Anaconda is a poor example of the haunted house genre. It has the elements required to build suspense, but fails to execute.

Rather than set the film in the darkness, director Luis Llosa uses broad daylight, leaving nothing for your mind to run away with.

Set in the Amazon, Llosa also largely ignores the terror of people in muddy water. This is a mistake that young Steven Spielberg did not make in Jaws.

Anaconda goes through formula scenes with formula characters. In fact, the characters remind you of the cast of Alien, thus making the end completely predictable.

Choose Jaws or Alien, but not Anaconda, a film wanting to be both, that becomes a pale shadow of neither.