

The idea behind the operation is undoubtedly brilliant: instead of making yet another forgettable remake, why not tell the story of some individuals who, within the narrative, want to shoot a very low-budget one? We are faced with an operation that works especially when it abandons itself to pure slapstick comedy, letting the main cast - completed by Steve Zahn and Thandie Newton - run wild. Black brings his usual contagious energy, while Rudd offers the perfect counterpoint with his ironic verve, finding effective support in the aforementioned luxury supporting actors. And what about the cameos that directly recall the film at the base of everything? Inventiveness and citationism are not lacking in this new incarnation of the franchise, which finds its instinctive strength precisely in never taking itself seriously.

A matter of expectations

When Doug and Griff discuss social themes to give substance to their project, with Doug described as a kind of "white Jordan Peele", the screenplay clearly pokes fun at that kind of pretentious discourse that often accompanies genre productions in a misguided way. It is a subtle but in its own way fierce criticism, filtered through lightness, which allows us to reflect on the state and excesses of contemporary horror, some more substantial, others decidedly more gratuitous.

Those who, attracted by the name and the memory of the prototype, were looking for an update in the name of pure terror, supported by the most modern special effects, will probably be disappointed. The horror soul is in fact completely subjected to the logics of entertainment and even the rather discreet special effects follow a playful verve, with cartoonish violence and telephoned tension characterizing much of the hour and a half of viewing. All in the exotic Australian setting, which here replaces a fictitious Amazon, but still grants the right dose of pitfalls between rivers and swamps where the threat hides in ambush, ready to devour the unfortunate and to elicit laughter from an audience that has agreed to play along.