The Jungle

Long story short:

If you're a newbie or impressionable 16-24 type who's grown up in a sterile western environment, this will probably be scary for you. Not a bad way to waste some time.

If you're an actual horror fan, you could take it or leave it. It's not bad but it's very by-the-numbers. I'd recommend if you'd just like to throw something on that doesn't take up too much attention.

They really should've made an effort to be at least a bit more original.

I'm all in favour of movies like Blair Witch Project with that "held camera" type of shooting.

The jungle starts off as something that could have turned into a great low budget movie. Instead it goes on a downhill road from the very beginning.

Starting with the main characters on their way to the jungle - without any actual detail of what the jungle looks like but a bunch of trees - as they dwell deeper all we get is the main character that comes across as persistent and egocentric guy trying to find A leopard... Even the fact that they bumped into the natives could've leave you guessing if you're going to find a secret cult or ritual.. but no. There is no actual development to the characters and as time goes by you'll find yourself looking at the time, wondering how much longer until it ends. After a "close encounter", 4 minutes before the movie finishes, we get a glimpse of what the creature looks like which is nothing but as what could be described as a hairy man with a wolf mask.. Something more plausible and appealing could've happened here... Not to mention that throughout the movie there is no actual scenes where this "hairy masked man" could be seen and all we get are branches braking and big roars.

It leaves the viewers without nothing to expect and with an end feeling of the so called "deja vu" - seen it all before..

I enjoyed this film. It had a real authenticity and sense of realism about it, it didn't pull any lame punches and when the scares hit they were very effective.

Its a slow burn so if you want fast paced gore and lots of blood forget it. I thought the suspense was really well done in that it is very minimal and really relies on sound to do a lot of the work, make sure you have the sound up.

I also liked the fact that we never really get to know what the thing is- leaves it up to the imagination which is always more powerful and scary than special effect and animatronics.

I also thought the acting was good especially the relationship between Larry the scientist and Adi the tracker.

The movie cover, summary and the plot all good. End result bad. The main character is a jerk who cares more about jaguars than people. As an animal lover myself that says something. You doing really get a connection to the people who you know are going to die in a thriller. For the perspective that they went for from the camera angle was alright but could have been better. The plot was your usual thriller but I was bored through the whole movie. 5,15. 30 minute mark I thought Okay maybe it will really start getting good now, now, now.. It didn't. How this came out as a 3.8 rating I'll never know. Once close up the demon doesn't even look scary.

I'm not a lover of scary movies but I loved Andrew Traucki's earlier film with the crocodile - Black Water. The acting from the female lead in that was superb and the effects with the crocodile very realistic. This isn't as good but he is very good at suspense which builds slowly. Like David Strattan I also don't like hand-held camera work, but it does give the feeling of maneuvering through tight jungle spaces, so perhaps its use here is appropriate. The actors give good performances but the script could have been better developed. The horror genre is a difficult choice as Hollywood can afford bigger and better effects. I hope the writer /director will make more movies. I know it isn't easy to get finance as an independent. He has talent and should persist.