A group of particularly unpleasent mafiosi have chosen a certain neck
of the Colombian jungle to grow marihuana, plantation-style - and to keep
the locals quiet, they use every kind of oppression in the book, from
blackmail to rape to murder ... and that's not even as bad as it gets,
because this neck of the woods is also inhabited by a poisonous snake that is simply
drawn to marihuana and kills everyone who gets into contact with the
stuff, even if the person is totally innocent. The whole thing
culminates in a woman going on a lone revenge mission against the mafiosi
(but not surviving it), a shootout between the gangsters and one righteous
policeman, and the demise of the serpent, just before it can kill a young
boy. Area Maldita is quite simply a bad film: Everything
is directed in such a in-your-face manner it's almost hilarious, its budget
is quite clearly below the film's requirements, the action is
rather clumsily staged, the actors are wooden for the most part, and the
gangster- and horror-motives of the story are rather uneasy bedfellows.
But true of course, all the film's shortcomings are occasionally
laugh-inducing. You have to be a bad-film afficionado though to really
cherish the entertaining aspects of Area Maldita.
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