You know the story, and it doesn't matter all that much if you don't. Tacky effects, great scenery - Hawaii gorgeous as always, hot actresses and actors with serviceable acting ability and that guy who was in that thing that one time many years ago.The only thing that keeps this from being an actual Sedaris movie is the absence of Andy or his son from the producer list and the lack of nudity since this is basic cable broadcast. The production companies should make these shows in dual-format for Syfy (who tragically lost their spell checker some years ago) and for Showtime or Cinemax.The effects are really bad, I mean REALLY bad but the acting is OK and movies like this keep the majority of Hollywood in business, plus at least these actors got a trip to Hawaii, so I will give it a thumbs-up. Check it out.

A film crew shooting a B-Movie in the jungle comes face-to-face with a fearsome pair of piranhacondas, which resemble giant snakes with piranha teeth. To reach the requisite running time, a team of mercenaries is thrown into the mix, as well as a scientist eager to carry one of the creatures' eggs back to civilization.PROS: The title is laugh out loud silly, which led me to believe that the film would tread the same waters as the vastly superior "Sharknado." Both films were SyFy Channel Original Movies, which further increased my hopes.CONS: Too many to mention. This is a film that is inept on nearly every level. The script has none of the wit (and I use this term loosely) of the previously referenced "Sharknado." It doesn't even have the wit of grade school sleepover. Instead, it substitutes machine gun delivery of clichés and movie speak for character development. There can be no audience identification because the script is so bad that the actors know it. Star Michael Madsen looks pained (or drunk) every time he speaks. He seems to be ducking away from the camera, as if he's embarrassed by the screen time.I know there are those that will argue that the script and acting are not the point of these movies. "Piranhaconda" makes that clear from the onset. Like clockwork, the director trots out some silicone enhanced beauties every ten minutes to be gnawed by the title characters. These women have no roles. They exist merely to add skin to the decidedly horrible plot. It's as if the SyFy Channel suddenly acknowledged that they could no longer court an audience through creature features and decided to hedge their bets with Cinemax skinflix inserts.All of this might be forgiven if the creature effects were interesting. Or even competent. But neither is the case. SyFy again resorts to video game effects (and I'm talking early Nintendo here), which are almost laugh inducing. Actually, if they were laugh inducing, this might have provided some measure of enjoyment.Not to beat the point to death, but would it have killed the filmmakers to have done a competent sound mix? Listen to the first ten minutes of "Piranhaconda" for a primer in how to ruin a low-budget movie with bad sound. Background audio rises or falls with the shot, a sure-fire sign that the filmmakers ran out of money and time before finalizing the picture.This is an embarrassing film.

To be honest I wasn't expecting to enjoy Piranhaconda, the concept was rather cheesy though had potential to be entertaining, the film didn't exactly look promising and the amount of 1s added to the IMDb score pre-release further added to my dubiousness. SyFy are also notorious for bad to bottom-of-the-barrel movies(though there are a few tolerable ones too), though no matter how terrible most are I find them compulsively watchable and always watch to see if they ever do anything tolerable, otherwise unless they are horrifically or insultingly bad I do revel in their badness. Imagine my surprise when I found Piranhaconda to be one of SyFy's more tolerable movies. It is not perfect by all means, and has a lot of problems but does improve on assets that bring their movies down in the first place.Visually, it doesn't look too bad. With SyFy, you would expect hackneyed editing, scenery that doesn't give a sense of authenticity, dull lighting and awkward camera angles. In regard to those assets though, Piranhaconda is generally one of their better-looking movies. The editing and camera work is mostly focused and the scenery is striking. You'd also anticipate laughably awful special effects. On the other hand, the Piranhaconda looks alright, there are a few moments where it does look fake, but overall it delivers what the film promised(part-snake, part-fish, all killer), it does look menacing and the movements are less choppy than other SyFy creatures, in fact I was impressed at the amazing speed it moved at. My problem with the Piranhaconda wasn't to do with the design this time. It was to do with how it was developed, you don't find out much about its origin and how it came to be in the jungle.In all fairness though, that is true of the human characters as well. Thankfully they are less annoying than SyFy movies like Miami Magma and Seattle Superstorm, but not only are they developed unconvincingly, how did three groups exactly manage to be in the jungle at the same time as each other, but especially the scientist and hot chick-type characters they are very clichéd. The script fares better, less stilted, less aimless and less contrived than most SyFy fare. While some of the more humorous spots are not as funny as they could've been, the script does have some pleasantly witty spots. The story is also an improvement, though my feelings were still mixed. It doesn't make the mistake of being dull pace-wise, is light-hearted in tone and reasonably enjoyable, with some fun, tense and not too predictable deaths with a higher body count than usual. However, the final 10-15 minutes are rather rushed, the sub-plot about the scientist character being interested in a flower that seemed thrown in and many questions, such as how the scientific group did not know anything about the Piranhaconda or why Rachel Hunter's group stayed in a place where it would be easy for the Piranhaconda to kill them.Musically, I was also pleasantly surprised after hearing many SyFy scores that were sluggishly in tempo, derivative or overbearing. The music here has an adventurous vibe to it, and while I would've preferred that the Piranhaconda theme was without the lyrics, which came across as schlocky to me, the theme itself is one of the catchier SyFy movie themes. The acting is better than usual. It was a pleasure to see Michael Madsen and he is literally unrecognisable, but he seemed bored in comparison to his other roles. Although I wish she had more to do, I did think Rachel Hunter was quite good, and while I've read from some that Terri Ivens was rather long-in-the-tooth for the hot chick role I can't deny that she was gorgeous. But in the most fun role of the movie that is more than the hot girl in a bikini, it was Shandi Finnessy who took the acting honours.All in all, I didn't love it but I didn't hate it. Piranhaconda was problematic but I did find it one of SyFy's more tolerable films. 6/10 Bethany Cox

"Piranhaconda", well the name of the movie is a clear enough indication of what kind of movie and type of entertainment you are in for here; low-budget monster movie with a cheesy story, and probably even more cheesy monster. Well, as this is a SyFy Channel movie, then yes and yes.The movie starts out wonderfully with a themesong about the piranhacondas. Yes, a song about these wonderful reptilian creatures. It was as epic as the song they had in "Super Shark".The story takes place in Hawaii, where an apparent freak of nature aberration between a piranha and an anaconda have taken place. How such an unholy union came about to be, we are not given any inside information or facts about. So we can only speculate. The most logical option would be genetic manipulation, but who knows? But these two, yeah not just one, but two, piranhacondas are of gargantuan size, and how they came to grow so big and sustain their diets puzzles me. So the Hawaiian people wouldn't notice a dramatic delve in population, livestock, or whatever it is that these creatures feast upon to grow so big? Again, something not to dwell on.A group of amateur film makers are out in the Hawaii jungle to shoot a horror movie when they run across this aberration of nature. But they are not just up against these gargantuan snakes, they are also fighting a band of kidnappers. To spice up the story, throw a university scholar into the midst, who wants to study the piranhaconda and bring an egg back to the civilized world. Good plan, eh? Now, the people cast for "Piranhaconda" were actually doing good enough jobs with their roles, and it does seem that people were enjoying making this movie, so that was cool. The dialogue, however, was halting and forced at times, but in a movie of this caliber, that is to be expected and can be forgiven.The piranhacondas themselves, well, they looked adequate and life-like most of the times, which worked in favor of the movie. There were some scenes, though, where these creatures came off as rather fake. No surprise there.Another thing that was working well in favor for "Piranhaconda" was the number of casualties throughout the movie. There was a fairly high death-toll in the movie, which was nice. But it gets better, and this part of the movie I loved, whenever the piranhacondas would kill someone, they lunged at the prey (the humans) and the people would vanish in a spray of blood red misty haze. They simply just vanished in a red misty burst. That cracked me up. There were a couple of scenes where you got to see some mutilation, in the form of severed limbs. So it wasn't all bad (if you like gore).Normally snakes propel themselves forward by slithering, right? Well yeah, as did the piranhacondas, except for one time, where it was chasing after an SUV. Take a look at the creature there, it just darts forward like a straight arrow, all rank and linear. That was so funny. Never seen a snake do that before.The kidnappers in "Piranhaconda" apparently all attended the "College For Goons Shooting Badly". They were shooting at the protagonists, and fired several dozens, if not hundreds of bullets, and not a single bullet struck or penetrated the vehicle. That was pretty good shooting right there, especially as it was a fairly short distance.Another of these goofs, were as they headed to the dock to sail away in a small boat, the professor (played by Michael Madsen) had the jar with the piranhaconda eggs in it. Prior throughout all the movie, the eggs was submerged in some kind of fluorescent green slime, but at the docks, there was no slime in the jar. Then a little later on as they had left the docks, the jar was out again, only this time the green slime was back.Another lovely goof was when the stuntman (one of the protagonists, played by Rib Hillis) was out in the jungle, he just happened to come across a blue quad-bike that conveniently had been left unattended and ready to drive in the middle of the Hawaiian jungle. That never happens where I live.Despite these flaws and cheesy things, then "Piranhaconda" was actually fun entertainment. You know exactly what you are in for with these kind of SyFy monster movies. They are like traffic accidents, you know you shouldn't look, but you just can't help it. The story was campy and cheesy, which makes it fun to watch, and the creatures were so over the top that it just becomes plain fun.The ending of the movie was really great actually, so hooray for SyFy for that one! Didn't see that coming actually, so it was a nice surprise.When you're in Hawaii look behind you, 'coz that's where the piranhaconda's gonna be...