Beware Boiúna movie review: Slithering and slashing away to creature feature heaven

For a movie shot on location in the Amazon, Mike P. Nelson’s (Wrong Turn) Beware Boiúna does not give enough wide shots to create the necessary sense of dread and awe. We also have to wait practically till the end for a proper look at Boiúna, as we only get glimpses of the mythical snake, from a massive coil to the tail slipping into water.

Nick Junkersfeld’s cinematography is lovely otherwise, and some shots in the jungle and on the river would stop you dead in your tracks, making the lack of panoramic shots all the more frustrating.

The riverboat on the Amazon with clueless city folks, nasty-tempered wildlife, and horrid, selfish criminals out to strip the land of its resources are creature-feature standards, and they are all present and correct in Beware Boiúna.

Boiúna, incidentally, is not an anaconda or any other constrictor; rather, it is a mythical snake of the Amazon and is also called Cobra-Grande (pretty cool, no?). Dr Miguel (Juan Pablo Shuk) and his two assistants, Alli (Jessica Rothe) and Callum (Will Close), are on a six-week humanitarian mission in the Amazon, bringing medical aid to the riverside villages.

The boat captain, Raúl (Jaime Newball), is unflappable, having seen everything and then some, and the mechanic, Lena (Kiana Madeira), hopes the trip will help her find her brother, Jorge, who has gone missing after getting a job driving the loggers.

After treating the villagers, while Callum gets bitten by prescient mosquitoes that also lay eggs in the bite, which requires Alli to pull out gross maggots, and losing one of their number to a nippy caiman, the medical team proceeds down the river. They cross brothers Brennan (Logan Marshall-Green) and Shawn (Jackson Bews), who are naturally up to no good.

Battle lines are quickly drawn, and the rest of the movie has the two groups fighting each other while Boiúna plays hide and seek with the humans popping them into her vast cavernous mouth as the mood grabs her.

According to legend, Boiúna chooses who will live and who will not make it to the next reel, and so the audience can get into the spirit of the game, placing mental bets on Boiúna’s next meal. Some twists are unexpected, and some of the shots of the Amazon are truly ethereal. In contrast, there are some hideously gross shots of people and a huge caiman disgorged by Boiúna — best to avoid the popcorn and the loaded Belgian fries.

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The ecological message makes sense, and Madeira wholly commits to her role.  The use of physical effects, including dragging heavy pipes through the forest to give a sense of Boiúna’s weight and density is welcome.

One only wishes the lighting was not so dim or the camera so coy that one has to squint hard to make out the shiny scales and glittering eyes of the Boiúna.

Beware Boiúna is currently running in theatres