Welcome to the Jungle - Will's Review

The makers of The Blair Witch Project cited the original Cannibal Holocaust as a major influence - it seems strange then, that this (supposed - more on that later) Holocaust remake shares more DNA with Blair Witch than it does with its own direct ancestor.

In all fairness, it's probably more accurate to say that this movie "borrows heavily" from the original, than it is to say that it's "based on" it.

Like Blair Witch, we are introduced to a group of teens with an obsession for filming EVERYTHING (at least Blair Witch had the excuse that they had set out to make a documentary) and the entire movie is pieced together from their footage.

As with Blair Witch, we are quickly briefed on the background legend - the story here being the true one that Michael Rockefeller vanished in New Guinea "deep in cannibal country" and speculation that he may still be living in the jungle.

Everything starts off promisingly enough; we spend some time with our characters and get to know them, which is usually a plus, and everyone seems believable enough.

Unfortunately though, this move shares Blair Witch's biggest weakness; by the one hour mark, you somehow don't feel that anything has happened (impressive, when you consider that our 'heroes' have managed to be involved in roadside gunplay twice by this point), and the characters (two in particular) start to get dumber and more unlikeable.

By the time the tribes show up, there's only about 15 minutes runtime left, which is a shame because the movie really gets going around this point; it would have been nice to perhaps compress the middle of the movie (lose one of the 2 going-nowhere gun incidents, for instance) and expand the final act.

First contact with the natives is genuinely unnerving, and there are some wonderful / horrible moments as our group meet their fates.

Not a great movie by any stretch, but no worse than a dozen other found footage movies.

Speaking of which; how was the footage recovered?

A big fat "Meh!"

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.

WEEK 117 - Welcome to the Jungle

Year: 2007

Reviews / Author Comments due: 17/08/2013

Reason for Inclusion: Remake of DPP movie Cannibal Holocaust

BBFC Status: Not Submitted, Nominally banned

More Info: Wikipedia, IMDB

DVD: Blu-Ray Import

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