Coroner’s Corner
Anaconda: The Must Miss of the Year
By John Bikowski
illustration by Eric Johnson
Am I topical and current or what? The hit TV show Friends is now copying me. The producers must have read my article on the Ultimate Fighting Championship a couple of issues back and felt the need to write the sadistic tourney into their show. It seems that Courteney Cox’s character is dating some millionaire guy who insists on being crowned the next champ. The problem is that he really sucks at fighting and he gets his ass kicked rather harshly. Funny stuff that involves real UFC opponents.
Here is my review of the mutant-of-nature-on-the-loose flick Anaconda (without even having seen it… C’mon, at least I’m honest). I learned all I need to know about this film just seeing the preview: mainly the movie reeks. Is it just me or are these cheesy computer generated effects getting to you too? Don’t get me wrong… when they are done well as in Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump the tech-effects can really kick. However, when they are obviously fake or just put in for the hell of it, they tend to distract attention and ultimately alienate the viewer.
Filming Anaconda must have been a humiliating experience for the “actors” involved. You can imagine the executives having a pre-film meeting like this:
Exec 1: “Duh, this movie’s gonna kick Jaws’ ass ’cause we got Ice Cube and a computer.”
Exec 2: “Duh, the audience will just eat up our cool effects. Besides, most people are too dumb to know the snake’s not real, right? Hot diggity.”
Then, because of these tools’ ideas, actors are forced to run around pretending they’re really scared only to have some nerd hacker digitize a snake into the scenes. This crap is one day ahead of old science fiction flicks that had an actress in front of a movie screen with a giant lobster on it. On a positive note, the filmmakers did have the decency to showcase a pretty good animatronic snake in certain scenes. On another positive note, I heard the movie sucks.
Other bogosities that spring to mind in the “gratuitous computer effect” category are Children of the Corn II, The Mask, Lawnmower Man, and possibly The Fifth Element (which I heard was pretty decent). These types of films are hard to ignore but always remember that I hate them. I truly believe I can see a better show by pushing my eyelids with various forces. Here is my remedy to cure your filmic blues and to generate a scary mood for the right kind of film.
1) Kick everyone out of your apartment.
2) Go to sleep and set the alarm to wake you up at 2:30 A.M. (when you’re dead tired even an English muffin can seem frightening).
3) Shut off all lights except for your TV (you’ll feel like you’re being watched from the dark corners of the room).
4) Pop in a real film like The Omen,The Exorcist, or The Sentinel.
5) Try not to wuss out too bad (no use waking up the next morning feeling guilty).
On an unrelated note, did you catch the TV version of The Shining? Pretty nice… I especially liked the putrescent lady in the bathtub… she would have ruined my sleep big time if I’d followed the aforementioned steps.
Sickest Scene O’ the Month must go to the gum gusher in The Dentist starring Corbin Bernsen. This poor guy is seein’ some bad times and is losing his cool, but he decides to go to the office anyway. Well, he’s busy scraping some kid’s teeth with that sharp hook thing when he slips and THUMK! …like puncturing an artery. The up-close and personal camera shots make matters worse for the hapless viewer. I had to go to the real dentist a couple weeks after I saw that film. Now that’s scary, kids.
