‘Anaconda’s’ back -- with some friends

The 1997 thriller “Anaconda” was an instant camp classic -- one of those movies that’s so bad it’s great. The cast included none other than Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Eric Stoltz as members of a documentary film crew who are taken captive by an insane hunter (Jon Voight) with a bad German accent who wants to capture the world’s deadliest snakes.

The scene in which Voight winks at the audience after he is regurgitated by an anaconda is a veritable “Ed Wood” moment of surreal fun. The audience seemed to be in on the joke, and “Anaconda” went on to make more than $65 million at the U.S. box office.

The laughs -- both intentional and unintentional -- are served up again in the sequel, “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid,” which opens Friday. Morris Chestnut, Johnny Messner and Eugene Byrd head the ensemble cast of the film, which is set deep in the jungles of Borneo (but filmed in Fiji) and concerns a group of ambitious, greedy scientists who set out to find a rare red orchid that may contain a fountain-of-youth serum. Little do they know that the jungle is filled with hungry, giant (and computer-generated) anacondas that have gathered for mating season.

Director Dwight Little is no stranger to the genre, having previously helmed such chillers as “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” and “Phantom of the Opera” with Robert Englund.

A bit of trivia: Daniel Zelman, one of the film’s four writers, is married to Debra Messing of “Will & Grace.”

-- Susan King