Indigenous

Below mediocre, thoroughly amateurish attempt making a survival horror film in the jungles of Panama. The film is about a group of friends who decide to explore an impenetrable area called the Darién Gap.

The Darién Gap (Spanish: Región del Darién or Tapón del Darién) is a break in the Pan-American Highway consisting of a large swath of undeveloped swampland and forest within Panama's Darién Province in Central America and the northern portion of Colombia's Chocó Department in South America.

Having learned from a friend about a beautiful waterfall in that area, which has a pool very good to swim in, they decide to undertake an expedition despite the friend's warning about a vicious creature that inhabits the area. This creature, the Chupacabra, is thought to be an evil spirit inhabiting the body of a half-man, half-animal being.

The film opens fairly straightforward as most films in this genre do. A group of tourists enjoying themselves, sucking up the atmosphere, drinking, making love to their girlfriends etc., etc. Then they decide that rather then surfing at the coast, they do something adventurous and explore this impenetrable area called the Darién Gap. They find the waterfall as the friend said. They then bathe in the pool below the waterfall for a while, till one of the couple decides to leave and do deeper into the jungle. Then all hell breaks loose...

The director, I feel, is unable into inject a real spark into this film. The actors that were chosen did their jobs as per the script. But the script itself is so obviously dull and predictable, that we already know what direction the film is headed at. In the past I saw a survival action-horror film that set the benchmark for all movies of its genre. This film was Predator, a 1987 film directed by John McTiernan. Also note that The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter is also a survival-horror film. Basis of such movies is an outer-space alien killing off humans.

More films you may like: Dawn of the Dead(1978), Tremors(1990), Jaws(1975), Shakma(1990), Prince of Darkness(1987), 30 Days of Night(2007).

Thank you for reading this review. May you live long and prosper.

Indigenous offers the well-known concept of lost tourists on an exotic location where they meet hostile entity. It highly resembles other fiction movies or even miniseries from Discovery channel. To its credit, it gives nice visual of the setting and there is effort to produce horror, but ultimately it is a straightforward and tired endeavor.

The story might work to its advantage as audience gets exactly what they expect. There's little diversity here, even in recent year there are several movies with same theme. A few college kids take vacation in a beautiful place, and then they are inexplicably going to ominous site even though there are plenty of visible warnings.

Visual is pretty good, the use of location is commendable, although when the encounter happens during nighttime, it reverts to jittery cam. The movie is shot mostly on third person, so it shouldn't encounter this issue like many mockumentary movies. Fortunately, the practical effect works well and it doesn't shy away from displaying the monster instead of maintaining blurry shots.

Script does what it needs to, though surprisingly the actors perform admirably. They mostly look genuine, either through occasionally adequate presentation of the horror or the acting itself. In latter half, the movie opts for different gimmick and tries to broaden the scale, a decent effort but not entirely novel.

Indigenous is exactly one would expect from lost tourist horror theme, it's far from innovative, but it might just be sufficient in the small scope.

RELEASED IN 2014 and directed by Alastair Orr, "Indigenous" covers events in Panama when five college-age youths vacation there for some fun in the sun. Things go awry when they visit a beautiful waterfall in a forbidden area of the jungle.

This is a professionally made monster-in-the-forest flick with a competent no-name cast highlighted by gorgeous Panamanian locations and winsome Laura Penuela in a bikini. Precious Lindsey McKeon is another highlight on the female front.

My only problems are that (1.) the plot's hackneyed, particularly bringing to mind "The Last Tribe" (2009), which is marginally better in some ways. Other flicks come to mind, like "Touristas" (2007) and "The Ruins" (2008), which are superior to the other two. (2.) There's no depth in the plot: This is a monster movie focusing on partying youths getting chased in the forest by savage creatures and that's it. As such, the film's not very compelling despite the horror and thrills. On the bright side, the last act throws in an unexpected curve ball and shows that the movie wasn't micro-budget. Another positive is that this is arguably the best and most realistic chupacabra flick out there (keeping in mind that I've only seen four such movies).

Speaking of which, 'chupacabra' is a Spanish word, which literally means "goat-sucker" (from chupar "to suck" and cabra "goat"). There are two varieties of this cryptozoological beast: (1.) a reptile-like creature with leathery/scaly greenish-gray skin and sharp spines or quills running down its back; and (2.) a hairless form of canine with a pronounced spinal ridge and prominent eye sockets, fangs, and claws. "Indigenous" interestingly features neither of these, although the creatures come closer to the first description, I suppose.

THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 26 minutes was shot in Panama. WRITER: Max Roberts.

GRADE: B-/C+ (5.5/10)

Takes half the movie until anything horror-ish even start to happen and then it takes an additional 15 minutes until we actually get a look of the creatures that are suppose to be the main attraction of the movie.

And although they look reasonably creepy, it just isn't enough to save the movie and for the more-part they aren't really anywhere to be seen, occasionally because they are a bit away but mostly because of shaky camera work and the fact that they seem to do most their work at night-time.

The characters are also dull one-tracked party hardy boys and girls with little likability factor to them, which doesn't help.

So yeah really not recommended, unless you are one of the few people who liked 'ANIMAL (2014)' cause that's similar to this. And that was also terrible.

This is an amazingly dreadful movie. Starts off looking like a pretty good C-Grade movie and some fun in the jungle with an unknown beast. That's what it is, but most of the time we run around with a flashlight, screams from the humans and screeches from the beast. We hardly see the beast and have no feelings towards the humans (like who cares if they die). Avoid this one, no joke.