Reviewed by Rhianna Pratchett
Stars Sandy Gardiner, Callard Harris, Nick Richey,
Veronica Sywak, John Leonetti, Richard Morris,
Jeran Pascascio, Del Roy, Darren Thomas
Written by Jonathan Hensleigh
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £xx.xx
DVD Region 2 | Runtime 79 minutes
Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh
I’ve watched a lot of horror movies in my time — a few of them, yes, from behind a cushion; or, in some cases, from behind my own hair. And, as many horror aficionados will tell you, it’s pretty hard to get disturbed by Hollywood’s current crop, such has become the reliance on gore. In fact, it seems that it’s on the fringes of the genre that some of the most interesting things are happening — which moves us on to the film in question.
For some reason my preview DVD has the title as Cannibals: Welcome to the Jungle, making it sound somewhat like a reality show where the participants are voted into the pot every week — a concept that is surely only a matter of time, away. Thankfully, they dropped the "C" word less their potential audience think that this is a homage to Ruggero Deodato's 1970s video "nasty" Cannibal Holocaust — which it really isn’t. Instead it’s more along the lines of a Blair Witch-style shaky-cam shock-doc about four friends (well, four people who know each other and argue a lot) who venture into the jungles of New Guinea. The reason for this bout of stupidity is to try to track down Michael Rockefeller, a missing billionaire who was rumoured to have been captured by cannibals and possibly eaten back in the 60s. However, the friends have had a good tip-off that an elderly white male has been seen in the region with some of the locals.
As with most it-could-really-happen flicks, there’s a long set-up establishing the characters. But the dialogue is natural and seems partially improvised, while the cast are believable as sometime sensible, sometimes flawed and often eye-rolling, human beings — especially when things start to go wrong. There are a few "yeah, right!" moments — such as one of the friends being able to speak a New Guinean lingo and their ability to build very competent rafts, very quickly. It loses points on the extras, which surely could have been numerous, but instead consist of a couple of character-fluffing deleted scenes and the trailer, presented on a cheesie, made-in-10-minutes, menu. For the type of horror movie it’s trying to be, Welcome to the Jungle does a pretty good job. It’s well shot, the gory action is mainly left off-screen and certainly the gory results are nasty enough in themselves. There’s also a great sense of the disturbing nature of the unfamiliar. It’s not one for the gornography lovers, but if you like having that vaguely unpleasant feeling in your cerebral cortex (like something has just taken a whiz in your brain) and the ‘So what would I do differently” thought, buzzing around your head as you try to sleep, then this is definitely worth a look.
EXTRAS * Just the trailer and some deleted scenes (with commentary). There’s apparently a 15-minute making-of featurette and a director's commentary track on the Region 1 edition, but they didn't seem to make it into this version.