This film from the writer/director of The Punisher sees a group of four young friends head to New Guinea in search of Michael Rockefeller who went missing in the area in 1961. Luckily for us, the group were armed with two cameras and we follow their quest via the footage they shot before they too inevitably disappeared.
The foursome has fun at first until they run into trouble with the locals. As they venture further into the jungle however, tensions flare when wild child Bijou and party boy Mikey refuse to be respectful of the natives and their customs. This leads to a rift forming between the four friends and when Bijou and Mikey take off with the majority of the group’s gear, Colby and Mandi follow their trail. What they find is horrific to say the least.
Taking an already done to death concept and giving it some new life by including a new angle, Welcome to the Jungle works far better than it really should as it doesn’t deal with monsters, zombies or disease outbreaks. It deals with foreign people with whom the majority of viewers will be unfamiliar with. Nothing works better in the genre than fear of the unknown, so the writer/director at least achieves some creepy moments thanks to his choice of villains.
Not much actually happens throughout, but the exotic locations and characterisations (even if they are all stereotypes) manage to entertain in between all the gore and fear sequences. The film has incredible practical effects work and uses great in camera trickery to give life to its sicker moments.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Welcome to the Jungle is kind of fresh in that it’s like an episode of Bear Grylls gone disastrously wrong. It isn’t the most original or terrifying movie I’ve seen this year but it was a damn good effort for a straight to DVD release.
