Beware Boiúna is in theaters on October 2.
Movies about monstrous versions of recognizable animals are a fun subgenre. The likes of Anaconda, Lake Placid, The Meg, and the granddaddy of them all, King Kong, offer a certain innate allure regardless of their differing quality, as they take a creature we might already find menacing and mega-plus-size them. Some lean into camp, some into pure horror, and some into tragedy, but a surprising number of them work on some level.
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The latest addition to this type of film is Beware Boiúna, which has its moments and a few clever twists on formulaic situations, but never quite fully takes off. On top of that, the film also suffers from just taking too damn long to get to the giant snake we’re there to see. I want to beware Boiúna, so give me Boiúna!
The film follows a trio of doctors who come to the Amazon on a humanitarian trip to administer medical assistance and, along with the crew of the boat they’re traveling on, run afoul of the legendary Boiúna — a massive fearsome snake from Brazilian mythology who is described almost like a force of nature, dispatching anyone that she sees as upsetting the balance within her home.
Though Beware Boiúna delivers a couple of early death scenes to tease the terrors to come, its set-up is far too prolonged for a film of this sort. Even at 1 hour and 44 minutes, it easily feels 15 minutes too long; Anaconda and Lake Placid knew what they were doing, running 90 minutes or less each. There are ultimately too many scenes establishing the characters and their dynamics, along with an attempt to go for a more serious-minded, grounded feeling than you might expect from a film of this sort. It’s admirable to infuse themes about the exploitation of the Amazon and its indigenous people into a giant snake movie, but it should be done far more efficiently or better blended within the mayhem people are paying to see.
The film also includes a storyline that feels like it’s part of the set-up to a totally different movie, involving a notably dark experience that med student Alli (Jessica Rothe) and ship mechanic Lena (Kiana Madeira) have that leads to “colonizer” Brennan (Logan Marshall-Green) and his men angrily tracking them from a different boat. Sure, it offers up more potential victims for Boiúna, but it’s another place where there was an easier, quicker way to get there.
When Boiúna finally unleashes, she’s pretty cool and very daunting, and the film makes good use of her unreal size as a weapon in its own right… when we can get a good look at her, that is, which isn’t enough. Director Mike P. Nelson and cinematographer Nick Junkersfeld keep Beware Boiúna often looking visually appealing, and the FX used to bring Boiúna are solid in the glimpses we get. But it quickly begins to feel like the film’s low budget is keeping her from being seen nearly as much as one would hope, including resorting to some distracting shaky-cam at points to try to disguise that fact… and this is not nearly a Jaws-level film in terms of making up for its often offscreen beast.
Veteran screenwriter Alan B. McElroy, the writer behind Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers — still the best Halloween sequel ever — manages to interject some deviations from the expected formula of this kind of movie. There are solid moments that play with the usual flow of who will die next, whose perspective we’re following, or what character we’re meant to like at any given moment. But at the same time, there’s not enough done in terms of delivering memorable deaths, with too many characters taken out quickly and without discernible details to make their demise stand out.
There’s not enough done in terms of delivering memorable deaths, with too many characters taken out quickly and without discernible details to make their demise stand out.
And yet there are also well-done scenes involving mosquito eggs left inside a human’s back, a snake smashing into a construction vehicle, or the particular highlight of a character needing to think fast to save themselves using the corpse of a fallen friend. But then that scene is undercut by some unnecessary flashbacks immediately afterward, providing hand-holding we simply don’t need to apparently remind the audience of a relationship we are already fully aware of. Ultimately, there’s just a lot of push-pull here.
Anchoring the film are the likable duo of Rothe and Madeira, projecting the feeling of believable resourcefulness that these characters need to have. It’s too bad Beware Boiúna doesn’t allow for Rothe to show off her impressively strong comedy chops like the Happy Death Day movies do, but better served on that front is Will Close. Close nails each of the funny lines given to his comic relief character of Callum, who’s very much out of his element even before the giant snake arrives.
Director Nelson — recently hired to direct the eleventh Saw movie — shows some flair, including the moments mentioned above or with a couple of well orchestrated jump scares, such as one that cleverly uses blurriness as a set-up. But these “that was cool” beats that are peppered throughout the film never gain enough momentum for the movie to feel like it’s truly locked in. And they can’t make up for not having enough Boiúna!
