Welcome to the Jungle (DVD)

Open Water meets The Blair Witch Project meets Cannibal Holocaust in this dreary, unoriginal and seemingly cash-poor fright flick movie about two young couples who disappear into the wild green yonder in search of long-gone billionaire-heir Michael Rockefeller, rumored to have taken up residence deep in New Guinea's no man's land of head hunters. There's not only reward money to be had if the fearless foursome can find him, they believe there's also fame and notoriety in the making of a documentary film about their experience. It's clearly a win/win sitch. Camcorder in hand, but brains not in head, off they blunder.

The actors, all supposedly improvising within the confines of a scripted story, are decent enough. Sandy Gardiner plays Mandi, the in-shape beauty who can run with the best of them; Callard Harris is her cool, calculating boyfriend Colby; and Veronica Sywak and Nick Richey portray Bijou and Mikey, the two hedonists who simply see the trip as a lark and an excuse to play, eat, and screw.

The movie is spent mostly following the quipping quartet as they speculate, whine, flirt, fight, and eventually lose hope. Mandi and Colby are the driving force of the ill-advised expedition, and as they try to keep everything together and focused in the quest for Michael Rockefeller, Bijou and Mikey do everything they can (though not necessarily intentionally) to undermine their efforts. Needless to say, the hapless couples get lost in the jungle, eventually separated, and ultimately eviscerated.

You can see the ending coming from the very beginning, but in a movie like this it's the stuff in-between counts. Unfortunately, there's not enough meat here to satisfy even the most calorie-conscious of brain-slurping cannibals. Forget about any gratuitous nudity, sex, blood, or gross-out moments along the way to the characters' ultimate demises… this low budget horror movie, ripe for many elements of exploitation, was apparently made with an entirely different viewing audience in mind (the kind who might prefer staring at a still photo of Bruce Willis as opposed to watching him kick ass in the new Die Hard DVD).

And speaking of DVDs, the one for Welcome to the Jungle does have extras and I did watch them. They're actually superior to the film. Director's commentary helps the movie along quite a bit, as does a making-of featurette that illustrates the casting of the constantly-complaining characters.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson