Alexis, take me to Dark Amazon - where you can buy drugs and guns with one-click shopping? Or Dark Amazon Smile, where .05 % of your snuff film purchases will go to a charity of your choice!
Obviously, no. I doubt the fine folks at amazon.com would allow for such a thing to happen. This Dark Amazon is a crappy found footage jam about some folks searching for a cure for cancer in the Amazon. Rainforest, that is. Do you think kids today even know that the Amazon is actually a place and not a website?
Anyways, Big Spoilers ahead for a movie that I think you shouldn't see.
My Synopsis: A group people from a medical company (or something) head out to the Amazon, with a documentary crew (naturally) to track down a frog who secretes a cancer cure. But the locals are very superstitious and are worried about the Anhanga: "the shape shifting spirit protector of the rainforest." (per darkamazon.com) And it's a found footage movie, so guess what happens...
Elaborate Genre: Found footage "supernatural" thriller
Overall: Not very good at all. I'm having a better time looking up info on the Anhanga online than I did watching Dark Amazon. Which, according to wikipedia is "a spirit that often protects animals (especially the females and young ones) and tends to appear as a white deer with red eyes." So, whatever darkamazon.com.
The best thing about Dark Amazon is that the "monster" (or at least what our group hears at night) sounds like the Predator. Which would be a fantastic angle for the next Predator film to take, I would think. But then again, I like found footage films. Alas, it isn't the Predator. Or even a predator. In fact (BIG SPOILERS), you don't see much of anything at all of the monster. Because, you see... it wasn't a monster at all! It was some guy from an evil corporation the whole time! Until the very last shot... where you find out maybe it was a monster? I hate it when movies like this (I'm looking at you, Devil's Backbone, Texas) make you think it's something the entire movie, then at the end say "Psyke! Actually it was some guy the whole time," then the last shot is all "no wait, that thing we just told you it wasn't? It totally was!" Forget that - pick a premise and stick to it. Anyways, maybe that at least explains why nothing really happens in Dark Amazon. (END BIG SPOILERS)
So yeah, the found footage stuff doesn't really work, because it doesn't really try. Basically, just hearing the predator noise outside the cabin is about as intense as it gets. There's some gore here and there, as they'll just find the occasional foot or whatever in the woods. But you never get much of a look at it, and you certainly never *see* anything happen. Which pretty much sums up the film. So in a way, Dark Amazon is pretty realistic - if this guy was recording everything in real life, he'd probably miss most of the exciting stuff while he was sleeping or whatever.
I guess the setting is actually kind of cool. It looks like they shot the film in the legit rainforest - at the very least it looks different than most North American horror movies. They also put in some characters that add to the international flair - they interview (what I would guess) are real people living on the Amazon... if The Green Inferno can get native people who've never seen a movie before, I guess Dark Amazon can at least get real locals to talk on film. (Which, BTW - I hate that Eli Roth screened Cannibal Holocaust as their First Ever Movie. If true, that's just a shitty thing to do.)
Anyways, you can probably tell that I don't really like talking about Dark Amazon that much. It's just a subpar entry from a much maligned genre. Probably the most impressive thing (setting aside) is that the characters manage to never really annoy you. I feel like it's tricky to make a found footage film where the characters aren't grating. But they do a pretty good job making the characters not terrible. Maybe they could put them in a better movie next time.
Oh, and if anyone is keeping score out there - someone does indeed get dragged out of frame in Dark Amazon. Not away from the camera, sadly. So half a point, I guess.
I would not recommend this film.
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