Titreenp
SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?
Billie Morin
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Paul Andrews
Welcome to the Jungle starts in Fiji where newlywed couple Mandi (Sandy Gardiner) & Colby (Callard Harris) are enjoying their honeymoon, they meet up with old friends Bijou (Veronica Sywak) & Mikey (Nick Richey) who decide to get together. The two couples remember the story about Michael Rockefeller mysteriously disappearing off the coast of New Guinea in 1961, they recount stories of a helicopter pilot seeing an old white man living with a native tribe in the jungle & the two couples feel certain it's the missing Rockefeller. Sensing they could earn an absolute fortune if they do find him the two couples decide to travel to New Guinea & try to locate Rockefeller, the task turns out to be anything but easy as they have to deal with armed robbers, violent locals whom dislike Americans, unforgiving jungle terrain & hungry native cannibals...Not to be confused with the sometimes similarly titled action film starring The Rock this was co-photographed, written & directed by Jonathan Hensleigh who has written some really heavy weight Hollywood scripts including Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) & Armageddon (1998) this seems a rather odd choice of film for him to be involved with, anyway I can't say I particularly liked it that much but strangely by the end I was warming to the style & the story. Lasting just under 80 minutes Welcome to the Jungle is a rip-off of The Blair Witch Project (1999) with it's 'found footage' recorded by those no longer with us structure, it's odd because many say that The Blair Witch Project was a rip-off of Cannibal Holocaust (1980) which it was to some extent so for this film to introduce cannibals in the jungle as it's main plot feels strange to me. All of Welcome to the Jungle is 'found footage' so we get really bad edits all over the place where people are cut off, scenes begin & end abruptly & while I am sure that the makers were trying to make it look & feel as homemade as possible it gets incredibly irritating. The idea that these four friends would trek through some really dangerous New Guinea jungle on the off chance they might find Michael Rockefeller is a stretch to say the least, I mean if one of the richest men in the US couldn't find him what makes them think they can? The mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller is true by the way, nothing else in Welcome to the Jungle is though. A large problem with Welcome to the Jungle is that the four main character's spend the vast majority of the film arguing & bickering which gets annoying, I did start to get into the film a bit by the end & was getting used to the style but that's about the best thing I can say about it.Because of the 'found footage' nature of Welcome to the Jungle it's an absolute eyesore to sit through, there are times when the screen is pitch black & we just hear what's going on, there are times when the camera jerks around all over the place & the editing feels strange as well. I know it's meant to have the look of a homemade film but it just gets irritating & annoying to watch. There's barely any gore, a few dead bodies & a weaker take on one of Cannibal Holocaust's iconic imagery. Despite being about cannibals I can't remember any actual on screen cannibalism & it's really tame. Certainly not worthy of an 'Unrated' release, it was released as a soft '15' over here in the UK. The only thing that works in the films favour are the locations which are very authentic looking, very isolated & seem pretty dangerous & remote but that's not enough to save the film.Apparently filmed entirely in Fiji the film looks like what the makers intended, it's just that I don't particularly like this style of filmmaking & think it looks cheap. The acting is alright, the actor's have no material to work with apart from 'argue about this' dialogue.Welcome to the Jungle is probably about as good as the makers could have pulled off with what they were trying to do but I dislike the whole 'found footage' genre which doesn't help, neither does the fact that there's no cannibalism or proper gore or shock's in it. Not my cup of tea at all.
chaugnurfaugn-269-83012
American beauties Mandi and Colby and their party-animal friends, Mikey and Australian Bijou, head out to remote New Guinea in search of Michael Rockefeller who went missing in 1961, presumed dead. Sightings of a bearded old white man travelling with natives deep in uncharted territories have the intrepid foursome fired up, so off they go with little more than the most rudimentary understanding of the trouble they could get into.Much has been made of the similarities between this and Cannibal Holocaust or Blair Witch. I've seen Cannibal Holocaust and agree that there are similarities, not least one particular grizzly scene. But I don't necessarily agree that this renders the entire movie contemptible. What Cannibal Holocaust lacked (slick production values, a watchable cast and character development) Welcome to the Jungle provides. Other than the fact that this is a 'lost tape' genre, wherein the entire film plays out through the lens of a hand-held video camera, is the only thing that marks it out as comparable to Blair Witch. The lost tape genre is still a trope rather than a cliché and there are countless other examples that play more accurately to the original format (ie. hauntings, paranormal etc).Welcome to the Jungle scared me a lot more than Cannibal Holocaust, which, frankly, I just found disgusting. I'm not a hardcore fan of gore or shockers made for the sake of shocking, but felt I needed to watch CH simply because of the infamy of the film, the pride I take in knowing the horror genre inside out and being able to post knowledgeable reviews. I also watched Human Centipedes 1 and 2 for the same reason, but that's another story! There were a few issues. The end was confusing and a little too sudden. And there were several instances of 'horror movie victim mentality' wherein the cast behaved not as rational and terrified human beings in a perilous situation but as horror movie protagonists walking obligingly to their doom just so we can watch it happen. Otherwise, this was an enjoyable and nerve rattling ride. The juxtaposition of serious and dedicated Mandi/Colby vs hedonist joy-riders Bijou/Mikey was particularly horrifying to watch. I found myself firmly in the shoes of Colby, which was not a nice experience.Generally a more mainstream and viewer-friendly attempt at the cannibal horror and a brave mix of sub-genres.
shadowfever
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.
mrush
I thought this movie was gonna be good.It starts out at least looking a bit promising but then just when it finally gets to some good stuff it ends leaving you feeling unsatisfied and kind of mad.And let me add that this movie has absolutely nothing to do with Guns N Roses.2 couples set out to find the missing Michael Rockefeller ,who disappeared into the jungles of New Guinea in 1961 and was never heard from again.A rumor from a bush pilot sends the four out into the jungle to find Rockefeller and get rich and famous doing it.After one of the four steals some bones from a burial site the local natives get ticked off.But they might have anyway,who knows? This movie has nothing original to offer.We've seen the cannibal movies before and we've seen the shaky hand held movie documentary style filming before.My question with these supposed self shot movies is would a person really keep filming even after they realize their life is in danger ?Really? You gonna keep the camera light on out in the middle of the jungle at night with headhunters all around?I kinda think I'm gonna shut it off and hide like the sniveling coward I am.Anyway the movie goes along fine and then all of a sudden it's sort of wraps up all quick like and the credits roll.Did you boys run out of money or did you get tired of filming out in the hot jungle?It just abruptly quits before any good gore or terror gets going.Some night time quick glimpses of some gore is about it.No nudity at all even though you got 4 hot young folks out in the middle of nowhere taking swims and sunbathing and stuff like that.I can't recommend this movie ,it just never delivers on it's promise of terror and gore.
