‘Indigenous’ is a Poor Ripoff of ‘The Descent’ (Review)

Written by: Daniel Hadley

Director: Alastair Orr

Cast:  Zachary Soetenga, Lindsey Mkeon, Sofia Pernas

The Descent 3 – oh no sorry, whatever was I thinking? I mean Indigenous is a movie where a group of tourists are attacked by pale skinned, hairless, humanoid, cave dwelling creatures with sharp teeth and claws. Hold on a second… definitely sounds pretty familiar. If like me you consider The Descent to be one of the best horror movies of the past two decades (The original cut by the way, you know the one with the incredibly powerful and bleak ending) you’ll be screaming the word rip off. But I’ll give this movie the benefit of the doubt and rate as its own movie.

So when a group of tourists hear about a dangerous jungle that no one is allowed into, and after seeing a video of a group of teenagers being killed by an unknown creature in said jungle, they decide it would be a great idea to head into that jungle for a good time. Smart move there guys, seriously, really fucking smart. Then, oh this is the best part: one of them is killed and another goes missing and with the sun setting, instead of taking the ten minute journey back to their jeep to go and get help, they decide to head deeper into the jungle to search for higher ground so they can get a phone signal. Seriously. I mean why? What the hell were they thinking? It’s moronic! Congratulations you group of blithering, moronic, labotamites you just condemned yourselves, and after a decision like that you deserve to die.

Then one of the character stumbles across a cave littered with human bones and corpses he decides it would be a good idea to investigate the cave, so with his dimming and flickering flashlight in tow he heads on in to the cave towards the strange screeching noises emanating from within. I mean come on, characters can only be so stupid, or at least I thought. Oh I should say now that the creatures in the movie are supposedly Chupacabras but they look almost exactly like Crawlers from The Descent, which are creepy enough. I don’t see why the word Chupacabra is thrown around at the sight of these things as anyone who has seen this or The Descent can attest these creatures pretty much look like pale, hairless people. Albeit with some strange facial features, but pale, hairless people nonetheless.

When the creatures do appear it’s not like you can see them anyway as they’re filmed in nauseating shaky cam, making it almost impossible to discern what the hell is happening. The camera work here is poor, as is the acting. Another thing that bothers me with some horror movies – including this one – is the use of upbeat pop music for the first thirty minutes or so. See in horror the audience is supposed feel a sense of foreboding and creeping dread paving the way for the horror that’s to come and the soundtrack goes a long way in instilling that. Bad upbeat pop songs do not.

Also and this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, why is it modern horror filmmakers seem to think that human bones are brittle twigs? Bones don’t just snap and rip their way out of the skin from a simple fall or short drop. That may seem like a nit-pick but it always bothers me.

So I suppose it’s safe to say that I did not enjoy this movie and I recommend you stay away from it unless you like watching blandly acted, stupid characters eviscerated in barely discernible shaky cam death scenes. If that’s your thing then by all means, check it out

Rating: 1/5