Lost in the Woods GREG MCLEAN’S JUNGLE
The poster for Jungle (Greg McLean, 2017) features actor Daniel Radcliffe with a shaggy beard, wearing a soaked-through flannel shirt and brandishing a machete, surrounded by Amazon greenery and mist. ‘Nature has only one law – survival’, reads the tagline. As film posters go, this is a lot. It’s hardly a new concept to market a film, especially one with horror and thriller elements, in a way that is somewhat misleading, but bless Jungle’s team for trying. The finished product isn’t as savage as that slice of imagery may suggest, but, if there’s one element Australian film marketing needs, it’s chutzpah.
Jungle doesn’t actually aspire to be the sort of movie that audiences might expect from a Greg McLean film about a bunch of people stuck in the Amazon … Is it a rollicking adventure tale? A gory descent into horror? A film about spiritual discovery?
The thing is, Jungle doesn’t actually aspire to be the sort of movie that audiences might expect from a Greg McLean film about a bunch of people stuck in the Amazon. Unfortunately, while I’m fairly certain of what this film doesn’t want to be, I’m not entirely sure what it actually does. Is it a rollicking adventure tale? A gory descent into horror? A film about spiritual discovery? At various times, it
