Movies
The ‘Anaconda’ Franchise, Ranked
The Anaconda franchise is probably one of the most misbegotten IP exercises of the modern era. The original is one of those bone-stupid genre movies that were constantly becoming hits throughout the 1990s. Like, it outgrossed L.A. Confidential in 1997. And I Know What You Did Last Summer. Ditto Jackie Brown. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Boogie Nights, Selena, Air Bud, and Event Horizon too all knelt before its grandeur.
So it was inevitable that Anaconda was going to get a sequel. However, that didn’t come to theaters for a full seven years. That movie was also a box office success. Nevertheless, the franchise sank deeper and deeper into the IP muck the more it thrashed around. At the time, the sign that your franchise was losing steam was that it started going direct-to-video. Think 1995’s Leprechaun 3, 2000’s Hellraiser: Inferno, and 1995’s Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. And you wanna know what happened to Anaconda? It went straight to The Sci-Fi Channel. Friends, this is an even worse fate. However, the franchise’s jagged, clunky progress is what makes it so interesting. Like, even its impending 2025 remake is weird.
Ranking All the Anaconda Movies
Instead of a straightforward serpentine creature feature, we’re getting a meta comedy starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black. Like… what? In honor of this baffling series of motion pictures, here is a ranking of the original Anaconda movies. I won’t be including the impending remake. Or the 2024 Chinese remake Anaconda: Cursed Jungle, which follows circus performers fighting a giant snake. That also sounds deliciously weird, but I literally just learned that it existed while writing this paragraph.
#5 Anaconda (1997)
So, I have (entirely unintentionally) made Horror Press a home for my controversial opinions. But I have never been anything other than scrupulously honest. And look, it’s true that 1997’s Anaconda has its advantages over the other installments. It has the biggest budget to play with. It has the most star-studded cast (Jennifer Lopez! Ice Cube! …Jon Voight… Baby Owen Wilson!). And it was the only Anaconda movie to actually be shot in the Amazon. Later installments would sub in Fiji, Romania, Bulgaria, and Australia.
However, all of that is what makes it downright offensive that the movie is such a harebrained mess. Everything about it falls flat. Primarily because the titular snake looks exactly like a shitty animatronic 99% of the time. It’s deeply unscary. And the untested main cast is so effortfully trying to ground it that it can’t succeed at a bad-good level.
The only thing that comes remotely close to working in this movie is Jon Voight. He is delivering his tooth-gnashing villain performance with one of the most baffling fake accents ever concocted. It’s compellingly bizarre, unlike anything else in the rest of the movie.
Regardless, the reason I rate this movie lowest is because it has no excuse to be this bad. Yes, there are at least three other movies in the franchise that are cheap, bad movies. But there is something demonstrably worse about being an expensive bad movie. Anaconda had the resources to become something truly great, or at least fun, and it largely failed to be either.
#4 Anaconda 3: Offspring (2008)
And here we have our first SciFi Original. And not the last, unfortunately. This movie is just shamefully cheap-looking. The anacondas themselves are CGI monstrosities that look more like strips of rubber from a tire than menacing serpents.
However, basically all of these movies feature at least one notable performer. You know the type. Someone who isn’t exactly surprising to find in a schlocky movie, but who at the very least has screen presence. A recipient of a grant from the Joan Crawford Make-A-Genre-Film Foundation for Aging Actors.
This movie has two, namely David Hasselhoff and John Rhys-Davies. Frankly, their powers combined don’t get them within an inch of what Jon Voight was working with. But at least it’s vaguely interesting seeing them forced to face off against anacondas that have escaped from a lab.
Sidebar: The Anaconda franchise is really a haven for some of our most toxically right-wing stars, isn’t it? What’s up with that?
#3 Anacondas: Trail of Blood (2009)
The one Crawford Foundation star that remains in this SciFi installment is John Rhys-Davies, which kinda should be a demerit. However, this movie has its benefits. The anaconda CGI is slightly better than Anaconda 3, at least. Slightly. Plus, the plot is both tighter and more enjoyable. It’s a yarn about a mutant anaconda that injects a bit of fun into an already pleasantly melodramatic story. There are human-level stakes and engaging villains in addition to the monster mayhem. Not to the point that Trail of Blood resembles a real movie, but at least it has its moments. Plus, the final 20 minutes or so are a real humdinger.
#2 Lake Placid vs. Anaconda (2015)
Somehow, combining two dumb franchises that were separately spawned from two dumb 1990s creature features worked! Go SciFi Channel (which had become Syfy by this point)! Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is ultimately a little bit more than the sum of its parts. By the by, the snakes are fighting crocodiles in this one, not the lake itself. In case you were confused.
Of the middle-of-the-pack offerings in the Anaconda franchise, Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is the most fun. For one thing, it benefits tremendously from featuring the latter-era Lake Placid character Reba (Yancy Butler). For those not in the know, she’s a salty hunter who loves stabbing crocs in the head. She’s a hell of a good time. Plus our Crawford Foundation star here is Robert Englund, who always adds a bit of spice to low-budget nonsense. And I bet you didn’t think there would be a sorority initiation in this movie, didja? So the movie gets some extra points for throwing another subgenre in there, just for funsies.
#1 Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004)
And now we’ve reached one of the few sequels in cinema history that surpasses the original. It retains the sexy cast and jungle mayhem of the original, but adds quite a few important components. This includes some comic relief that actually lands and a more intentionally campy story about immortality flowers.
One more thing. Now, keep in mind that I’m a bad person who is absolutely unmoved by animal characters who aren’t in Babe. So when I tell you there’s a monkey that I care about more than any human onscreen, that means something.
We are finally in the midst of Shudder’s 61 days of Halloween! There are so many horror movies to consume and 31 days simply isn’t enough. Use the long Labor Day weekend to kick off your horror movie countdown and add these movies to your Shudder queue. Here is a list of what I would recommend checking out to ease into the Halloween spirit right before going into full blown premature trick-or-treating mode.
The Best Movies to Stream on Shudder This Month
The Yeti (2026)
A large creature has captured people in a remote Alaskan town in the 1940s. The sheriff has put together a search-and-rescue monster hunting party to bring back the captives. It sounds like the premise of a Cold Iron Studios co-op video game in the same vein as Aliens: Fireteam Elite. The stylization from co-directors Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta in the trailer makes me think they have cooked up a story that blends action, horror, and wilderness survival. Sign me up, sheriff!
Leave (2022)
Hunter was found as a baby abandoned in a cemetery wrapped in a cloth covered with satanic symbols. She has been searching for answers her whole life about where she came from. Her journey to find her parents takes her down a mysterious path, and she is being warned by something from the beyond to leave this mystery alone. Can she trust who this investigation is leading her towards? It’s a mysterious, supernatural, culty film that will give you chills.
Penny Lane is Dead (2026)
One crazy night in Australia with perhaps a dash of revenge. Shudder’s latest original looks to be packed with blood and violence in this story of girls just trying to have fun until the crazy cousin drugs the party and invites dangerous people to play. The trailer promises lots of body horror (trigger warning, there may be SA or threat of it). I’m not saying it will be Evil Dead level, but there’s definitely something in the Aussie water with Lee Cronin pumping out his gory deadites and mummy films, and now Mia Kate Russel with this one.
The Others (2001)
This is a PSA to the younger readers of Horror Press; stop what you’re doing and watch Nicole Kidman go 100 miles per hour in this classic ghost story with a twist. Dreary weather, massive estate, confusing corridors, creepy house servants you don’t know if you can trust, and sad British kids. The ending is an all-timer and spoilers should be avoided at all costs. It has exactly what you need to get right into the cozy, spooky mood for 61-days of Halloween.
Dark Harvest (2023)
If The Hunger Games and The Purge had a baby and raised it during Oktoberfest. Teenage boys are tasked with hunting and killing the entity known as Sawtooth Jack on Halloween night, or it could mean certain peril for their town. Of the movies I have listed here that I have not seen, this is going to be at the top of my watchlist. Teens fighting for survival on Halloween night and the battle setting is in a cornfield?! Say less. I am there with my Sam Adams seasonal in hand. Another perfect movie to cannonball me right into the Halloween spirit.
This list has been carefully curated to watch in a specific order to gear up for a Halloween marathon. Start with the wintry monster movie, move on to a macabre supernatural thriller, followed by a ramp-up in blood and gore, to then be lulled into a spooky, bump-in-the-night classic, all to end on a ritualistic hunt taking place on Halloween night. This is just getting things started for the first 30-days. Looking forward to sharing the next list to get you through October.
Anyone who follows legendary horror author Stephen King on social media or reads the back of books knows one thing. It’s harder to find something that King hasn’t blurbed than something that he has. The dude is a voracious consumer of genre media, and he finds a lot to love. It’s an admirable quality. But, speaking as someone who saw American Ultra after he praised it, you can’t always trust his recommendations. Today, I’ll cut some of the wheat from the chaff and break down the best modern horror movies he’s recommended.
Three notes: First, I have decided to define “modern” as “2001 or later.” Second, King practices good social media hygiene and has deleted many of his old posts. A lot of them are archived elsewhere. However, it’s more or less impossible to make a truly comprehensive list of his recommendations. I’ve synthesized multiple different sources and done my best to truly encapsulate the breadth of his recommendations. Third, I have not included any adaptations of his own work. He may be outspoken about the ones he doesn’t like, but he’s still obviously biased in that department.
#10 Snakes on a Plane (2006)
To quote King himself (defending putting 2012 among his top 2009 movies), “no filmgoing diet is complete without some cheese.” Snakes on a Plane is a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin movie, delivering high-flying serpentine thrills. However, it’s also a remarkably faithful resurrection of the atmosphere of old 1970s airplane thrillers.
#9 Final Destination 5 (2011)
In his Best of 2011 entry on Final Destination 5, King called it “the best since the first,” and he’s absolutely right. While the sequels probably peaked with the highway prologue in Final Destination 2, the fifth installment is pound-for-pound the most thrilling entry. Between the bridge collapse, the laser eye surgery, and the nail-biting sequence where a screw falls pointy-side-up on a balance beam, there’s no denying there’s real power here. And that’s not even mentioning the fun final twist!
#8 A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
In a since-deleted Tweet, King called Day One “the rare ‘big Hollywood film’ that is both intimate and textured.” It’s true. A Quiet Place: Day One is a mini miracle of horror filmmaking. An IP-drenched prequel to a duology of good-not-great post-apocalyptic popcorn blockbusters shouldn’t be this genuinely stirring. Plus, relative newcomer Joseph Quinn holds his own against the awe-inspiring Lupita Nyong’o, resulting in an all-timer two-hander.
#7 The Strangers (2008)
After watching The Strangers, King took to Entertainment Weekly to pontificate about what makes good horror. If you inspire someone who literally wrote the book on horror to think about it more, you’ve done something right. Bryan Bertino’s home invasion movie is one of the grimmest movies of the 2000s, but its desperate existential dread is terrifying and perfectly in line with King’s best works.
#6 Splice (2009)
King included Splice on his Top 10 list for 2010, particularly praising the “talented actors… who take the material seriously.” How did this grotesque genetic-experimentation horror movie directed by the guy who made Cube land Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley? Who knows. But they breathe life into some already super solid material. What Brody in particular gets up to feels even more twisted because it’s the guy from The Pianist doing it.
#5 Smile (2022)
In a since-deleted Tweet, King called Smile a “good, scary horror film.” He added that “the real surprise is Sosie Bacon as Rose. What a hell of a performance.” Bacon really was a revelation, but so was debut director Parker Finn. His control over tone and pacing leads to some of the best scare sequences of the 2020s.
#4 The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024)
King’s not fucking around about the New Zealand horror film The Rule of Jenny Pen. It’s one of just two horror movies on his New York Times ballot for the best of the 21st century. The underseen movie is a real corker, too. It follows a judge (Geoffrey Rush) recovering in a care home after a stroke. However, his relaxation is ruined by a sadistic retiree (John Lithgow) who is obsessed with his baby doll puppet. Lithgow’s performance is stunning, and his thrillingly dark energy commands the screen every second he’s in front of the camera.
#3 Barbarian (2022)
In a since-deleted reply to a fan’s Tweet about Barbarian, King said “Yeah, that movie blew me away. It was crazy! Crazy GOOD!” This movie contributed what is perhaps the definitive scary basement in horror, which is no small feat. That’s all thanks to director Zach Cregger’s control over onscreen darkness (one of his many skills). The man must be a shadowmancer of some kind.
#2 Train to Busan (2016)
Train to Busan is the only other horror movie on King’s NYT ballot. It has received a lot of international recognition over the years. Perhaps more than any other non-Parasite movie from South Korea. That’s because it’s flipping amazing. Its crackling energy makes it one of the scariest fast-zombie movies in history. But it also marries that with a compelling father-daughter story. There’s really nothing Train to Busan can’t do.
#1 The Descent (2005)
King put The Descent on his 2006 best-of list, calling it “the best horror movie of the year.” Forget that. It’s one of the top horror movies of the century so far. It’s a bloody good monster movie nestled into a skin-crawlingly claustrophobic spelunking movie.
Honorable Mentions:
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – I’ve never seen it, so I can’t in good faith recommend it
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) – A masterpiece, but it’s not really “horror”
Obsession (2026) – We gotta let this one sit, in order to avoid recency bias
