An American documentary crew heads deep into the rainforests of the Amazon and up the Rio Negro in search of the elusive People of the Mist. The Shirishama Indian tribe are said to worship snakes like gods, and the crew hopes to study them and capture their story on film. Leading this expedition is anthropologist Dr. Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz), who’s in a relationship with director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez). The rest of the crew includes cameraman Danny Rich (Ice Cube), production manager Denise Kalberg (Kari Wuhrer, Sliders) and her boyfriend/sound engineer Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson), and narrator Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde). Piloting them through the river in his barge is local Mateo (Vincent Castellanos).

Shortly into their trip, the crew come upon a man in distress. Paraguayan Paul Serone’s (Jon Voight) boat has become stuck and he needs a ride to the next town to get it fixed. He tells them that he had started off studying for priesthood, but the jungle called to him, and now he catches snakes for a living. He claims to have seen the Shirishama, and says that he can lead them in the right direction. They agree to take on the passenger and let him help, but there’s something slightly off about this man. As they continue on their trek, the filmmakers slowly start to realize that Paul has ulterior motives, and keeps leading them into increasingly dangerous situations. Paul appears to be on a personal quest to find and trap a 40-foot anaconda for financial gain, which soon brings the crew face-to-face with the deadly creature. Forget about the documentary, with fuel running dangerously low, now they are just hoping to stay alive and make it back home.

I had somehow never seen Anaconda before now. The cast is very recognizable (including Danny Trejo in the cold open sequence), but the characters feel pretty stereotypical and one dimensional, and the film deploys so many horror movie tropes. Within the first 15 minutes, you’ve got Gary stating how horny he is—so he and Denise head off into the jungle together to “capture some wild sounds” and of course find themselves stalked by a creature; there’s also more love with Cale and Terri having a seductive discussion about the mating rituals of fireflies. We’ve also got Paul as the obvious villain the crew doesn’t see coming, and the pompous Brit with Warren Westridge, who arrives last to the ship with all his bags, treating Mateo like his personal servant. Lopez feels a bit underused, and Ice Cube provides some comic relief.

The film is pretty much your standard creature feature, with some scares and fun moments, but also largely forgettable. The tone is generally that of a thriller, though there are some lighter moments thrown in. As the crew sails into the dark unknown, we see them being hunted by something hiding in the jungle. There are a few misdirects here and there, but these tend to be a bit predictable. We are also often shown things from the POV of this snake as it watches and stalks its prey—this is kind of creative, even if ridiculous at times. The snake effects in general aren’t the greatest. Scenes that utilize the practical animatronic snake look more believable, but whenever the snake grabs and coils around its prey, the CGI is quite obvious and sometimes laughable. You also can’t really think about the plot too seriously, and just enjoy the ride, or else things would really start to fall apart.

Anaconda has previously been released on Blu-ray several times—first in 2009 by Sony and then in 2014 and again in 2019 from Mill Creek. While none of the previous releases included any bonus material, Mill Creek’s new SteelBook release actually does—a brand new interview with the film’s director, Louis Llosa. It is an interesting interview, though a bit short—I wish they had been able to do a full commentary track instead. This release likely uses the same video source material as the previous releases. The picture can be hit or miss. Lighter scenes look great, with nice colors, and a solid level of detail, but darker sequences experience some blockiness and grain. In these scenes blacks come off more as a grainy faded gray, while faces look a bit pale. As mentioned earlier, the CGI effects look dated and don’t really blend in seamlessly.

As for the audio, unfortunately, for the third time, Mill Creek has decided to only include a 2.0 stereo audio track on this release, even though Sony’s original Blu-ray release offered the film in 5.1 surround sound. The track lacks the immersive feel of a surround channel, and tries to use increased volume to make up for this, which sometimes drowns out the dialogue.

This new Walmart-exclusive release comes on a single Blu-ray disc placed inside a beautiful-looking SteelBook case—the interior and exterior of which can be seen below.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:29:22)

• 1080p / Widescreen 2.40:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:
This is the first time a Blu-ray release for this film has included bonus material, which consists of one brand new featurette.

• There’s a Devil Inside Everyone: Directing Anaconda (16:342)
  The director talks about how he’s a fan of thrillers but not horror movies and took this as a challenge. He also discusses the budget, assembling an ensemble cast using Jon Voight as the name to attract others to the project, working with the cast and their fears of shooting in the Amazon, working with cinematographer Billy Butler, the use of animatronics and CGI, and more. He shares some interesting behind-the-scenes stories about the production. The director talks over a montage of production photos and clips from the film, periodically switching to a side-by-side view with video of the director making his commentary on the right. There are some gaps where there is no talking.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, Anacaona is a fun, though largely forgettable creature feature with a recognizable cast. Mill Creek has re-released Anaconda on Blu-ray for the third time in a beautiful new Walmart-exclusive SteelBook case. While none of the previous Blu-ray releases for this film included any bonus material, this SteelBook release actually contains a brand new interview with the film’s director. However, like Mill Creek’s previous releases, this disc only contains a 2.0 stereo audio track rather than the 5.1 surround one offered on Sony’s original Blu-ray disc release. There is also no digital copy included. While the interview is interesting, I wish that it had been a feature-length commentary. I would say this release is more for the SteelBook collectors or die-hard fans. Others may want to try to seek out the original Sony release with its surround sound track.