INDIGENOUS (review)

Review by Joshua Gravel

Five American’s vacationing in Panama hear about a fantastic waterfall in a remote jungle area but the locals warn them off, stating that no one goes there any longer due to a history of unfortunate happenings.

Even after finding stories and videos about missing hikers online they head out to the waterfall anyway.

During the day they find a beautiful wonder of nature but as the day goes on and it starts to get dark something lurks in the jungle and waits for it’s chance to pick them off one by one.

Indigenous on all technical levels is a well-made movie.

It is a wonderfully shot film with plenty of beautiful location photography in Panama.

The story is perfectly serviceable but nothing special, while the characters are fairly bland; an alternate to the stock, obnoxious characters we usually get, but not too memorable overall.

The only real complaint I have with Indigenous is its creatures; the creature effects certainly aren’t poorly done but rather just wholly unoriginal. As the film progresses and we get to see more and more of the creatures it becomes more and more obvious that they are just a copy of the creatures from Neil Marshal’s The Descent. They look the same, they act the same, the only difference is that they are jungle-dwelling rather than cave-dwelling and they will venture into daylight if needed.

If the idea of a jungle-set creature movie has peeked your interest, then check out Indigenous, but you’re not missing much if you skip this one.