To that end, company scientists have, for whatever reason, genetically augmented a breeding pair that they now keep in a research facility in eastern Europe. And the answer, right now, appears to be, "only if you're an anaconda". Some years after the failed mission of The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, the pharmaceutical company Wexel Hall has busily caught up with where it hoped to be after that film, and then some: not only have they found more blood orchid samples, they've been able to run tests on a number of different species, trying to work out whether it's actually a cures-everything-including-aging wonder drug. It's a draining exercise in genre clichés, mostly. And I suppose I am grateful for this small favor at least, but it does raise the question of what's left about Offspring, if it's not even a parody.įrankly, I'm not even sure, having watched the whole movie. It's not a Sharknado-style funny/bad on purpose movie: there's no sense that we're being asked to laugh at the snakes, or anything else. The kind that we are invited to view through a veil of sneering superiority, with the filmmakers themselves obviously finding the material too ludicrous and shitty to bother with anything other than smug contempt. But this is the point where it becomes "made for Sci fi" trash. Look, these films have always been trash, and self-aware trash. We have well and truly abandoned any pretext of real animals at this point the 60-foot mutant anacondas of Offspring look like cartoon monsters, with big bug eyes and villainous sneers. But I cannot comprehend the design of the things. The anacondas in Offspring are weightless and shiny, floating along the ground rather than slithering along it, and this I can at least comprehend. But it's hard to regard what we do get as anything other than an act of hostility for the audience. The budget of a Sci Fi original was never going to support even the somewhat whiffy CGI of The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, of course, and Christ knows we weren't going to get the delightful animatronics of the original 1997 Anaconda. If there is one sin for which I cannot forgive Offspring, it's that it obviously doesn't give a shit about its titular anacondas. It understands the usefulness of setting up shop in the actual rainforest and letting its gloomy majesty do the necessary work of establishing a mood wherein we look forward to the arrival of giant, murderous snakes.įor that matter, it understands that we're there because, no matter what else, we like the idea of giant, murderous snakes. I had only scornful things to say about 2004's Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, and I take none of them back, but at least that film understands the appeal of its content. It is, damn its eyes, a TV film it is no less than a film that premiered on Sci Fi, a mark of anti-quality if anything in the 2000s guaranteed a bad genre film was in the offing. Same thing in different clothes: the point where a movie series has given up on any production values at all, scales down its budget and cast to the point of "looks fine on TV", and gives up even pretending to take itself seriously as anything other than 90s minutes of filler attached to a salable brand name.Ģ008's Anaconda 3: Offspring finds the Anaconda franchise arriving at that point. In the '80s, it was going direct to VHS in the '90s and '00s, it was going to direct to cable in the '10s, it was going direct to streaming. There is point in the lifecycle of many franchises where they are truly lost, beyond the hope of salvation.
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