Dark Amazon

Fake, fake, fake. What really annoys me about this movie is that they try to pass off this movie, as being real, with-out actors. Say the footage is real footage of the victims. It is so obvious that this is all actors . There is no way that people so squimish would agree to go to the amazon forest with huge spiders, dangerous wild-life, crocs, snakes. One minor animal noise and they all freak out. One small spider they all freak out. Not to mention their hair looks clean and blow dried.and they wear eye makeup and lipstickThey caught a frog and acted as if it was this major achievement. They have no food or water with them. They wear flip flops and bare feet in the jungle. Seriously? Oh and the one guy wears a designer watch and pink satin eye cover.

DARK AMAZON documents the travails of a research team trying to find a species of frog in the Amazon Rain Forest that produces an enzyme which can cure cancer. The team is warned of the Anhanga (pronounced anyanga), an evil spirit which is actually a figure in the mythology of some real-life Amazon tribes. The expedition starts out routine, and after several days the Team finds the frog. But then the trip takes a deadly turn...

I love found footage movies that transport the viewer to exotic locations. While there are many, many found footage movies which play out in some regular (i.e. Temperate) forest, including the pioneering BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999), I know only of a handful which are set in a rain-forest, including THE DINOSAUR PROJECT (2012), set in Congo, The WOODSMAN (2012) and ALIEN ORIGIN (2015), both set in Belize, AMANUDA (2021) and VAZHIYE (2022) (the latter an unofficial remake of FOLLOWERS (2017)), both set in Southwest India, THE JUNGLE (2013), set in west Indonesia, THE BORNEO INCIDENT (2013), set in Malaysian Borneo, as well as two other movies also set in the Amazon, EXTINCTION (2015) and the grand-daddy of Found Footage films, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980) (in fact, the opening shot of this movie immediately reminded me of its opening shot).

Despite the super-interesting settings, only a few of the above movies are good. I would categorize DARK AMAZON as being among the better ones in this group, even though it is flawed, because this group of movies also contains some real duds.

The greatest strength of this movie is that it really does a marvelous job of immersing us in the Amazon. No time is wasted on pre-trip exposition and we find ourselves in the jungle within the first 5 minutes. Some of the nature shots are gorgeous, and on that front the movie excels.

Events do take their sweet time to get to the horror, about 2/3 in, though it is foreshadowed by rather hokey video effects. In fact, I found the entire treatment of the supernatural aspects of this movie to be hokey. Also, when the first couple people end up dead, with one being decapitated no less, the group seems not nearly as much in fear or panic or even concerned with identifying the threat as one would expect. I don't think this was due to the acting, as I thought it was fairly decent, but rather a problem with the script. I think as a result, the deaths and disappearances in the shrinking group feel oddly impactless.

There is a plot twist toward the end which, I admit, I did not foresee, but it is set up clumsily, with one character's disappearance and reappearance not being explained at all and the relevant motivations totally unconvincing. The faulty set-up and its conspiracy-theoretical nature render the twist ho-hum. Finally, the film tells you right in the opening card that no team members survive, which is a perpetually perplexing pet peeve of mine. Why do film-makers deflate their own movies this way?

So overall, I would say if you like exotic found footage, this movie is worth a watch, but if that is not your draw, then unless you really like found footage movies, you may be disappointed.

Astonishingly dull Blair Witchery taking place in the Amazon jungle. Characters with limited personalities are frightened by unsubtle animal noises. If the barks and warbles sounded as if it was deep in the jungle, or far in the distance, that would be more effective, but the snarls sound as if they have been recorded close to the camera in post-production. This is impossible, however, because we are told that the footage we are watching is actually real, even down to the ambient incidental score present during the rare moments of tension.

"I need to go pee."

"Why are you filming this?" "It's in my blood."

"OMG, OMG,OMG, OMG, OMG."

I couldn't get worked up about this at all. My score is 3 out of 10, with an extra point for a fairly satisfying revelation toward the end.

Yeah, this film certainly doesn't try and reinvent the wheel, but it's far from the worst found footage movie out there. The cinematography is decent and looks like a movie instead of "shot-on-$hi!eo" like so many other films looking to make a quick buck. There's gore but nothing approaching most Amazonian-Cannibal films like Green Inferno.

Yeah, there's certainly a lack of creativity for the monster since they use the sound the predator makes to indicate he's there and what we see of the design is at the very least better than SyFy channel movie CGI. The narrative kind of falls apart at the end with a stupid reveal that could've been left out without impacting the movie's plot.

My biggest complaint is the almost "conspiracy "-esque message thrown in the end about cancer and big pharna which I found to be in poor taste.

Bottom line, it's worth a watch if you're bored but you likely won't watch it again.

A group of scientific researchers head into the Amazon rain forest in the search for a cure for cancer & film their every move (unoriginal!). This is more Blair Witch than Cannibal Holocaust, so those wanting gore move along. To be fair good use is made of the real Amazonian locations. Sadly that's the only good thing. Acting is mediocre. The twist at the end is reasonable, must admit I didn't see it coming. However, what lets this film down so bad is that it is incredibly boring! Nothing horrific happens until about an hour in & when it does it really is tame. It may only be approx. 80 minutes long but it really does drag. Just like zombies & slashers the market is over saturated with poor found footage movies - and this is one.