Indigenous follows a group of American tourists in Panama who don’t listen to a local’s instructions not to go in an area because of el chupacabra. Because this movie starts with my least favorite narrative device, the how we got here trope in which a movie opens with a scene from the middle or the end of the movie, guess what they did? I love movies in which characters go into the wild and bam, monsters, but even this one is worth skipping unless the social media angle is that appealing to you, which it should not be.
I saw a lot of reviews comparing Indigenous to The Descent. I really resent that comparison because it isn’t even as good as The Descent: Part 2, but the similarities are completely superficial. I’m low key horrified that anyone even made that comparison. They are completely different concepts. One group is likeable, interesting and highly effective and the other group symbolizes why most of the world hates Americans. One group ends up in danger because of deception albeit well-intentioned whereas the other group is filled with dumbasses that react to news of murder and that people built a canal just to avoid going through that jungle with “we can handle it” when they can barely handle their lives. Also while the creatures are similar, they are worlds apart. The creatures in The Descent reflect their environment, but they are clearly part of a community and are a cohesive unit that reflects the behavior of other packs of animals in nature. El chupacabra got better coverage on the X-Files. What wild creature starts by eating the head? Ripping out the neck for practical reasons, sure, but a hungry creature would start somewhere with less bone.
Indigenous wants el chupacabra to be part demon/part human, but there are no supernatural elements to pull that off, and it would have been better to focus more on it as an undiscovered creature and leaned on the cryptozoology aspect of the story. There could have been a supernatural element because one character gets obsessed with online footage of the creature’s attacks and is eager to go into the jungle instead of dissuaded, but nope. It always aggravates me when movies have a biologically rooted creature killing people willy nilly. If you are not hungry, you probably won’t attack because the amount of energy expended to kill a living being must be made up with in caloric intake. The story just isn’t well thought out though the concept could have worked: what if an entity from folklore could be scrutinized on the Internet?
Unfortunately the characters in Indigenous are annoying, and the Internet portions are too repetitive to make for a salvageable story. One couple got through something extremely difficult, but are still snippy with each other. What was it? I don’t know. So why bring it up at all!?! Is this The Room? The locals aren’t that much better than the Americans. Carmen swears to her friend, Julio, that she won’t bring the Americans to the jungle. WTH, Carmen! You’ve known these loser bag Americans for one second, and you’re lying to Julio why? You’re not hooking up with the American dude who is into you. You’re not getting paid to be a guide. Be contrary to Julio in a safe space. Julio ended up being the most interesting character in the movie because he was more disproportionately invested in their safety than they were, and for me, the real twist was his connections. If this twist was teased out a little more, some tension could have been built that would have created a great counterbalance to the social media aspect, but nope, it is just a straightforward rescue. (Dear Julio, next time you leave a message for help, be specific.)
When the tourists’ SOS goes viral, Indigenous shifts from the American tourists’ perspective to the world and the rescuers, which did not work for me. On one hand, I liked that the news was from a local Panamanian station (I assume) as opposed to an American one, but if a movie is only eighty-two minutes long, and I’ve seen certain scenes repeatedly, it irks me. Also there is a scene when the nearby rescuers and camera crew witness another tourist being taken down, but no one attempts to rescue that person, they rescue people that they can’t see. What!?! Sorry, you’re not the main couple that we are supposed to be rooting for so you have to die.
I also suspect that the social media angle is supposed to make us root for the main character more because he invented something that basically tags everyone that you know in all your posts. So the implication is that because his invention worked, this trip won’t be his last hurrah before he enters into financial oblivion, but he will come out of this tragedy with success. By the way, Indigenous never explicitly made that connection so I could be completely wrong with this conclusion because most of the dudes are interchangeable when they aren’t with their significant others.
What I’m trying to say is that the acting is bad y’all. Like please let Indigenous be your last movie bad. Like you need to be way more attractive to pull this kind of performance off. If Indigenous’ performances were better, maybe the crappy story could be redeemable. At one point, they say that they need to go up to get better reception and call for help, but this plot point periodically gets forgotten, they get reception, but instead of calling for help, they listen to their voice mail and still keep going up, they split up. I know what you’re thinking, “You get lost in the jungle with a creature stalking you and see how well thought out your plan is.” Fair enough although I would have been hanging with Julio at the hotel getting food from waiters, but nothing they did made sense. Real talk: these are the kind of characters that go to Aruba, and when the girl that they just met goes missing, you suspect that they killed her. They are lucky that el chupacabra was around.
After Julio, I think el chupacabra was the best character. He seemed vaguely related to The Strain creatures, but he likes to play with his food too much. I wish that he were less into jump scares. Have some dignity. Don’t pander. You’re an international monster superstar that no one even attempts to kill. Shop around your story more. You can definitely do better than Indigenous.