It’s a shame we don’t get more cryptozoology-themed horror movies. Modern mythological creatures like Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster have yet to make a memorable film debut, though some filmmakers have tried in the past. Alastair Orr’s Indigenous focuses on South America’s rather recent legend of the Chupacabra, a blood-sucking creature blamed for many reports of cattle mutilation and even human disappearances.

The film follows a group of North-American tourists on vacation in beautiful Panama. When they ignore the natives’ warnings and travel too far into the tropical forest looking for a waterfall, they realize that they’re being stalked by a ravenous creature. As the tourists attempt to escape and call for help, it becomes clear that the legend of the Chupacabra has some truth to it after all.

Obviously, plot isn’t Indigenous’ strongest element. However, even a standard slasher story can be presented in an interesting way depending on the filmmakers. and this is more or less the case here. Alastair has actually managed to turn a potentially boring creature feature into a decent-enough thriller with some clever direction and a stunning filming location that adds visual flare without overloading the budget.

The story does retain some engaging ideas about the negative aspects of tourism and the sadistic nature of media, but the majority of the film just focuses on young adults screaming and running for their lives in a secluded rainforest. There were some found footage elements here and there, but they were only important towards the end of the movie, which I unexpectedly enjoyed. What’s impressive here is the visual control over some of the scarier segments of the film. We see just enough to fear the chupacabra, but not enough to get used to it.

The acting, however didn’t feel very professional, but the ensemble cast did a serviceable job of looking scared most of the time. The real star of the movie were the great practical effects, a rare sight in modern low-budget productions. The chupacabra itself looked alright, although it was a little bit too anthropomorphized for my taste and not even close to what the real-life witnesses claim to have seen roaming around Latin-America.

Sadly, the positive aspects don’t really make up for the fact that Indigenous can be labeled as a bargain-bin version of Neil Marshall’s vastly superior film, The Decent. Even the luscious green setting is later replaced by the creature’s boring cavernous lair, not to mention the overall similar monster designs. I’m not sure if this was an intentional choice by the filmmakers, but the real problem is that Orr lacks Marshall’s finesse and claustrophobic visuals.

Ultimately, Indigenous is just a watchable movie that’s more entertaining than it has any right to be. The ending was unusually fulfilling for this kind of film, and the creature/gore effects were good enough to differentiate this from a SyFy channel original movie. While it may not win any serious awards, especially the acting-related ones, there are worse monster movies out there.