Yet another perfectly awful Sci-fi Channel CGI monster movie. Yet another variation on The Most Dangerous Game has four unlucky human prey, selected by a millionaire because they had prior criminal records and were able to "escape the system", kidnapped and dropped on a supposedly uninhabited island with an actual living multi-headed hydra of Greek myth who follow the heat of their chosen victims, chomping down on those they catch. Tim Nolan(George Stults)is personally selected by boat captain Sweet(Michael Shamus Wiles)because of a personal grudge which occurred in Iraq. Nolan is an ex-commando so he's a resourceful survivalist who can assist his fellow hunted, Gwen(Dawn Olivieri), Crick(James Wlcek)and Ronnie(Texas Battle)using his brains and skills in an attempt to evade both the hunters(..each wealthy paying their "supplier" millions so that they can hunt their prey)and the hydra. Meanwhile, the hunters themselves find the hydra isn't effected by their superior weaponry..if you blow of one of the heads, it grows two more! Nolan and the group soon discovers an archaeologist, Valerie(Polly Shannon)whose expedition found the island with her the only remaining survivor. She informs Nolan that in order to truly defeat the hydra is to cut off the heads with a mythical sword of Hercules himself, buried in small lava pit! Got all that?! Alex McArthur is millionaire Vincent Camdon and Jana Williams is his trophy wife, Dixie. They orchestrate and prepare the hunt for their clientèle. The CGI for the film is as dreadful as you'd expect as the hydra chomps down on human heads and it looks unrealistic and laughable. The whole mythical aspect of the Hercules sword and how the hydra is effected by it will induce certain chuckles from an audience with an inability to take any of this nonsense seriously. Stults, as he was on 7th Heaven, is as stone-faced as ever. As expected all the villains get theirs, each getting ripped apart and eaten(..including one poor soul who is shown swallowed whole).

Well, granted, I didn't have much of any expectations to this 2009 movie titled "Hydra", but still I sat down to watch it, as I haven't seen it before. And I do like creature features, although a great many number of them turns out to be horrible. Still, perhaps "Hydra" would be a hidden gem.

No. It definitely wasn't.

This movie was bad, from the script and storyline to the atrocious CGI effects that were abysmal and such an eyesore to behold. You have to look long and hard to find CGI effects that are this bad and actually make it through the editing room and into the final cut of the movie. I mean, the hydra looked like something taken straight out of a mid-1990s computer game. It was horrible to look at, and it dragged the enjoyment of the movie down badly. Nay, I will say that it sucked the enjoyment of the movie right out of it.

The acting in the movie was as to be expected from a movie such as this, and take into consideration that the actors and actresses had next to nothing to work with in terms of script and storyline, much less having proper characters to act upon.

All in all, "Hydra" is a movie to give a wide berth. Then again, who wouldn't give a hydra a wide berth?

I am rating "Hydra" a mere two out of ten stars. And it was so bad that I didn't even manage to endure the entire movie to the end. I just simply couldn't stand it, as it failed to entertain me on so many accounts.

Another reviewer described this as being superior for a Sci-Fi Channel TV production. He was wrong. This is very much par for the course for the channel, a cheesy CGI-filled slice of monster mayhem in which various assembled non-actors are bumped off one by one on a remote island by the titular creature.

The ridiculous set-up of the narrative is particularly amusing here. There's a remote island in the Mediterranean where a group of archaeologists just happen to be conducting an expedition when they fall foul of the titular beastie. At the same time, and most bizarrely, there's a MOST DANGEROUS GAME-style hunt going on too, where some big game hunters are tracking down convicted criminals and get cash prizes if they manage to murder them.

Inevitably the stories all combine but in the most ordinary way imaginable. HYDRA is for the most part a repetitive production in which almost the entire cast is bumped off before the survivors finally figure out a way to combat the monster. The acting is poor and the CGI effects typically awful for a Sci Fi Channel production. There's little more to say really other than you know what you're going to get with this one.