Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (also known as Anaconda 2) is a 2004 American action adventure horror film directed by Dwight H. Little. It is a stand-alone sequel to the film Anaconda (1997) and the second installment in the Anaconda film series. It stars Johnny Messner, KaDee Strickland, Matthew Marsden, Eugene Byrd, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Nicholas Gonzalez, Karl Yune and Morris Chestnut. The film follows a team of researchers set for an expedition into the Southeast Asian tropical island of Borneo, to search for a sacred flower which they believe will bring humans to a longer and healthier life. They soon become stalked and hunted by the deadly giant anacondas inhabiting the island.

It was released on August 27, 2004, and the last film in the series to be released theatrically, until 2025. Like its predecessor, the film received mostly negative reviews but was a financial success. The film was followed by a sequel, Anaconda 3: Offspring in 2008.

A team of researchers funded by New York pharmaceutical firm Wexel Hall, including Gordon Mitchell, Dr. Jack Byron, Sam Rogers, Gail Stern, Cole Burris, and Dr. Ben Douglas, leave for a jungle in Borneo to search for a flower called Perrinnia immortalis--"the Blood Orchid"—that they believe contains a fountain of youth. Jack convinces guide Captain Bill Johnson and his partner Tran Wu to take an unsafe path despite their misgivings. At one point, Gail falls into the water, loses her phone, and is attacked by a crocodile before Bill rescues her. Their boat goes over a waterfall and breaks apart. They call Bill's friend, John Livingston, who lives on the river, to rendezvous with them and pick them up in his boat. While crossing a flooded field, a giant anaconda emerges from the water and swallows Ben. The rest of the team reaches the shore. Bill assures them that it is the largest snake he has ever seen and that it should take weeks for it to grow hungry again. However, most of the team demands that the expedition be called off. Upon making to the meeting point, they find Livingston's boat wrecked and his body in the forest, with evidence he was attacked and killed by another anaconda.

They find an abandoned native village, as well a disemboweled anaconda with the corpse of a native in its stomach. Bill theorizes that the multiple anacondas in the area are due to a nearby female in heat. several carvings show the anacondas eating the blood orchid. The researchers suspect the orchids are a part of the food chain, and these snakes are larger because they are living longer. Jack realizes the orchids must be nearby, while Gail contends that the orchids may not work on humans. Jack still wants to find the flowers, but the others overrule him and build an escape raft to leave the jungle.

Gordon discovers that Jack has hidden Livingston's radio and gun. The now-psychopathic Jack fails to convince him to continue with the expedition, so he paralyzes Gordon using a previously collected spider to stop him from informing the others. Jack joins the others at the raft, but Sam is suspicious and discovers Gordon and the spider bite. An anaconda swallows Gordon alive as she informs the others, who arrive to late to save him. Bill sets the building on fire in an attempt to kill the snake but it flees. Jack, left alone, steals the raft.

Unable to make another raft, they hack through the jungle to beat Jack to the orchids and retrieve their raft. On the way, they fall into a cave, trying to escape an anaconda. Cole gets lost and finds human skeletons. He is found by Tran, who then gets pulled under the water and eaten. Bill finds Tran's lost flashlight floating in bloody water. A terrified Cole escapes from the cave seconds ahead of the snake, which gets stuck in the hole. Sam beheads it with a machete, but another snake captures the hysterical Cole. The team finds him being constricted. Bill kills the snake with a knife, freeing Cole.

The group finds Jack and the raft. Jack shoots Bill in the arm to keep him from attacking and forces the party to accompany him to the orchids, which grow above a pit where a ball of male anacondas mate with the female. Jack forces Sam at gunpoint to cross the pit via a thin log to fill a backpack with orchids. As she returns, the log begins to crack. Jack orders her to throw him the backpack. Sam threatens to drop the flowers into the pit, but Jack threatens to shoot the others. The log breaks, causing Sam to drop the backpack. As the others try to reach Sam, Jack goes for the backpack. The spider he used earlier escapes from its jar and bites him. Paralyzed, Jack falls into the pit and is devoured. The vine holding Sam also gives way, but she climbs out of the pit as the female anaconda chases her. Gail tricks the snake into biting their fuel container. Cole shoots a flare gun at the gasoline-covered anaconda, immolating it and casuing it to fall back into the pit where it explodes, killing the other snakes. The ensuing landslide buries the blood orchids. The survivors—Bill, Sam, Gail, and Cole—return to the raft and head to Kota Bharu.

• Johnny Messner as Bill Johnson
• KaDee Strickland as Sam Rogers
• Matthew Marsden as Dr. Jack Byron
• Salli Richardson-Whitfield as Gail Stern
• Eugene Byrd as Cole Burris
• Morris Chestnut as Gordon Mitchell
• Karl Yune as Tran Wu
• Nicholas Gonzalez as Dr. Ben Douglas
• Andy Anderson as John Livingston
• Nicholas Hope as Christian Van Dyke
• Peter Curtin as Lawyer
• Denis Arndt as CEO
• Andre Tandjung as Bartender
• Khoa Do as Lead Lopak Hunter
• Aireti as Lopak Hunter

The soundtrack for the film was composed by Nerida Tyson-Chew and released by Varèse Sarabande.^[3]

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid debuted at second place in the box office, earned $32.2 million in the United States and an international gross of $38.8 million, bringing a worldwide total of $71 million, making it the lowest-grossing film in the franchise.^[2]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 26% of 120 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "A cheesy monster B-movie."^[4] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 40 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[5]

Roger Ebert awarded the film two out of four stars, a rating less than that he gave the original film. Ebert, however, praised Matthew Marsden's performance as being "suitably treacherous".^[6] Keith Philipps of The A.V. Club criticized the movie for its CGI snakes, while The Oregonian's Karen Karbo said it never "takes itself too seriously".^[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

The film takes place in Borneo. However, anacondas are native to South America.^[9] Additionally, the "stone spider" featured in the film is fictional, and is portrayed by a golden silk spider, which is relatively harmless to humans.

A sequel titled Anaconda 3: Offspring, was released in 2008.

• List of killer snake films

• Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid at IMDb
• Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid at Rotten Tomatoes
• Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid at Metacritic
• Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid at Box Office Mojo