Welcome to the Jungle

The premise was interesting, a search for Michael Rockefeller who disappeared in the jungles of New Guinea in 1961. Tying a story, especially a horror story, to an actual historic event intrigues me. Like adding Ambrose Bierce to Dusk til Dawn (3) or Edgar Allan Poe to any number of films it adds an extra dimension to the whole spirit of suspension of disbelief; and then to add cannibals to the mix without taking them out of their natural element is like icing on the cake.

Then it falls apart. When is this "found camera" fad going to go away. It is a filming technique that worked once, 40 years ago in Cannibal Holocaust, but has fallen on hard times. After a while the shaky camera thing gets irritating. And when you add in the Blair Witch stylings; the whiny, bitchy filmmakers who are more interested in themselves than the thing they are documenting, then things go from bad to worse.

Too much of the dialogue and storyline seemed improvised. Rather than adding character depth or an interesting plot development, it only took 1 dimensional characters and made them even more uninteresting and unlikeable.

Some of the cinematography was good, though some was too dark (intentional perhaps but grating non the less), and there were some beautiful location shots. The impaled "girl on a stick" scene, lifted from Cannibal Holocaust, was impressive. Okay, that is pretty much the extent of it's finer points.

As to the aforementioned suspension of disbelieve, it requires an involvement in the story to work, and that wasn't present. These weren't professional documentary filmmakers with a "get the shot no matter what" mentality. They were spoiled 20 something or others who would have dropped the camera and run for their lives at the first sign of danger. The danger that came, by the way, in the last 30 minutes or so. Up until then it was all the kind of self indulgence that one would expect from from these two particular couples taking videos of their journey. In other words, trite nonsense that has nothing to do with either the documentation of the search nor true progression of the story.

They did keep it fairly realistic in that they didn't show what the cameras would not have shown. Bodies dragged out of view of the lens, killings happening out of sight, etc. Unfortunately that meant that most of the really good scenes occurred off camera. So, realistic yes, boring, double yes. In other words, show me the blood and gore. In low budget horror filmmaking when you are working without tension, acting, or reason, then you have to make up for it with some added gore and a little T & A. Consider that my gratuitous gratuity to the genre.

If you have to continue in the "found camera" vein then do it with a new twist. Maybe a filmmaker who finds the footage and then attempts to recreate it in his or her own film with perhaps horrifying repercussions. Then we can use a few bouncing camera shots and then move on to some decent filmmaking.

I love low budget horror. I even love bad low budget horror. But when I see a film that actually had potential, let down by poor execution by people who should know better, I feel nothing but regret.

In 2004 Jonathan Hensleigh made The Punisher, a brutal flick that had some following. Jonathan thought to pick in on the docu style flicks by making the most shocking of them all, the cannibal script. To add more believability he added some backstory to it. Michael Clark Rockefeller disappeared during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern Netherlands New Guinea. His body was never found and it was believed that he was attacked by a crocodile although some say back then in the sixties cannibals were still living in that area.

4 friends are going to do some research towards Rockefeller on the island. Of course things go wrong an they do enter cannibal territory.

The most shocking was Cannibal Holocaust back in 1980. Still up to today people are afraid to watch this gory flick. The problem with Welcome To The Jungle is that they tried to remake Cannibal Holocaust. It failed on all bits. The script is really boring. You have to wait until the last 20 minutes before the cruelty comes in. Before that there is a lot of talking and arguing between the friends. And even when they enter the cannibals it looks ridiculous. It's not by putting some skulls on a rock that you have a cannibal zone.

On the part of the gore what's a natural fact in those kind of movies, well, it's low too. You do see parts of bodies everywhere but nothing is shown on-screen. Maybe the best part is when they discover one of their friend's corpse.

The acting was okay but the script failed on all parts. Guns 'n' Roses Welcome To The Jungle sounds creepier than this flick.

Gore 2/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5

this is movie is exactly the disappointment I expected it to be so I cannot be to harsh in the comments I make give i knew what I was signing up for.

It is a straight out rip off of Cannibal Holocaust but with none of the truly gory scenes. There are several attempts at scary scenes but they fall well short of being anything but for want of a better word "humorous".

There is a direct rip off scene from Cannibal holocaust involving a young lady which is half decent but the response of the other characters involved in the gruesome discovery does not build anywhere near the level of dread required to make the image a true shocker.

I did like the final frames of the movie, in fact it was quite excellent that you eventually got a little payoff for sitting through the entire film but it was really all to little all to late.

Go watch Cannibal holocaust rather than spend your time with this one.

Four goof balls go in search of Micheal Rockefeller, long presumed dead when he disappeared while on an expedition in Southwestern New Guinea, in hopes of getting a huge payday after they locate and interview the now legendary figure. They find that the locals are less than hospitable to put it mildly. The also must contend with petty bickering....A LOT of petty bickering.

In my opinion, the best films on the subject of cannibal natives are of the grind-house potboiler Italian variety. Movies such as Cannibal Ferox, Jungle Holocaust, and Cannibal Holocaust are extremist fare that any true horror buff can sink their teeth into. This film, on the other hand, while obviously hoping to capture the same unrelenting mood of said movies, can't help but come up short.That in and of itself is really not that surprising as even going into "Welcome to the Jungle" I pretty much knew that it wouldn't compare favorably to those infamous gore drenched films of yesteryear. Instead I decided to give it a chance on the sole reason that I like Jonathan Hensleigh's work for the most part. And while i couldn't really get behind this movie as I found too many parts of it outright boring thanks to severely under-developed characters. It's a bit too much build up for not enough payoff. Still, there ARE worse films out there and one could definitely feel that if the movie were in less capable hands that it would be much MUCH worse.

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: Commentary by writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh; a 15 and a half minute Making of; a deleted scene with optional commentary; promo trailer for this film; and trailers for "the Mist", the atrocious "Halloween" remake; "1408"; "Black Sheep" & "Broken"

This must be one of the worst and most annoying mockumentaries ever made....Follow 4 pampered twenty nothings as they quest to find another well to do never was former twenty nothing from 1961 rumored to be in the jungles of New Guinea after crashing off its coast 35 years earlier (or so the premise goes). On their stereotypical shallow "mis"adventure, you have your gun toting towny bandits, your angry bitter meaninglessly antagonizable militia, your sacred burial grounds complete with skulls and dress up skeletons, your creepy random forest dwelling Aussie guy appearing from and disappearing to nowhere warning the characters about said skulls and skeletons, your loin clothed flesh hungry forest locals outfitted with spears, body paint, and bows, and, oh yeah, the best part, your make shift rafts materializing out of nowhere made with no supplies yet seaworthy enough to float them down a river (that looks like a creek in Montana).....Ultimately, the dialog makes no sense and was often difficult to hear (which was a good thing considering the parts you can hear). The "home" video camera stylings fall apart almost immediately and watching becomes a chore. It was understood that this was low low low budget movie, but this was an absolute horror to watch.

Don't say I didn't warn you!