Lost Island - Von der Evolution vergessen

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.

Don't expect expect Lance Henriksen to work any major skills on this throw-away title. Putting in a total of 5 minutes on screen for a ridiculous subplot about an anti-scientific conspiracy within the (presumably Roman Catholic) "Church," Hollywood's go-to villain- for-hire phones it in for a paycheck.

And yet the film makers - who clearly missed the 1950 Papal encyclical stating there's no conflict between evolution and RC faith - waste the actors time and our patience on the abundantly absurd idea that finding the missing link - in the Americas, no less - is worth sending a hit-team after anthropologists. And that somehow, this species is still alive, and larger and more powerful than modern humans and (as is obvious to anyone who's taken high school biology), simian predecessors.

But this preposterous back story - which could have been ditched for a perfectly serviceable mutants-on-an-island movie - represents the only original idea here. A boatload of yuppie monster fodder crashes on an island. They're attacked by unseen mutants. You're better off wasting money on The Killer Shrews. At least you won't be annoyed by monsters barking faux Klingon, and all the Predator plagiarism (unseen killers in the trees; infra-red mutant point-of-view; and a protagonist blending in by being covered with muck).

On the plus side, the acting is competent, and the photography is pretty good. The mutant makeup is excellent. And yet, as Steven King notes in one of his essays, better stories never show the monster.

First of all, yes, THE LOST TRIBE does contain several similarities to earlier films such as PREDATOR and THE DESCENT. In fact, some could be called outright lifts. In addition, the idea of "the church" sending out a hit squad to cover up "proof of evolution" is absurd.

However, it somehow works in spite of these glaring flaws.

The characters are believable enough, with Anna (Emily Baldoni) being the unexpected standout. The creatures are better than expected, full of primal menace. While much of the movie is indeed derivative and the story line is rather inane, the final 30 minutes are worth the pain.

Lance Henriksen fans take note: His screen time amounts to about a minute and a half...

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