BEWARE BOIUNA (2026)

Studio:   Lionsgate
Director: Mike P. Nelson
Writer:   Alan McElroy, Tony Giglio
Producer: Jeremy Bolt, Robert Kulzer
Stars:    Kiana Madeira, Jessica Rothe, Will Close, Juan Pablo Shuk, Logan Marshall-Green, Jaime Newball, Jackson Bews

Review Score:

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Summary:

Doctors on a humanitarian mission clash with a secretive survey team while a legendary snake hunts them in an Amazon jungle.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Along the Amazon River in Colombia, Jorge Solarz leads a tribe of Yaguari warriors in a raid on an illegal gold mining camp that had been harming the area. The activity attracts Boiuna, a massive, mythic snake that, according to legend, protects the jungle by deciding who lives and who dies. Boiuna kills several of the miners taken captive.

Elsewhere in Colombia, Raul, captain of the riverboat R.R. Hermes, guides Dr. Miguel Villanueva and his volunteers Alli and Callum through the Amazon on a six-week humanitarian mission to provide medical care in various villages. Raul’s adopted daughter Lena, who left the area but has recently returned to search for her brother Jorge, assists Raul with boat operations.

The Hermes docks in Rio Lejos so the doctors can treat villagers with a health clinic. That evening, everyone unwinds in a small tavern. Representing a survey team looking to develop the area, Brennan Malloy and his brother Shawn enter to join their unscrupulous colleagues Guilherme, Pedro, and Proctor. Brennan later interrupts a conversation between Lena and Alli, in which Lena tells Alli the legend of Boiuna, to confront Alli regarding their conflicting morals and reasons for being in the jungle.

Angry over Brennan’s intention to displace villagers through modernization, Alli sneaks away to sabotage his boat. Brennan’s brother Shawn catches her in the act. When Alli refuses to be blackmailed into sex, Shawn assaults her. Lena joins the struggle, which ends when Shawn falls, hits his head, and dies.

Worried Shawn’s accidental death appears criminal, Lena convinces Alli to leave the scene looking like a drunken stumble. Unbeknownst to the two women, a young boy witnesses them dumping Shawn’s body in the water and cleaning up the pier.

The following morning, Raul, Lena, Alli, Miguel, and Callum depart in the Hermes. Upon finding his dead brother floating in the water, Brennan coerces the young boy into revealing what he witnessed. Using his boat’s radio, Brennan contacts the Hermes with a demand for Alli and Lena to be turned over to him. Alli and Lena explain the true circumstances behind Shawn’s death. Due to lack of fuel, Miguel and Raul tell Brennan to meet them in the next village rather than have them turn around. Brennan warns that he is coming after the Hermes. Refusing to be detoured for vengeance, Guilherme leaves Brennan’s team.

Lena tells Alli about her family’s history. Lena explains that when she and her brother Jorge were children, ruthless gold miners killed their parents for their farm. The siblings fled into the jungle and were eventually taken in by another family. Lena grew up to join Raul on his boat so she could travel far away from her former home. She only returned to look for Jorge, although she is unsure why he came back to the jungle.

The Hermes becomes disabled in a restricted area. Brennan directs Pedro to guide their ship to go after the Hermes.

While making boat repairs, the Hermes crew becomes alarmed by a dead crocodile in the water. Miguel’s examination concludes the crocodile was crushed. Raul wonders if Boiuna is responsible.

The Hermes manages to dock in a nearby village at night, but Lena, Alli, and Miguel exit to find the huts deserted and signs of a firefight alongside mauled bodies. A dying man warns the trio about Boiuna just before the giant snake pulls away Miguel into darkness.

Lena and Alli race back to the dock to find Brennan, Pedro, and Proctor holding Raul and Callum hostage. Their confrontation is interrupted when Boiuna bursts through the pier, launching Pedro high into the air. Lena tries to shoot Brennan, but the commotion causes her to kill Proctor instead. Inadvertent gunfire from Proctor’s assault rifle badly wounds Callum, who falls into the water.

Lena, Alli, and Raul run back to the Hermes, but they are unable to get it started. The snake causes the boat to capsize, killing Raul in the process. Alli and Lena both swim to shore, but Boiuna emerges to swallow Alli and pull her underwater.

Lena regroups with a severely injured Callum. With his wounds worsening, Lena leaves Callum to go back to the dock in search of medical supplies, but Boiuna turns her away. When she returns to Callum, she finds Brennan with Callum’s dead body. Accusing him of killing Callum, which he denies, a violent fight ensues between Lena and Brennan until they are interrupted by Boiuna. The two of them separately flee into the jungle.

Lena becomes gravely injured. She soon recovers and then finds Brennan in an even worse state. Asserting that they need to stick together to survive, Lena treats Brennan’s wounds.

Another Boiuna attack forces Lena and Brennan to flee again. At a wooden bridge, two armed men in camouflage confront the duo. One of the men unmasks himself as Lena’s brother Jorge.

As the four of them work their way through the jungle, the massive snake suddenly kills Jorge’s companion. Lena, Jorge, and Brennan scatter. Lena falls into a mud pit where she starts sinking. Brennan initially tries to rescue Lena, but he abandons his effort once Boiuna slithers into the pit. Lena sees the snake dragging Raul’s dead body. Lena holds onto the corpse so she can be pulled out of the pit. Upon reaching safety, Lena tearfully mourns Raul’s death.

After nightfall, Lena arms herself with a spear and makes her way to a hut whose radio she uses to call for help. Boiuna suddenly attacks Lena. Having felt remorse for abandoning her earlier, Brennan unexpectedly returns to attack the snake with a chainsaw. Boiuna devours Brennan.

Lena’s attempt to attack the snake fails. Resolved to face Boiuna no matter what, Lena stands her ground. An astonished Jorge arrives in time to see Boiuna seemingly sensing his sister as someone worth saving before slithering away without attacking. Lena and Jorge embrace. Lena later joins her brother’s team to combat illegal miners and developers.

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Review:

A trailer for “Beware Boiuna” includes a critic quote crowning the film as “the greatest killer snake movie of all time.” This got me thinking, how many killer snake movies are there? Like, is there enough competition for that to even be its own category?

The results of a Google search say the answers to those two questions are essentially “not many” and “not really.” The original “Anaconda” with Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube still leads the list, but that came out in 1997. The most notable 21st-century title to be released theatrically is probably 2006’s “Snakes on a Plane” starring Samuel L. Jackson. After that pair though, we’re largely looking at a small group that includes “Anaconda’s” three sequels, its “Lake Placid” crossover, its 2025 remake, and then a slew of SyFy, Asylum, and DTV goof-offs like “Boa vs. Python,” “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid,” and whatever “Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent” is. Basically, being the best of that bunch means about as much as a FIFA Peace Prize.

It’s a much bigger pool of contestants, but “Beware Boiuna” also qualifies to compete for the title of “most formulaic thriller of all time.” Let’s start by meeting Alli, played by Jessica Rothe. She’s a traditionally attractive, idealistic blonde. In other words, entirely generic as a core character.

Alli, a young doctor on a humanitarian mission, begins her morning on a boat in the Amazon where her short stroll conveniently takes us past all the other main players on the hero side. First up is Callum, a skinny grimacer furiously spraying himself with insect repellent. Oh Callum, you’re not suited for a jungle environment, but your comical complaints sure are charming!

On the next deck sits Raul, the friendly, bearded river guide who knows this region better than anyone, and who never misses a moment to giggle Alli through a brief Spanish language lesson. One level above him is Alli’s boss Dr. Miguel Villanueva. His demeanor and eyeglasses suggest he’s serious and studious. His stubble and sympathy suggest he’s kind and kind of handsome.

Below deck is Lena, who helps Raul operate his boat. What’s her story? Well, the first clue comes as soon as she’s introduced. Here she is clearing water out of the bilge and, wait, what’s this? Right on the floor in front of her is an overturned photograph. How’d that get there? Lena picks it up, flips it over, then stares contemplatively at an image of her with a man revealed to be her missing brother. Oh, so she’s in the jungle searching for him. Good thing that photo happened to be there to drop that bit of background exposition.

That covers the good guys. What about the bad guys?

After conducting a health clinic to treat ailing locals, Alli, Lena, and the others unwind with some beers in a village’s tiny tavern. Enter Brennan and his brother Shawn, who are there to meet three shady colleagues as part of a presumably American but definitely unscrupulous survey team looking to develop the Colombian jungle. Between Shawn shooting lustful eyes at Alli and Brennan getting frosty with her over the morality of their conflicting goals, there’s a lot to not like about these men.

There’s even less to like when Shawn predictably plays into his stereotype by forgoing flirting and rushing right into sexually assaulting Alli. A subsequent struggle that also involves Lena ends with Shawn falling, hitting his head, and immediately dying. Do self-defense stumbles that accidentally cause instantaneous head-injury deaths happen in real life as often as they happen in the movies?

Now we have a clear conflict between two opposing crews. What we don’t have is the titular snake, Boiuna, who hasn’t been seen since a brief pre-title glimpse, and who isn’t seen again until more than 50 minutes into the movie.

If you can even call it being “seen.” In the few instances where the massive serpent does appear, “Beware Boiuna” sets those scenes at night in darkness so thick, it’s almost impossible to tell who is being attacked, much less by what. Giant-snake action is supposed to be the movie’s bread and butter, but it only drops crumbs on the floor and leaves the audience squinting to see where they landed.

When people go to a creature feature, they expect to see, you know, a creature. What they don’t want to see are countless minutes of people running, panting, shouting, and running some more, which is what “Beware Boiuna” puts on the screen instead, at least when it’s not focused on feuds between two human factions.

Overlong, repetitive, and strangely stingy about including its main attraction, “Beware Boiuna” is simply too uninteresting to hold a viewer’s attention for long. The film tries to veer off the beaten path in a few places, like having a key person die unexpectedly, except even that is fumbled so thoroughly that instead of providing a shock, it comes off as an “I don’t understand why they did that” moment.

You know what? “Beware Boiuna” can keep the crown of “best killer snake movie of all time.” If the rest are anything like this, I don’t want to watch them to find out if “Beware Boiuna” earns that title. And after this flop of a film, I doubt anyone will be in a hurry to try turning “killer snake movies” into a true trend, unless they want to sink alongside this one.

Review Score: 40

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