A different way of telling a story

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

After being stranded on a strange island, a group of shipwrecked friends finds the area home to a tribe of savage human-like beings and forces them into an extreme mode of survival to get off the island alive.Overall this one was quite an entertaining effort without too much really wrong here. The biggest plus with this one is the fact that there's a rather engrossing mystery that develops here early on about what exactly's on the island with them and how to defend themselves, which is quite enjoyable for how it goes about this. The concept of being on an uncharted island is good enough to start this off with, but then comes the idea of putting the creatures on there which makes for quite an enjoyable time building up to them by the early ways this goes about it. From the off-screen grunting and growling to the scenes of them stealing their shipwrecked items and stalking them along the way to the first major encounter of them capturing several members of the group in ingenious rope-traps that scores quite well as an action sequence yet never once gives away the creatures and their design which is quite impressive. That's reserved for the first main confrontation in the caves where the remaining members of the expedition are kept to be tortured and killed within the darkened caves which is quite a feat to be done so late in the film but also with the rather chilling sequence it's done with as well making for a great time here as it rolls through the final half with a lot of impressive and enjoyable moments. The battle in the underground tunnels, the chase through the jungle leading to the revelation in the clearing and the final encounter at the enclosed circle of bamboo trees all combine into a great series of scenes that shows off the creatures quite well, gets plenty of action and suspense into this and even throws in some decent amount of gore to really work quite nicely. These do manage to hold off the few small flaws here, namely the fact that the film's not that interesting when focusing on the human cast as they're stories aren't that engaging. The purpose of inviting the ex and her new romantic interest seems only to generate tension within the group as there's little point in inviting them along on a trip like this in the first place, even inviting along the friend who's romantically unattached and going to be around his most recent ex-girlfriend makes his involvement even more questionable, and there's little about their interactions early on that comes off all that enjoyable. The other small flaw is the rather lackadaisical manner this treats the group who are knowingly stuck on the island and rarely react with any sense of urgency or intensity to get off considering the situation present and something obviously there with them. Otherwise, this one was pretty enjoyable.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Recipe for this movie: Start off with "The Descent" Replace cast of girls with one likable actress and others no one will care about Change setting to jungle Make the bat-like creatures into monkey-like creatures, but keep the blindness and echo-location because, you know, monkeys are like that too. End on a Hollywood happy noteIf it wasn't so similar to "The Descent" or had come out first, I probably would have like it more. It didn't have the grittiness, the terror, the bad ass lead character. On top of that, the plot is pretty obvious and your typical Hollywood formula. It just doesn't measure up. It's not a bad movie, it just doesn't have any of the qualities that made "The Descent" so great.

This movie was awful. The intro was cool, beginning was standard with a lame twist, and then it was just boring from then on. The monsters seemed cool at first but the way they acted was too human, but obviously that was the point because they are called a tribe or spoken of as humans. It was just so silly how one acted towards the end, it was like animals with a code of chivalry, so lame. It's like the director didn't know what direction to take these "people" in. The ending was utterly stupid, there is one lone survivor, and she just sits at the end of the beach, and minutes are wasted watching her sit there, seemed like minutes. At one point during the movie there was what appeared to be her dead bf, but it wasn't, BUT THEN WHERED THAT FRESH BODY COME FROM? And this many decades old tent was unbelievably still in tact, give me a break. There was just so many stupid things about this movie, it's not worth watching. And no, there were no hot girls, not to me.

What a waste of time. The opening sequence takes place in the past and looks promising. But then...we get to the present. And it all goes downhill from there.The movie apes a lot of Predator sequences. But it's all a waste because the characters are really being chased by some kind of weird mutated bigfoot ape things.Everyone dies pretty fast, so that too, was a waste.Jewel's character is the only one left standing. And she ridiculously goes into Predator fightin mode. I'd say it jumps the shark right there.The ending is anticlimactic. And you just kind of sit there like, that's it??? Total waste of time. Jewel did give it her all, though. But sometimes even good acting cannot save a really bad movie.