The Lost Tribe

This is not a very good movie. I watched it on the sci-fi channel so I wasn't expecting it to be Oscar winning material and it wasn't. The comparison to Predator is valid when it comes to the creatures and how they see the human targets (quite a bit of monster eye view scenes). The acting isn't great but then again, most of the time its just the victims running around, screaming. The plot is certainly weak but if you are looking at this movie and complaining about details such as how the radio still works after washing up on the beach, this is not your movie. Turn off the critical thinking.

The movie begins by laying down the premise. Woman archaeologist finds missing link. Church wants her dead and her findings covered up. She is killed and then assassins are killed by creatures. Main characters wonder in after all this and have nothing to do with the archaeologist and the church. The church wanting to cover up proof of evolution is not terribly hard to believe but sending a group of brutal assassins is certainly over the top but even that isn't a new concept as Tom Hanks has been battling Vatican assassins over the course of two movies now.

So after they crash on the island its a lot of running around and stupidity. There is an argument and a main character walks off (wanting to be alone for a bit) and we are completely shocked that he disappears. This sets off the rest to go searching for him and the hunt begins in earnest.

You don't see any of the 'lost tribe' until the last 10 minutes of the movie and I was pleasantly surprised to see them as they weren't terribly bad, I could even say they were rather well done. Hybrid creatures that show part human part ape. They look more ape like in the way they move but more upright standing and they obviously have a language they speak, ritual and hierarchy.

Acting is, by far, not the worst but far from the best, monster affects are better than your average low budget and are the best part of the movie but only shown in the last 10-15 minutes of the movie. Script and originality are the real weak points.

All in all it was better than I expected but I was expecting it to be so bad I would not finish it (like many sci-fi channel movies).

About 75% of the time, all you see is darkness and outlines, sometimes with some crunching noises and people screaming. That approach is OK for a horror movie when used in moderation: here it's used so much they might as well have been filming from inside a closet. With the door shut.

Except for the anthropologist (or whoever she was) character, the acting looks like a You-Tube video somebody at a drunken frat party shot of his friends when they were all beyond hammered. All of these characters are obviously there for no other purpose than to become roadkill pizza for the creatures. There's one recognizable actor in the cast, whose purpose is even more baffling; he's an extra bad guy but who knows what his motivations are. And it never matters or changes anything anyway. I guess the actor had some free time and worked on the cheap.

The movie brazenly cuts and pastes direct images from Predator and several other movies. The creatures (that you can hardly ever see) grunt Kling-On and chase the scientist blonde all over the place, and then let her go. Then chase her some more. She thinks they might be the long sought-after Missing Link, but who knows? They show more skill, intelligence, and adaptability than some modern humans, such as whoever was responsible for this silliness.

I did actually think The Lost Tribe would be sort of fun, due to its idea. But I didn't like the film very much. There are redeeming values and they were that it was beautifully shot, Emily Foxler is quite likable and although they're underused the creatures do have some menace to them. Otherwise, the story is unoriginal, all too similar to Predator and The Forgotten Ones, and is not helped by dull pacing and a ridiculous subplot involving a Catholic Priest. The script is unfocused and cheesy especially with Brianna Brown, with not enough mystery or character development, the characters I didn't care for at all either finding them stock or unnecessary. There are some scenes that were poorly done due to either bad acting or direction, I am especially talking about the scene on the beach which also had inconsistent continuity and the unintentionally funny scene in the cave. The climax was decent though, it just came too late to care. The acting is nothing to write home about, Foxler I liked, but Brianna Brown is wasted with some of the worst material of the movie and Lance Henrikssen tries hard but the unnecessary character and ridiculous subplot spoils things significantly. All in all, an unoriginal and dull movie, not an abomination but should have been much more. 3/10 Bethany Cox

million dollar budget? are you sure it wasn't more like a 1,000 and shot in somebody's backyard not a movie studio?

I watched this film in the early morning hours one day when I try to catch horror movies that don't get shown in prime time because many of my favourites are movies that get lower than deserved scores from critics who don't appreciate good horror movies.

This one on the other hand seems more like a student movie that was filmed in a back yard than a professional film. Hiding the enemy in the dark or in the forest cover so you only hear them before they strike can be useful if not overdone but when that is constant it make you wonder if it is an excuse to avoid using special effects.

also means that whatever tension did build begins to dissipate.

there is no real sympathy developed for the characters so why are we supposed to care if they become a meal for whatever it is that lives there ...who are kept separated from the rest of the world by ...the Roman Catholic church who is out to get everyone the stone age lost tribe misses.

although I thought it was a tribe of people who run around in bad gorilla suits.

A group of young adults crashes their boat on some island, and they encounter a race of primates that is maybe the missing link or maybe something else. It's not really clear, but one thing is certain: they are deadly.

This movie is stupid for a number of reasons, the first being that they have no clue what they're talking about with Catholics -- the film features a King James version of the Bible (not a Catholic one) and says the motive is evolution denial. Believe it or not, the Catholic Church believes in evolution! This is also obviously a "Predator" ripoff based on the cover art, and the creatures' vision. The beasts in the film don't even really look like the cover, so it's a ripoff and misleading.

Where is this? 5 hours north of the Antilles... is that where evolution occurred? I don't know, but I doubt it, as that would be off the American coast.

Lance Henriksen appears, and tries to save the film... but fails.