Main cast: George Stults (Tim Nolan), Dawn Olivieri (Gwen Russell), Michael Shamus Wiles (Captain Sweet), Alex McArthur (Vincent Camden), Texas Battle (Ronnie Kaplan), Polly Shannon (Dr Valerie Cammon). James Wlcek (Bob Crick), Ricco Ross (Broughton), Roark Critchlow (Sean Trotta), William G Lee (Clarence Elkins), and Dwayne Adway (Mr Winters)
Director: Andrew Prendergast
Hydra is a terrible movie typical of the stuff Syfy used to pump out like sewage out of a drainage pipe, and indeed, I laugh at the horrible CGI hydra in the opening scene. Unfortunately, I have nothing else to do to occupy my time, so bad cable TV it is.
Okay, I assume this one happens somewhere near or in Greece, since there is a hydra and, later, a magic sword that can destroy the hydra.
Some volcanic activity causes a new island to emerge, and a group of archaeologists quickly make a visit to check out whether it’s the location of some ancient temple that they have been searching for all this while. The hydra soon makes a quick meal out of them, aside from Dr Valerie Cammon.
Some weeks later, we have a ship making a visit at that same island. A savvy entrepreneur and his wife, along with the ruthless Captain Sweet and assistant Mr Winters, organize a big game hunt for people that can afford the fee of a cool ten million each. There is a nice twist to the hunt, though: the hunters will go after people—people that are said to have committed crimes (rape, murder, etc) but are deemed not sufficiently punished enough by the law.
So, five people are dropped off as prey, and four hunters will have hunt tracking down them and killing them 24 hours later. Of course, no one expects the hydra, so everyone becomes prey on that island, yay.
It’s pretty obvious which of the hunted will survive to the end. A clear example is how one of them, Tim Nolan, is a former Navy SEAL tossed here by Captain Sweet because the latter wants him dead, so he’s clearly the action hero and good guy. Naturally, the serial rapist won’t last long.
Still, for the most part, the crap hydra CGI aside, the movie is pretty entertaining so long as one doesn’t take it too seriously. The pace is fun, and the villains chew scenery in a most entertaining way now and then.
The only standout duds are George Stults and Polly Shannon, both of whom deliver their lines in a consistent monotone that it feels like some AI dubbed over their lines during post-production. Since Tim Nolan is the hero, the movie suffers from the lack of a compelling lead because of this.
Also, poor Gwen Russell becomes more and more of a helpless idiot as the movie progresses.
However, this movie really drops the ball in its last half hour or so, when a character has to make a pointless sacrifice because (a) Nolan doesn’t dare to stick his hand into a hole to pull out the magic sword and (b) Gwen just huddles in a corner even when the hydra is not looking for her, and she’s still not moving when it does.
It’s pointless because a few seconds later Nolan actually gets the sword and kills the hydra, and Gwen doesn’t deserve to live anyway because she is an idiot. All that character has to do is to just let Gwen die, make me happy, and then move on to a happy ending, but no.
Perhaps realizing that the movie still has some time to kill, then another hydra shows up and the movie officially becomes turd.
Oh well. For a long while, Hydra was on its way to being an entertaining bad movie, but then it decides to correct itself and becomes an un-ironic bad movie. God knows why.
