I have witnessed a lot of films in my time. Originally scored for the SyFy channel on television and released on DVD, this film is embarrassing. The scenery is pathetic, editing is sloppy and my god the acting performances are forced and generic. The Hydra monster is a critical piece in the story and falls off the grid in originality. The story has a similar ring to it as 2007 The Condemned where people are taken prisoner and hunted for sport so to speak. A very "C" style script with no real creativity. I yawned most of the way through the film 1/10

Do you want me to start with the good news or the bad news? Well, the good news is that Hydra is not the worst SyFy's done, and it's not quite bad enough to be down there as one of their worst. The scenery is atmospheric, and the photography and editing are better than the choppy standard I have come to expect. Also the hydra itself actually looks good, not amazing, but compared to the cheap-looking and stilted-moving effects before and since this movie it is a considerable improvement. The bad news is that Hydra is still not a good movie, I have seen worse by all means but it was still lame. The main problem here was the story, a good idea on paper and is better paced than most SyFy movies but on film it was predictable and could have been developed much more than it was. The characters are the same, they are not as annoying as other SyFy efforts but still clichéd and you don't learn much about them. The hydra was not bad in look, but like the rest of the characters, you don't really feel threatened partly because the killings and gore lacked tension and had a you've-seen-it-all-before vibe and also that Hydra makes little to no attempt to expand on the hydra's origins and the like. The script is cheesy and doesn't feel like it's flowing naturally, and while they admittedly don't have much to work with the actors do nothing in their body language or their delivery to elevate the characters and script. For want of a better word, it all felt bland. All in all, a lame movie but I've seen worse. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Four incredibly wealthy men with more money than common sense, and whom all had lost a loved one due to murder, charter a yacht to an abandoned island where they will hunt 4 alleged criminals. However the island that decide on is very much already occupied....by a Hydra. Yup, that must mean that it's SyFy Original picture time again.This creature-of-the-week meets "Most Dangerous Game" may be a tad better than the typical SyyFy flick but it still wears out it's (admittedly forced) welcome with cardboard characters that you don't really care what happens to & a monster that seems cool enough at first but gets more and more boring with each subsequent attack. This is highly forgettable fluff that is only good for a rainy Saturday morning when you have nothing better to do but nurse a hangover.My Grade: DDVD Extras: Just trailers for "Direct Contact", "The Code", "Labor Pains"

HYDRA begins with four rich hunters that have paid a large sum of money to hunt people on an uncharted island, but unknown to everyone there is something on the island that has a taste for human flesh, a creature of myth know as the hydra.Although I reckon this is not part of SCI-FI's man eater series, if it is its certainly one of the best ones I've seen, the film is actually really good when I look at the last few SCI-FI channel originals I've seen, because you get YETI which was a quickly slammed together mess, there was VIPERS that was a complete rush job and you had GRIZZLY RAGE that was neither of the aforementioned but it was crap anyway.This film was the exception to other SCI-FI monster yawns, it had better CGI effects, it had a good story to it, even though there was minimal character development and no real back story as to where the HYDRA came from or how it ended up on the island, the dialog was actually pretty sharp and not as ridiculous as in other SCI-FI channel films.My only complaint I have is the score, despite that it sounds similar to the score of another SCI-FI original called KOMODO VS. COBRA, its very loud and sometimes it almost muffles the dialog, you can also hear the sound of really noisy trumpets that tend to make you cringe, just to give an idea of how loud the score is.Otherwise its a better than average SCI-FI original creature feature.