Welcome To The Jungle - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

So this movie brings us back to our original 'Video Nasties' challenge, as it's a remake of banned movie Cannibal Holocaust.  I wasn't a fan of the original movie, mostly due to the use of footage with real animal deaths, something I abhore.  Lets see how I got on with the movie minus the animal nastiness.

When this movie started and for the first 20-30 minutes, I thought it was going to be quite good.  A decent amount of time is spent introducing us to the main 4 characters, giving us an idea of personality types, how the individuals are linked and allowing us to form opinions and have the potential for empathy later in the movie.

We have 2 couples (the established one having been together for 2 weeks, the other having just met) who decide to head from Fiji to the jungle outside New Guinea to attempt to locate Michael Rockefeller, son of New York Governor who disappeared in 1961.  Obviously with the area being full of indigenous tribes and there being armed criminals enroute, this is quite a dangerous jaunt.

So after the initial high hopes I had for the movie, when pretty much bugger all of interest had taken place within the first hour of the movie, I began to get a tad impatient.  

The couples began to grate on each others nerves and we went from bickering and squabbling to wishes of death upon each other.... funny you should mention that....

In the last few minutes of a very dull, slow, dragging movie we have one of the couples be chased by tribesmen and shot with arrows.  They're captured and the woman is hung on a large pole contraption which entered her mouth and exited the base of her skull.  This was all done off camera.  We don't see what happens to the young man until the other couple (the ones who wishes them dead remember...) arrive and find him.  First they find some bloody clothing, followed by the hanging woman.

If that's not enough to disturb them, they come across a pair of severed feet hanging in a tree.  It is then we see what became of the guy.  He is laying on the ground covered in leaves and is missing his arms and feet.   Lovely.  His friends decide to put him out of his misery and shoot him.

The tribesmen of course had been following our couple and they also end up being done away with by the tribe.  We also see an old white man walking away at the end of the movie, hinting that Michael Rockefeller is actually still alive.  There is no explanation as to why he hadn't been killed and eaten.

In conclusion, this movie was sloooooooooow and dull.  I was sat watching it, willing it to improve.... come ON already!!  It did pick up in the last 15 minutes, but I couldn't help but wish they had lengthened the movie a bit and extended the last 15 minutes to a half hour at least.  They could even cut some time from the first part of the movie.

I wouldn't recommend this movie, but neither would I advise you to avoid it.  It was an ok watch I suppose, but too little, too late for me.