This is not an easy film to categorise. I would certainly not place it in the 'Horror' category as it contains only brief 'cannibal' references and a short 'zombie' scene at the end.
It is an extremely well photographed movie which was shot on location in the British Virgin Islands. The director, Sofian Khan, has made intelligent use of the natural facilities at his disposal with the vast scale of the beautiful landscape and natural habitat placing the intruding humans into perspective. The four tourist strandees are isolated within an area of great beauty but one in which provides a wild and inhospitable environment containing elements of danger.
The early part of the film ably presents a contrast between a carefree, luxurious lifestyle and a gradual transition to life in an hostile environment which then develops into a fight for survival. It is a transfer from life in the modern age with its comforts to that of a primitive time where the fittest (or luckiest) survives. A short flashback sequence neatly sets the background to the past lifestyle of the principal characters. It carries a message that when you dabble in finance and gamble on your luck, with their inherent risks, you can easily plunge back from wealth to poverty as fast as it was acquired in the first place. In the case of the four characters in the film, the dangers become physical as well as being on paper with a life of luxury quickly turning into a nightmare. Pain and anxiety replace pleasure with simple, primitive tools of survival replacing the instruments of pleasure in the scale of importance to life.
The abrupt death of two of the stranded tourists, about a third of the way through the film, heightens the feeling of isolation for the two who remain. There is a consequent change in atmosphere from this point with the growing realisation of the precarious nature of their situation. The demise of one of these characters and the introduction of the tribesman then presents a further transition involving a change from fear and desperation to one of coming to terms with the situation and the development of the romantic element.
It is towards the end of the film that I feel that an opportunity for story development was lost. Personally, I would have liked the film to have devoted more time to exploring the relationships not only between the remaining female tourist and the tribesman but with other members of the tribe, eg reconciling conflicting attitudes and beliefs. A move down this route was made with one of these characters proclaiming 'You have changed me'. But there was scope for further movement down this path instead of the unexpected introduction of the 'Zombie' element in the final 10 minutes.
With regard to individual performances, I was very impressed with Noshir Dalal, in the role of the nimble and athletic cannibal named Kohi, and Kitty Cole as Anna, the tourist survivor. I note that both have only a relatively small amount of previous movie experience but this fact was not evident from their performances in this film. Kitty has a most challenging role, which involved displaying a range of emotions, and she passed the test with flying colours. Two other lead performers, Suzi Lorraine and Kris Eivers, are more experienced and both enhanced their reputations. Suzi proved to be the ideal choice as the glamorous tourist named Sandy. I have seen Suzi in several films portraying various types of characters. Once again, versatile Suzi demonstrated that she has the skill to handle any role that she is presented with regardless of genre. In this case, we had the perfect blend of location, namely tropical sea, island beach, and Suzi! Apart from slight reservations about the short length of the film (just over 70 minutes) and the way in which it ended, I found this to be visually impressive film with a good storyline and some excellent quality performances.
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