Welcome to the Jungle

You know I have seen a ton of poorly executed rip-offs made in my time and I don't normally leave comments but "Cannibal Holocaust" is such a great, terrifying piece of cinema, and "Welcome to the Jungle"(also the European name for the Rundown with the Rock) is such a colossal disaster, something has to be said! I am shocked that this film would even warrant distribution from a respectable horror label like Dimension. I am not going to give away spoilers I am just going to say stay away from this movie and if this topic interests you then please check out "Cannibal Holocaust." "Cannibal Holocaust" is so realistic that even the Italian government thought the filmmakers really killed people and had them arrested until it was proved otherwise. That is great film-making!

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"

"Welcome to the Jungle" has nothing to do with the Guns N' Roses song of the same name, but it owes a lot to "The Blair Witch Project." Too bad it has none of the latter's suspense or creativity.

The plot, such as it is, involves two young couples armed with video cameras who set off into the New Guinea jungle to find Michael Rockefeller, heir to the wealthy family, who disappeared on an expedition there in 1961. Reports are that Rockefeller encountered cannibals, and there's no need to post a spoiler here because the developments of this film are pretty obvious from the start. Unfortunately, before those developments actually develop, we are subject to an hour of improvised whining while the four adventurers wander the jungle, oblivious to the danger that the viewer knows awaits them.

The acting is average, the dialogue is banal, and the hand-held camera is a chore to endure. The film lacks scenes of torture — all of it happens off-camera, ironically — but the images of carnage are as gratuitous as you'd expect from Dimension Extreme. It's hard to feel any sympathy for these self-involved tourists once they've made it clear they'd never be welcome at our dinner table.

The only thing "Welcome to the Jungle" has going for it is some impressive photography. Unfortunately, the dessert doesn't justify the main course.

Welcome To The Jungle is a taut, well made, well acted shock 'mockumentary' that might have been considered a groundbreaking classic of exploitation cinema, if it hadn't been for the fact that not one second of it is in any way original. The pace and directorial style is stolen from The Blair Witch Project, whilst the nihilistic plot and certain visuals are taken from the film that inspired Blair Witch, Ruggero Deodato's infamous Cannibal Holocaust. It is hard to admire something that so shamelessly rips off other genre classics, no matter how well put together it is.

Writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh's extremely derivative plot sees two couples (a pair of hedonists, and their more sensible friends) travel to a cannibal infested jungle to try and find the heir to the Rockefeller fortune, who went missing in the area over 40 years earlier. As the going gets tough, tempers become frayed and arguments inevitably break out. But things really go tits up when one of the group angers the locals by pilfering a skull from a native burial site. The extremely miffed gut-munchers stalk the amateur adventurers and teach them not to go messing with their ancestors' remains.

What follows is undeniably tense, occasionally quite nasty, and technically well handled by cast and crew, but I fail to see how the makers of Welcome To The Jungle expected to present this film without criticism. Perhaps, if it had been as unrelentingly harrowing as Cannibal Holocaust (is that even possible?), fans of extreme horror would have forgiven the plagiarism and admired the film's willingness to shock and disgust. But instead, even the nastiest moment in Hensleigh's film, in which one of the victims is shown impaled on a bamboo pole, is a weak copy of a much more disturbing image in Deodato's movie.

Horror fans who have yet to experience the 'delights' of Cannibal Holocaust or the effectively creepy atmosphere of Blair Witch will probably find much to enjoy about Welcome to the Jungle. However, the rest of us will be annoyed by the bare-faced cheek of its makers. To give it a rating any higher than 5/10 just seems wrong.