Anaconda (1997)
Anaconda is a 1997 action adventure horror film directed by Luis Llosa and starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, and Owen Wilson. An international co-production between the United States and Brazil, the film focuses on a documentary film crew in the Amazon rainforest that is led by a snake hunter who is hunting down a giant, legendary green anaconda. The film received generally mixed-to-negative reviews, but was a box office success, and has become a 1990s cult classic. It is the first installment in the Anaconda film series.
Plot:
On the Amazon River, a poacher hides from an unknown creature in his boat. When it breaks through the boat and attempts to trap the poacher, he commits suicide by shooting himself to prevent it from killing him. Meanwhile, a film crew is shooting a documentary about the Shirishamas, a long-lost indigenous Amazonian tribe; the ensemble consists of director Terri Flores, cameraman and childhood friend Danny Rich, production manager Denise Kalberg, Denise’s boyfriend and sound engineer Gary Dixon, narrator Warren Westridge, anthropologist Professor Steven Cale, and boat skipper Mateo.
The group encounters stranded Paraguayan snake hunter Paul Serone, who convinces them he can help them find the Shirishamas. Most of the crew are uncomfortable around Serone, and Cale clashes with him several times about Shirishama lore. Eventually, Cale is stung by a wasp, and an allergic reaction swells up his throat and leaves him unconscious. Serone performs an emergency cricothyrotomy, seemingly saving Cale’s life, but soon after takes over the boat, forcing the group to help him achieve his true goal: hunting down a giant record-breaking green anaconda he had been tracking, which he believes that he can capture alive.
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