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You know what five words I hate seeing in film taglines?

Based. On. A. True. Story.

Here's the thing about such a phrase: it instantly tells you that whatever you're going to see is a) within the realm of physical possibility and b) results in your lead surviving. Now granted, the true story in this case is actually pretty fascinating, but still...if you tell me it's based on reality, I watch the whole film with the preordained disappointment that no aliens or unicorns will appear. What an immediate letdown.

Quick Plot: Having finished his service in the Israeli army, young Yossi decides to travel the world and avoid a life of expected responsibility. While backpacking through South America, he befriends the adventurous Swede Marcus, his American photographer pal Kevin, and a mysterious Austrian named Karl begging to be their Amazon jungle tour guide.

Once they're deep into the wilderness, it doesn't take long for dissension to strike amongst the team. Marcus proves too weak to handle the trek, while the self-proclaimed expert Karl turns out to be a fraud who can't even swim. Since rafting down some wild rapids is the fastest way out before the rainy season strikes, this poses a problem.

Marcus and Karl decide to slowly hike back together. Kevin and Yossi begin their water trail only to immediately be separated by the raging waters. The film (mostly) then follows Yossi as he battles the elements.

And my, what elements they are! Fire ants, gooey quicksand, worms that somehow lodge themselves on the east side of Harry Potter's scar, you name it. While Jungle wouldn't particularly fall into the category of horror movie, it does occasionally tilt its hand to have been directed by Wolf Creek's Greg McLean.

Jungle is based on the real Yossi Ghinsberg's experience in the wild (and also dramatized in a 2005 episode of Discovery's I Shouldn't Be Alive!, a show whose title exclamation point can never not make me think of the glory that is I Don't Want To Be Born). The story itself is genuinely incredible, and it's a wonder it took 40 years to make its way to the big screen.

At the same time, it kind of worked better in hourlong documentary form.

The biggest problem with Jungle is that it simply doesn't trust its source material enough to be its own movie. For a good half hour, we're following Yossi without any influence of the outside world. It's riveting, capturing the real horrors of being truly alone in the heart of the wilderness. 

So why cut away and show Kevin getting help from a nearby village?

McLean, or his script, also toy with Yossi's mental setting, flashing back to his family strife before he left to travel. It's the same issue I had with Danny Boyle's celebrated 127 Hours: the reason these survival stories fascinated the world is because it's truly incredible to imagine what a person can do to make it through such an ordeal. Sure, there's an argument to be made for how your past might affect your current situation, but it's such a trite, standard movie trick that sucks all the true tension out of scrounging for birds' eggs and fighting snakes. 

High Points

Hey, you film a survival movie in a wilderness filled with rapids and greenery and the occasional stock image of a fuzzy spider and you'll have an audience impressed

Low Points

Daniel Radcliffe is the other best part of Jungle, so it's one of those things I just can't acknowledge: the actor clearly gave this his all, putting his body through an intense regime and losing dozens of pounds...for this?

Lessons Learned

Monkey meat is positively delicious

Nothing can change a person's mind with quite as much efficiency as a pack of fire ants

Amazonian snakes are surprisingly easy to handle, even on an empty stomach

Rent/Bury/Buy

Argh. Jungle isn't a bad movie, but it just feels like a story that deserved a better telling. You can find it on Amazon Prime...where you can also find the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode.

Memory Games

Look, I know I said that modern zombie movies should be more innovative with their storytelling, but I also believe we as horror fans deserve good movies.

Moving on...

Quick Plot: A man (District 9's Sharlto Copley) wakes up in a deep pit of corpses with no memory of how he got there or who he even is. With the help of a mystery mute woman (Josie Ho of the brilliant Dream Home), the man who now smells like a pit of corpses and will henceforth be known as John Doe discovers a group of equally attractive people in a nearby house, all of whom are also suffering from the same form of amnesia.

Suspicions arise and infighting begins, especially when some zombie-like creatures are found lurking in the woods. To say more would, I guess, spoil the (too) many twists of Open Grave, which becomes more puzzle being pieced together than a film with a driving narrative.

Directed by Apollo 18's Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego with a script from Eddie & Chris Borey, Open Grave feels like a relic of a recent bygone era in the genre film world, where every straight-to-DVD (remember those?) would put a gaggle of strangers together in a Saw-like scenario, forcing them to discover some terrible secrets about themselves in bad lighting. 

Never forget.

Filmed in 2013, Open Grave is somewhat removed from the slew of early 21st century horror I mentioned, but its overcomplicated plotting ultimately holds it back from being much better. It's disappointing, particularly when you consider the strong cast (even Resident Evil: Apocalypse/Karate Dog's Thomas Kretschmann shows up, primarily for me to remember that he's not Jaime Lannister). 

To SPOIL a few things here, consider the ultimate reveal of Open Grave: John is a scientist trying to find a cure to the rage-inducing plague apparently ravaging the world. Naturally, he has a team of equally attractive, same-aged peers as his research team because that's how science works. The antidote he creates causes temporary memory loss and a rescue team is coming to kill everyone on the property because science? and the mute woman without a name is the key to it all even if we don't ever know anything about who she actually is. 

This movie was...frustrating.

All the more so because it was obviously made with talent, both behind and in front of the camera. The ideas are interesting and in theory, the reveal should be too, but Open Grave just never settles into any kind of fluid pace to get us there. We ultimately learn the truth when one character's memory returns, mostly offscreen and recapped in a handwritten letter. It just doesn't move the way it should.

High Points

On paper, the twist is clever

Low Points

On screen, it's too convolutedly revealed to be so

Lessons Learned

Short-term memory loss may take away your name, but it will not impede your ability to read Latin

When dealing with barbed wire, always have a plan

Notes, people: leave 'em

Rent/Bury/Buy

Eh, Open Grave is certainly a high quality looking horror film, but it left me incredibly unsatisfied. It's better-made than your average Amazon Prime stumble-upon, but that doesn't make it fun to watch. 

Once Upon a Time, The World Was Very Boring

Cannibals! Felicity! Genital Feasts!

It would take a lot for this movie not to work, right?

Quick Plot: A grad student named Kate (a straight-haired, monotone speaking Keri Russell) has moved to Germany to write her thesis on the infamous cannibal murder of Oliver and Simon (based on the bizarre real-life case of Armin Meiwes). As Kate investigates what led these two men to such extremes, we watch flashbacks of, well, what led these two men to such extremes. Just like Kate investigates. And then we watch. Her investigate.

For a movie about sexy thrill-seeking cannibals, Grimm Love sure is a drag. The film gets to a terribly drab start with Russell's Valium-induced voiceover, a rambling soliloquy about loneliness and the desire to find someone who can see inside of you. If the content didn't seem dull enough, perhaps the fact that Russell's enthusiasm makes Harrison Ford's Blade Runner exposition sound like Robin Williams' Aladdin Genie should clue you in.

Directed by Martin Weisz (he of the recent Hills Have Eyes 2, and yes, that's the one with more rape and less dog flashbacks than Wes Craven's original), Grimm Love is indeed a grim tale. I don't mean that as a compliment. Weighted down in dark eyeshadow and raccoon liner, Keri Russell is woefully miscast, though the character of Kate is even more woefully underdeveloped. IMDB trivia explains that a lot of scenes were eliminated from the final cut, which on one hand, explains the incompleteness, but on the other, is horrifying in itself. The Netflix streaming edition ran at 94 minutes, and while I've had had dental work that lasted longer, I swear it felt like a breeze compared to what must have been the LONGEST 94 MINUTE MOVIE OF ALL TIME.

This was a slog.

The idea is certainly ripe for a film adaptation. Why WOULD a man willfully submit himself to be eaten (penis-first) by a stranger, and what kind of stranger has such a particular appetite? It's almost as if Grimm Love figured out all too late that such questions are truly fascinating when explored, not when we watch them be explored by a third party. As Kate tracks down news articles and breaks into abandoned homes, we get flashbacks that follow both men through their child and adult years. Early scenes are even (rather annoyingly) portrayed as if they were grainy 8MM projections, a trick that might work in a better movie but here felt like a last-ditch effort to bring something visually interesting to the otherwise drab palette.

I never thought I'd be so bored by a film that includes a scene where a man--not just any man, but Karate Dog's Thomas Kretschmann, for pete's sake--made an anatomically correct male figure out of butter and ate the phallus as if it were the last Twinkie on the shelf. Maybe it was the fact that the previous scene featured his soon-to-be meal begging a hooker to, and I quote, "Bite my thing off!" that killed the element of surprise. Maybe my standards are insanely high when it comes to anatomically correct butter men and Karate Dog alumni.

Or maybe Grimm Love is just a boring movie.

High Notes
Look, I'm not arguing with the IDEA behind Grimm Love, right down to its exploration of two gay men with mother issues and insecurities. THAT'S practically golden. But when you chop it up and let a dull grad student shoot it out with the energy of a sloth, you end up with--

Low Notes
This movie

Stray Observations
At 31, I'm at an age where I and my peers could indeed decide to complete our college education with a masters degree or doctorate. And yet, of all my friends and acquaintances, I think I know two currently enrolled. So why, I ask, is approximately 83% of all horror film protagonists grad students? Do they just make better movie prey, or do I just hang out with the uneducated?

Lessons Learned
A bedroom says a lot about a person

One should always find the right balance between cannibalism and sunshine

People taste like pork

Rent/Bury/Buy
Unless your number one sexual fantasy is watching a pseudo-goth grrrrl Felicity surf the internet, I suggest you give Grimm Love a pass. Sure, it's more competently made than a good deal of the grad-student-based horror films currently streaming on Instant Watch, but if the price of decent product values is anything interesting onscreen, then you can give me my shot-on-video boom mike falls any day.