Board 8 > Gauntlet Crew Ranks 90s Horror Films - Do you like ranking scary movies?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hello Gauntlet Crew and Board 8 alike, and welcome back to the latest installment of Gauntlet Crew Ranks! Collectively, we watched, ranked, and wrote-up 40 influential horror films from the 90s curated by myself, spanning all manner of sub-genres from slashers to sharks to the cerebral. As always, since this group isn't the biggest of horror fans in general, I appreciate everyone's participation and for giving these films a fair and open-minded shot! Following scarlet's sci-fi example, I will also be explaining why I chose these films in particular. I would like to see more future gauntlet crew projects do this too!

The fine people of gauntlet crew who participated this time are as follows: Charon, Genny, Karo, Inviso, scarlet, JONA, Johnbobb, KBM, and of course, myself!

And the 40 films we ranked:

Jacobs Ladder (1990)
Misery (1990)
Tremors (1990)
Arachnophobia (1990)
Flatliners (1990)
Child's Play 2 (1990)
Nightbreed (1990)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Candyman (1992)
Bram Stokers Dracula (1992)
Dead Alive/Braindead (1992)
Demonic Toys (1992)
Army of Darkness (1993)
Cronos (1993)
Leprechaun (1993)
Fire in the Sky (1993)
Wes Cravens New Nightmare (1994)
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
Cemetery Man (1994)
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Seven (1995)
Species (1995)
Scream (1996)
The Frighteners (1996)
From Dusk till Dawn (1996)
Event Horizon(1997)
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Wishmaster (1997)
Cube (1997)
Anaconda (1997)
Mimic (1997)
Urban Legend (1998)
Ring(1998)
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Stir of Echoes (1999)
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Audition (1999)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Deep Blue Sea (1999)

I hope everyone enjoys the list and has a spooky-good time!
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So many movies we should've forced Wickle to watch. :P
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evil toy tag
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Tagging for Wickle's benefit.
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These are the total point scores of all 40 films, determined by adding up each individual list's placements.

35
41
52
71
74
83
107
110
116
126
129
130
136
138
150
159
159
163
183
185
191
200
203
206
218
226
229
233
234
242
243
243
255
256
260
269
269
274
286
314
331

In addition to the main ranking, there is also an outlier contest to determine the most "out-there" opinions and the person who ranked most safely.
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I find it frightening that last place isn't more clear-cut.
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Hint for #40: This film only has two rankings outside the bottom 5.
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Predicting Seven wins.

As for what gets eliminated first, I hope it isnt Demonic Toys but I kinda get the feeling a lot of you hated it.
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40. Demonic Toys

KBM: 30
Karo: 33
Genny: 35
JONA: 36
Inviso: 38
Charon: 39
Johnbobb: 40
Scarlet: 40
Snake: 40

KBM - Almost every positive thing you can say about Demonic Toys must be qualified with the phrase for a direct-to-video movie. This is some pretty fun gory horror schlock, for a direct-to-video movie. There are some pretty good performances, for a direct-to-video movie. The fact that it all takes place in more-or-less real time is an interesting gimmick that's pulled off fairly well, for a direct-to-video movie. You get the picture. It is pretty fun to see the underrated Tracy Scoggins get a legit leading role, even if it is in something pretty stupid like this. The production values also definitely do not do this movie any favors I understand a movie like this is gonna have some pretty cheap effects, but it's also pretty incompetently filmed a lot of the time and has a really bad, grating musical score that gave me a headache for awhile. And as surprisingly decent as most of the characters are, the girl from the air vents was quite annoying and managed to offset some of the goodwill the movie had built up with me before her arrival.

Karo - Some people get trapped in a toy warehouse for various arbitrary reasons, and unfortunately Satan lives there and has animated the toys to do his bidding. Everyone has a bizarre, unnatural way of speaking like they are Yu-Gi-Oh characters, and they fucking say the fucking word fuck at least fucking twice in every fucking sentence for fucks sake. The toys themselves lack any sort of presence or fear, most of them are literally just puppets straight out of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and can't be taken seriously in the slightest. Hmm, at least we have never had a movie about evil toys that come to life before! Oh, wait. It is just a cheap, unoriginal piece of direct-to-video dreck that is amusing at first but soon gets very old and very boring.

Genny - Demonic Toys is one of few movies on this list that made me question "Snakes... why?" aloud. That said I enjoyed it on some level. I mean the movie is hella dumb, but the titular characters were kind of cool. 4.7/10

JONA - While the movie has its so-bad-its-good moments, a good chunk of the movie is just straight-up bad.

Inviso - This movie was so fucking stupid. It felt like a direct attempt to capitalize on thesuccess? I guess? Of Childs Play. You can definitely see the influence in having a baby doll with a knife who swears a lot. But yeah, everything about this movie is cheesy and bad, but not in a so bad its good sort of way. The movie fucking STARTS with a couple finding out that the woman is pregnant, only to then reveal that theyre both cops, undergoing a sting operation. The male cop is killed, and for whatever dumb reason, the film shifts into a toy warehouse, where apparently a demonic presence has taken control of some toys. Then a cast of random misfits gets involved (psycho criminal, asshole chicken delivery boy, fat guard, random homeless girl), most of whom ONLY exist to be killed off. Its really dumb, and it gets dumber when it turns out that the demon wants to take over her unborn babys body. Who the FUCK thought this was a good idea? This was fucking TERRIBLE
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Charon - An unnecessary B-Movie that stands apart from the crowd, in all the wrong ways. While not as offensive as I expected, but still very much so in terms of plot originality and acting. Very poor acting by basically the entire cast of this film, sans the toys which are saved by the fact they just have to be voiced. The baby was funny and times, I liked him. That's about it though. The main villain is a laughable joke and is never interesting or threatening in the least way; speaking of laughable joke, his laugh is a joke indeed. It just seemed like the type of film that didn't need to be on this list. It felt like including one of the DVD sequels on the Disney canon list. While I didn't rank it dead last, it feels wrong to have to rank it at all.

Johnbobb - oh fuck off

Scarlet - This, in fact, may be the worst film weve ever watched for a list. When people say a movie is so bad its good, they are lying. Its a way for them to make themselves feel better about liking something that they know is objectively awful. Its an attempt to deflect judgment away from them, absolving themselves of having bad taste because they know, deep down, that their opinions suck. I met someone who said that this movie was an example of that so bad its good mentality. It is, in fact, not. This is the most fundamentally broken piece of shit travesty that has ever been forced onto a list for Gauntlet Crew that Ive ever seen. And I include every single one of Karos pawfuckery TV torture sessions in that. Snake has gone out and said, Let me do my level worst to demonstrate that there is nothing good and true about the notion of films as art. Let me present to all of you the perfect representation of why horror will always be seen as a fourth-rate money grubbing carny genre that drags the greater aspirations of filmmaking into the gutter, proving that there are things so utterly without merit that they by themselves force horror as an entire genre to capitulate to even the toilet humor of straight-to-DVD National Lampoon early-2000s college humor films as the better man. Snake handed us a film with no quality camerawork, no quality effects work, no quality script, no quality acting. This is the definition of no quality. Much like Snake, apparently. Worst user picking worst film. Right here. You cant teach that. Only a lucky few are born with the ability to dig up such base excrement and pass it off as anything other than the most worthless piece of shit imaginable.
Rating: 2/100

Snake - Why I Chose It - Demonic Toys is one of the flagship franchises of Full Moon Entertainment, and one of their biggest hits early on in their formation. It has spawned many sequels and crossovers and has helped paved the modern way for b-movie horror icons like Gingerdead Man and Evil Bong. It was also an early writing credit for David S. Goyer, who would go on to help write the Dark Knight trilogy with Christopher Nolan.

My thoughts - I fucking DESPISE Demonic Toys. I'm humiliated that I own this crapper on DVD. It is downright one of the most boring, slow-paced, horribly acted, terribly shot, cheesy as hell films I've ever had the displeasure of seeing. It takes everything I adore and hold dear about horror, puts in it it's filthy, money-hungry, brain-dead hands,and squeezes it until no life or joy remains. There isn't an original bone in this film's body, and Full Moon is more than eager to rip-off even it's own GOD DAMN PUPPET MASTER FRANCHISE because they've never even heard of the words creativity, or originality, or independent thought. Holy crap. This is deeper than bargain bin trash. There's only a certain place in hell a film like this could ever be made.
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Wow, #1 with an average under 4?
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Oh hi.

Yep. But not my #40 after all!
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Aww man. I actually really liked Demonic Toys. It was bad, but I felt like it was purposely bad. I was cracking up through most of it, whether for the aggressive, over the top dialog between the characters, or the fact that it was a weird Chucky and Bible Black mash up, or for freaking Oopsie Baby. I had a blast watching it.
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Outlier

KBM - 10
Karo - 7
Genny - 5
JONA - 4
Inviso - 2
Charon - 1
Johnbobb - 0
Scarlet - 0
Snake - 0

KBM makes a strong start in Outlier, with Karo not too far behind. Is this a sign of things to come? We shall see.
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StifledSilence posted...

Aww man. I actually really liked Demonic Toys. It was bad, but I felt like it was purposely bad.

Snake5555555555 posted...

When people say a movie is so bad its good, they are lying. Its a way for them to make themselves feel better about liking something that they know is objectively awful. Its an attempt to deflect judgment away from them, absolving themselves of having bad taste because they know, deep down, that their opinions suck.

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I dunno. I think you can admit you like something bad without deflecting. Its deflecting when someone is like no! Demonic Toys is a masterpiece and it got snubbed for a best picture nominee! Like that would be just delusional. But I like it for what it is: a campy mess.
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I don't think any film sets out to be purposefully bad. The quintessential proof of that is The Room. There was just a very clear lack of talent on display on Demonic Toys.
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Yay, the topic is posted so I can read the topic and say all my "nope"s about each movie.

*sees gory on a write-up* NOPE.

Also now I get to get started on the next list, yay.

Oh, and fuck you Vis.
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Snake5555555555 posted...

I don't think any film sets out to be purposefully bad.

one of the films on this list clearly does this and it doesn't involve dolls from hell
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I was definitely getting over the top parody vibes from Demonic Toys. I was feeling like they made it campy and hokey on purpose. Im probably wrong, but thats the feeling I got while watching it.
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Hint for #39: This film had one ranking in the top-half of a list.
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What could you possibly think is a 1/100 film, Scarlet? What did this movie do to earn that one extra point?
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Star Wars Holiday Special is a 1/100.
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Tag
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The scale functions like this:

1 - Completely irredeemable. Star Wars Holiday Special is a 1.
2-10 - Gross or offensive or a chore to watch. Spice World is a 10.
11-20 - Aside from one or two minor moments of enjoyment, something I would never force myself to sit through again. Alvin and the Chipmunks is a 20.
21-30 - Pretty disappointing. There may be some potential here, but it's squandered by generally poor quality. Eragon is a 30.
31-40 - A general room of thumb is that these movies are mostly forgettable and what is memorable is a feeling of malaise or boredom. There can be some good material in a 40, but it's outweighed by just blandness. Lilo & Stitch is a 40.
41-50 - Slightly below average. These movies are generally equal parts bad and good. There's no better representative of this category than Maleficent, which is a 50.
51-60 - Trending upwards in quality. I probably wouldn't watch it again, but there are some decent performances or effects and the script isn't a complete disaster. Finding Dory is a 60.
61-70 - We're talking about some pretty decent movies at this point, especially hitting 70s. There are imperfections, but these are enjoyable, rewatchable films. The original MASH is a 70.
71-80 - Once you hit 80, you are a film I love. Until that point, these films are usually really well-made movies that I just have aesthetic differences with. Schindler's list is the ultimate 79, a brilliant and amazing film that I would never watch again. An 80 would be Seven Samurai.
81-90 - It's all a lovefest at this point. These aren't the greatest films of all time or anything, but I definitely will go back to the well on them. I quote them, I know them. Good Night and Good Luck is a solid 90 film.
91-99 - Movies that will end up on Best-Of lists for me. Almost no real imperfections. I can probably break down what makes each scene work because I've watched them enough times to do so. Memento is a 99.
100 - There is no such thing as perfect, but these films come damn close. I've given 10 perfect scores to movies. The Sting is an example of a 100.
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Somehow I knew I'd be the top ranking for this one!
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Snake5555555555 posted...

Following scarlet's sci-fi example, I will also be explaining why I chose these films in particular. I would like to see more future gauntlet crew projects do this too!

I'll probably try to do that with the LGBT films, though no promises how good the reasoning will be for all
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also 40th place is too high for Demonic Toys

As far as worst movie on any Gauntlet list so far, it's about tied with Pound Puppies for me
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Ooh, I don't know what Demonic Toys is, but now I want to see Doll Graveyard on a list for 2000's horror!

scarletspeed7 posted...

Star Wars Holiday Special is a 1/100.

Fair.
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Mega Mana posted...

Ooh, I don't know what Demonic Toys is, but now I want to see Doll Graveyard on a list for 2000's horror!

please no
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Johnbobb posted...

also 40th place is too high for Demonic Toys

As far as worst movie on any Gauntlet list so far, it's about tied with Pound Puppies for me

As bad as Demonic Toys was, there was one movie on this list I consider the most boring film we've watched, including the RomCom list which had some plodding ones for sure. I still wouldn't say it was as bad as Troll in Central Park either. In my book that one still reigns supreme.
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As far as doing the nasty nothing tops Barbarella on these lists. A Troll in Central Park was the worst objectively, but at least I knew what to expect with that one. Barbarella made me actively angry- so much so that Char and I had to watch in two separate installments so that we wouldn't go insane.
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joined too late to watch Troll in Central Park
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Hello, everyone who is following this ranking!

As the Gauntlet Crew already knows, I was also going to participate, but I fell too far behind the pace. That doesn't mean I have nothing to post here, though! So far, I've seen 16 of these movies, and I intend to watch at least a few more over the course of this topic - depending on which ones get eliminated in which order, of course.

Here is the list of movies I've watched so far, in alphabetical order:

Arachnophobia
Army of Darkness
Braindead
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Candyman
Child's Play 2
Demonic Toys
Fire in the Sky
Flatliners
Jacob's Ladder
Leprechaun
Misery
Nightbreed
Ring
The Silence of the Lambs
Tremors

Yes, you may notice a pattern: I watched the first 15 in chronological order, back when I was still convinced I could get the full list done in time. My Demonic Toys write-up will be coming very soon.
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16. Demonic Toys

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways:

1. You think lots of loud noises, bloodshed, and general grossness equate to genuine scares.
2. You feel incompetence is a laugh riot, and that people should inherently find death funny.
3. You believe in things happening because the plot wants them to, no matter how nonsensical.
4. You ruined your one remotely novel idea by thoroughly ripping off the Childs Play series.
5. Your actors playing humans decided shrieking was a good substitute for actual acting.
6. Your writer and director didnt give them anything to work with, so that was inevitable.
7. Your characters are all thoroughly unlikeable and uninteresting types.
8. You delight in exploiting the specter of rape and an unwanted pregnancy for cheap thrills.
9. You have an absurd, mumbo-jumbo ending, completely unearned by the previous material.
10. You werent even willing to give me the release of being totally unwatchable.
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39. Leprechaun

Genny - 16
Charon - 32
Inviso - 35
Karo - 37
Johnbobb - 38
JONA - 39
KBM - 39
Scarlet - 39
Snake - 39

Genny - I grew up with the Leprechaun movies- all of them so suffice it to say I've seen them at their "best", and I've seen them at their worst. I may be more than a bit biased here, but I found the antagonist hilarious. While sometimes very cheesy, the deaths he deals his victims are often ironic and clever. The real issue herein is the side characters. I can't remember the daughter's name, but she is such a brat it's impossible for me to root for her survival, or for the guy who's so dim he swallows a coin made of gold checking its authenticity. There's probably something to be said about the film exploiting little people, but I'm not gonna be the one to say it. Hell, Flitwick looked like he was having a ball playing this role anyway. 7.6/10

Charon - Quietly one of the least violent films on the list, while Leprechaun isn't for kids its plot will kinda make you believe that maybe it really is. It has a sort of odd charm but at the same time you never really forget that this isn't a very good film. It's complete with a strange romance of course. Aniston's character is introduced as this snobby city girl but she quickly becomes whatever she thinks this dude wants her to be because he's so hot or whatever. It's a little hard to take the villain seriously of course, but that's aided by the fact he basically never really kills anyone. I guess you can count the old dude from the intro later in the movie? I don't know. I think the fact that he isn't much of a threat and gets his ass handed to him a few different times while never getting one over on the protagonists brings this down a bit for me.

Inviso - I WANTED to enjoy this as a cheesy slasher film, but Leprechaun just kinda failed on multiple levels. For starters, the titular leprechaun is a killer who has a motive at least: he wants his gold back. And thats finebut if his sole motive is wanting his gold (and hes generally content to just leave people be when he has it), the fact that hes so insistent on being needlessly obtuse gets a bit frustrating (and it also makes him fail as a horror killer). Theres a scene where like, four people are just whacking him with random objects, and it comes off as goofy when hes clearly supposed to be a threat. Same goes for the whack-a-mole sequence in the kitchen, or any scene in which his movements are sped up for comedic effect. He just doesnt feel scary.

It also doesnt help that the body count is SO low in the film. IIRC, only four people actually die, and one of those is a woman who falls down some stairs. Theres one kill that actually feels somewhat interesting: the pogo stick. Its completely unnecessary, and I feel bad for the victim, because he didnt deserve that. But its wacky and interesting, and feels like it fits the tone the film SHOULD have been going for. Instead, everything else is just lady falls down some stairs, cop, whose role in the film is almost COMPLETELY contrived and superfluous, gets his neck snapped, and guy from the opening scene shows up all bloodied in an elevator. Four kills in a slasher movie. Whole lot of biting and unnecessary injuriesbut seriously? Only four kills? Thats just dumb.
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Karo - A father and daughter buy a run down country home only to find out that someone packed a goddamn leprechaun into a crate in the basement and he only just now decides to try and escape instead of just calling out to the real estate agent or something and just fuck it.

The little green munchkin then proceeds to mete out bloody justice to those who took his pot o' gold. Man, if Lucky behaved this way he wouldn't always have those damn kids trying to steal his shitty breakfast cereal.

All the characters are terrible and unrealistic, none moreso than the little boy, who just might be the most stupidly written child character in the history of cinema. The leprechaun himself is not actually scary, but rather just some gross reject from the Garbage Pail Kids.

Not that any of this would really matter, given how every part of the movie is already completely idiotic. Four-leaf clovers are apparently now the bane of leprechauns, when has this ever been a thing? That's like saying the only way to kill Santa Claus is to pound a candy cane through his heart.

Add in a bunch of writers who can't decide whether they want this to be looney tunes or a horror flick and the result is a disastrous mismash of poorly compatible ideas with no direction, no tension, and absolutely no reason for existing.

Johnbobb - "*open on the bedroom from Friends*
Rachel: Hey, look at this gold I found
Ross: *enters, dressed as a Leprechaun*
Rachel: Ross! Leprechauns aren't real!
Ross: Gimme that gold, Rachel.
*audience laughs*
Ross: *stabs Rachel, takes gold*
Rachel: Oh, Ross!
*audience cheers*

I don't watch Friends and also I hate this movie"

JONA - If you want a not scary and unfunny experience dealing with a short person, you should just rather talk to me than watch this movie.

KBM - There are very few things that are more painful to sit through than a bad comedy and fuck me if this isn't one of the worst horror comedies I've ever seen. I felt sorry for Warwick Davis for being associated with this franchise, even though it seemed like he was having fun with the schlocky material. He may have been the only one. Jennifer Aniston is relegated to playing very broad early '90s feminist gags that are so stereotypical and dated it hurts. There's a Precocious Ten-Year-Old who truly scrapes the bottom of the child acting barrel, and seemingly just to add to the bang-your-head-against-the-wall factor, his best friend is a mentally challenged guy where the whole joke is that he's mentally challenged. You would think a movie where an evil leprechaun graphically kills a guy with a pogo stick would have at least something going for it, but it's all so incompetently done that by the time we reach the more... let's say creative... deaths, the movie has had a mind-numbing effect and you're just waiting for it to please be over so you can move on to doing something, anything else.

Scarlet - Bad. 6/100

Snake - Why I Chose It - Though maybe not as big or recognizable as Halloween or Friday the 13th, Leprechaun is a stalwart horror franchise with 5 sequels and a reboot. Lubdan the Leprechaun is arguably Warwick Davis' most well-known role, and Leprechaun also launched the film career of Jennifer Aniston. It has also become a minor part of St. Patrick's Day culture.

My Thoughts - Leprechauns are not funny, and they are definitely not scary. So, what is this movie then? It's a boring slog where practically nothing happens, and this really is one of the most stupid premises for a horror movie. Davis is decent I suppose, but the rest of the performances could be replaced with cardboard cut-outs and I wouldn't know the difference. There's a strange lack of killing here, which could've salvaged it a little. That wouldn't have saved it however from a startling lack of depth though.
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Snake5555555555 posted...

Lubdan the Leprechaun is arguably Warwick Davis' most well-known role

This can't possibly be true over Willow which outgrossed it both in theaters and on VHS/DVD. Or his TV series, or Wicket in Star Wars.
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Outlier

Genny - 28
KBM - 10
Karo - 9
Charon - 8
Inviso - 6
JONA - 4
Johnbobb - 1
Scarlet - 0
Snake - 0

Genny takes a huge leap ahead on this ranking, with little movement for the rest.
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Yeah...this one disappointed me too. I thought it was gonna be a fun campy romp, but it lacked substance and lacked screen time for the title character. Plus I really dont like Jennifer Aniston.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Snake5555555555 posted...

Lubdan the Leprechaun is arguably Warwick Davis' most well-known role

This can't possibly be true over Willow which outgrossed it both in theaters and on VHS/DVD. Or his TV series, or Wicket in Star Wars.

Well I did say it was arguable! I mean you're probably right but I've talked to many people who usually mention Leprechaun first when talking about his movies.
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Leprechaun is definitely the first thing I associate him with
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How short is JONA?
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Leprechaun as a series is just one of those that are kinda... right below the major franchises. I am aware of it, but I never expect much from it nor am I really drawn in to see it because the titular villain never does anything much for me. That said, I kinda am curious how the darker rebooted one was, it came out in December of last year as a TV film I think. It has a better RT score than the rest of the series does, though I mean it's still only at 38% but I think that's a good deal higher than anything else the series has managed.
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I don't really enjoy the Leprechaun series at all but I think it was smart that it really leaned into the more overt comedy aspects of the first film. I think the films really managed to find a true cult audience that way, even if I don't particularly care for it. I too heard some decent reception for Leprechaun Returns, I haven't seen it though.
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Im kind of interested in checking out a few of the weird sequels. Like Leprechaun in the Hood or Leprechaun in Space.
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Tag! I've only watched 4 of these though.
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StifledSilence posted...

Im kind of interested in checking out a few of the weird sequels. Like Leprechaun in the Hood or Leprechaun in Space.

literally the only thing you need to see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWlhLSitJ8" data-time="
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15. Leprechaun

The luck of the Irish wont be with the unfortunate souls who watch this scareless, humorless piece of celluloid. Multiple borderline scene-ruining main characters, plus inert direction and a phoned-in script, lie at the end of this rainbow. I would like to give a special shoutout to one particularly heinous bit of writing, featuring one of the (more passable) characters blaming a ransacked kitchen on a bear, from the hills OF NORTH DAKOTA! This travestys sole redeeming value is the leprechaun himself, who is at least acceptable as a villain. For my tastes, in fact, hes more engaging than Chucky, despite being practically a rip-off of the latter; however, thats not nearly enough to save his movie.
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38. Anaconda

Iniviso - 18
Johnbobb - 26
Karo - 31
Genny - 34
KBM - 34
Charon - 35
Scarlet - 35
Snake - 36
JONA - 37

Inviso - This movie just BARELY manages to creep over that so bad its good line, but barely counts in this case, and I enjoyed the film overall. The setting feels so isolated and amps up the tensionwhich it needs to do, since the titular anaconda is not the most frightening slasher villain imaginable. But yeah, the anaconda itself is prettyits hard to enjoy a killer when it shows up, wraps around a victim, kills them, next scene. This happens to four people I believe? And only Jon Voight is interesting about itmainly because he gets vomited back up after getting swallowed in the first place.

But that brings us to the cast, and this is where the movie manages to shine despite its abysmal pedigree. Jon Voight is fucking AMAZING in this, because hes hamming it up and chewing the scenery almost every time hes on-screen. And even better, its hilarious how HES acting like a one-note caricature, but in the context of the movie, his CHARACTER also has moments of completely phoning in the friendly survivalist act. Beyond Voight though, Ice Cube is your standard fish out of water thug in the jungle archetype, and Owen Wilson is a complete doofus who gets turned to the dark side faster and more unnecessarily than Anakin Skywalker. Oh yeah, and Jonathan Hyde is great as a stuffy, out-of-touch British guy whos thrust into a strange action movie role. Really, its the one-note performances that sell this film and manage to make it entertaining, even though its objectively awful.

Johnbobb - Anaconda is a lot like Arachnophobia, in that it really expects you to already have a fear of snakes in order to really be scary. Otherwise you're just watching a green mechanical tube wave back and forth while people scream. In fact, almost all of my thoughts about Arachnophobia could pretty much be applied here, with one exception. Anaconda has a single memorable character, which already sets it ahead. I'd almost rather just watch a compilation of Jon Voight's scenes than the whole movie. It's not outright bad (mostly) but does little to make itself stand out otherwise.

Karo - A documentary film crew turns into a snake hunting expedition after some stupid circumstances and many long sinuous reptiles must feed. So some people capture other people and tie them up. The snake eats someone. But what a twist, they get free and capture their captor! Ice Cube spits out mumbley unprofessional lines about being a gangsta from LA. The snake eats some more people. Haha never mind we were just kidding they get recaptured. But wait they get free AGAIN. Guess what the snake does. We've got snakes in a rain, snakes in the water, snakes on a boat, and even snakes on fire. But if only we didnt have snakes in hollywood taking everyones money with this dreck.

Genny - My brain just don't want none of these dumb snake puns. 5/10

KBM - Jon Voight hamming it up as much as he possibly can saves this from being a complete train wreck; the Amazon rainforest scenery porn also has its moments and the Randy Edelman score is good. Everything else about this is pretty much disastrous. The effects are stupid-looking and remarkably inconsistent. J-Lo is utterly horrible in the lead role (how she got nominated for a Saturn award for her performance is beyond me). Really none of the acting or characters are any good Jon Voight is just entertaining and self-aware enough to be forgiven because it's clear he knows what kind of movie he's in. Even at 89 minutes, the screenplay manages to feel padded, with a particularly slow first act before the killing starts. It's good for a few laughs, but not enough to the point that I'd actually recommend it to anybody apart from avowed bad-movie enthusiasts.
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