ENDANGERED SPECIES **** Kenya / USA 2021 Dir: M.J. Bassett. 101 mins
Jack Halsey takes his wife, their adult kids, and a friend for a dream vacation in Kenya. But as they venture off alone into a wilderness park, their safari van is flipped over by an angry rhino, leaving them injured and desperate.
The film stars Rebecca Romijn, Isabel Bassett, Philip Winchester and Jerry O’ Connell.
This is an edge of the seat action adventure thriller as we follow the family having the day from hell trying to survive against all odds.
A family trying to survive wild beasts after a Rhino flips the van they are using to have their dream safari. We see the family trying their best to avoid being eaten by hyenas and other wild beasts and then as if by luck they encounter Jerry O’ Connell brandishing a gun they think they are safe but soon discover he and his band of men are poachers when finding animal horns and teeth now the family must fight both wild animals and avoid being killed by the poachers as they are hunted by everything.
I loved this survival thriller, it was something very different, imagine Jaws set on land it has that kind of feel to it, I love survival films like Rogue which incidentally was directed by the same director of this film M.J. Bassett who actually started her career as a wildlife photographer and documentary maker, went on to direct cult horror films such as Deathwatch and Wilderness, the fantasy film Solomon Kane, and the video game adaptation Silent Hill: Revelation as well as directing episodes of the TV series Power and Ash vs. The Evil Dead
Endangered Species is a great thriller its nice having a different setting for a survival thriller like this instead of the over saturated home invasion films we usually get. I hope director M.J. Bassett goes on to make an epic thriller much like Peter Jacksons King Kong. I could see a remake of the original King Kong being executed perfectly by Bassett.
Endangered Species is a great film, an enjoyable the ride of your life, buckle in for this awesome outdoors adventure film. I’m a gore hound and still thoroughly enjoyed this film. I would have liked it to be called Endangered Holocaust and a lost tribe chasing the family but we aren’t in the 70’s instead we get a great survival thriller with just a bit of grue!
Thriller fans will love this epic tense thriller!
Review by Tony Newton
ENDANGERED SPECIES is available on Amazon