Welcome to the Jungle (2007)
Review by Noel
Gale Anne Hurd produced The Terminator and Aliens (so boasts the DVD jacket).
Writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh previous directorial outing was the guilty pleasure The Punisher.
You’d think that filmmakers with such relative cache wouldn’t need to make a STV rather unsubtle Blair Witch Project rip-off…
People have to eat I guess…
The Plot…as it were…
Michael Rockefeller disappeared in 1961. He was rich. He was powerful. He was the son of the Vice President at the time. He was lost boating off the New Guinea Shores…
He was presumed dead. Or eaten by cannibals. I guess either way he’d end up dead.
But…(let the suspense build)…
He may have been sighted…and to find him and talk to him would be worth millions.
So hope our four very attractive young explorers/opportunists (Veronica Sywak, Callard Harris, Sandi Gardiner, Nickolas Richey) named Mikey, Colby, Mandi and…Bijou (apparently not cool enough to have a name ending in the hard ‘E’ sound) as they set off to find Mr. Rockefeller in hopes of landing the one interview that will lead them to EZ street…
…Or they might end up dead in some gruesome fashion…which is more likely since this is a horror movie.
And so they set off with their trusty camera(s) as we wonder which one of these beautiful people will get fucked up first.
Remember: Attractive cast = by the time the credits roll = not so pretty
And I will try to refrain from making too many references to a certain movie that rhymes with ‘Mlair Mitch Mroject.’
What Works with Welcome to the Jungle:
1.) A small scene early in the movie involving a woman and a child in the middle of a dirt road is gut wrenching…even if you can tell what’s coming.
2.) The second half of the movie uses the darkness very well, especially to hide things…that we don’t want to see, but do before we’re prepared for them.
3.) Can be used as a cautionary tale…never to steal library books.
4.) Actually has gore…which the other movie never did. The other movie being the one I won’t mention that has the word ‘Blair’ and ‘Project’ in it.
5.) Don’t take skulls unless you intend to return them.
6.) Bamboo pole through a head.
7.) The use of unknown actors is relatively effective in keeping with the ‘this is really happening’ conceit since if you believe for a moment that you’re really watching a movie it loses a great portion of its effectiveness.
8.) Body parts. And what did they do to that head?
9.) The last shot of the movie made me smile.
10.) I guess those necklaces weren’t presents after all…
What doesn’t work-
1.) The movie’s a scant 82 minutes long, but you feel like you wait 70 minutes for something to actually happen. Wait a second…maybe you actually do.
2.) Love it or hate it, with The Blair Witch Project (all right, I fucking said it), continuous use of the cameras was part of what the movie was all about. With Welcome to the Jungle, you wonder with all the shit that’s going on…why don’t they just ditch the cameras, or at least put them in their bags. As the movie progresses, you don’t believe they’d keep shooting footage.
3.) The players’ moral disintegration, while effective for about 5 minutes…simply becomes whining so that you hope some cannibal will kill someone just to get them to shut the fuck up.
4.) About 70% of the first half of the movie is actors talking into the camera saying pithy/smartass/lame comments. I wondered which was worse: that they improvised this stuff or if was written for them.
5.) For those of you that don’t like shaky cam…there are some nausea inducing sequences…and it isn’t because of the gore.
As mediocre as Welcome to the Jungle is…I don’t dislike it and would probably like it more if there weren’t a movie released in ’99 just like it.
So if you have lowered expectations…and have absolutely nothing else to watch…you could do worse.
Available from Amazon
Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 8:33 am | Filed under Horror Reviews.
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