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The Lost Tribe (reshot version) (V)

“The Lost Tribe attempts to hide its weaknesses (a lame script; uneven pacing) behind a series of relative strengths (gorgeous locations in Panama; intermittently interesting creature attacks), and for the most part the bait-and-switch succeeds.”

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Sometimes your personal enjoyment of a movie is fully dependent on when and where you see it. After paying full ticket and concession prices to view 2003’s Open Water in a movie theater, I felt completely butt-raped by the experience. With strained acting, amateurish direction, and a complete lack of narrative momentum, Open Water is one of those movies I might have enjoyed on a lonely Friday night after a bag of Lay’s and a couple of sixers, but to pay full price to see it in the theater just felt like a kick in my movie-loving balls. But that sword cuts both ways, as evidenced in the case of The Lost Tribe, a fluffy little monster movie that would almost certainly be deemed an epic failure if viewed in the movie theater. But on a lazy, rainy Saturday morning, when served alongside a bacon & spinach omelet and a hot cup of joe, The Lost Tribe goes down surprisingly smooth.

A handful of yuppie investors are yachting somewhere in the North Atlantic when they stumble upon a crazy man clinging to a floating log. They haul him aboard, but the dude is freaking out, screaming incoherently and shit, so they jack him with a syringe of sedative. In the middle of the night as everybody sleeps (the boat is apparently on “auto-pilot”), the crazy man wakes up, breaks out through a port hole, and steers the ship into an island. After the ensuing boat wreck, the yuppies are trapped on the island with 1) a bunch of hairy, heart-eating ape creatures and 2) a sadistic military leader played by (who else?) Lance Henriksen.

The Lost Tribe attempts to hide its weaknesses (a lame script; uneven pacing) behind a series of relative strengths (gorgeous locations in Panama; intermittently interesting creature attacks), and for the most part the bait-and-switch succeeds. The missing link monsters swoop down from trees in a couple of scary lady-snatching scenes, and some of the kills are giddy, gory fun. As with any successful B-movie effort, some of the more overwrought moments––like a “please mercy kill me because I’m mortally wounded” scene that seems to go on forever––are gut-achingly funny. It may take awhile to get revved up, and it rips off Predator every chance it gets, but there’s no denying that The Lost Tribe wants to be a solid B-grade effort. It’s got that “Let’s make a movie!” exuberance that’s missing from most studio efforts. Set your expectations to “low” and it may very well satisfy your creature feature fix.

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‘Thrill Ride’ – Ryuhei Kitamura’s New Thriller Traps People Upside Down on a Roller Coaster!

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final destination 3
Pictured: 'Final Destination 3'

If you want to watch a fun movie, watch a Ryuhei Kitamura movie. Whether it’s 2000’s Versus, 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train or 2022’s underseen The Price We Pay, Kitamura always knows how to deliver a wild and crazy good time.

Up next from Ryuhei Kitamura? Deadline reports that he’ll be directing Thrill Ride, which sounds a bit like the best parts of Final Destination 3… expanded into a feature film!

Deadline details, “the English-language film will tell the story of a group of people, including two young women, who are trapped upside down on a roller coaster taken over by a mysterious saboteur threatening to drop them all one-by-one to their deaths.”

Film Bridge International is launching the project for sales ahead of the Cannes market.

Chad Law and Christopher Jolley wrote the screenplay.

Thrill Ride is exactly the type of high-concept based thriller that our customers are looking for in the marketplace,” said Film Bridge’s Ellen Wander and Jordan Dykstra. “With Ryuhei at the helm, we know his vision and execution will deliver thrills of the highest quality.”

“As a hardcore rollercoaster fan since I was young, I immediately fell in love with this script filled with suspense, action, crazy ups and downs, turns, loops, and corkscrews at maximum speed,” adds Kitamura. “I can’t wait to get on a ride and bring life to the wildest rollercoaster imaginable.”

We’re already seated. Stay tuned for more on Thrill Ride as we learn it.

‘The Midnight Meat Train’

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