Movie Review: BEWARE BOIUNA

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: October 2nd, 2026 / 02:19 AM

BEWARE BOIÚNA movie poster | ©2026 Lionsgate

Rating: R
Stars: Kiana Madeira, Jessica Rothe, Logan Marshall-Green, Will Close, Vincente Peña, Jaime Newball, Sergio Herrera, Jackson Bews
Writer: Alan McElroy, story by Tony Giglio and Alan McElroy
Director: Mike P. Nelson
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release Date: October 2, 2026

As giant snake movies go (are there enough to qualify as an actual genre, or are these still a subgenre?), BEWARE BOIÚNA is perfectly decent. Director Mike P. Nelson and writer Alan McElroy, working from a story by Tony Giglio and McElroy, avoid a lot of the traditional associated pitfalls. There are genuine scares, true reversals of expectation, we don’t see too much of the snake, and there aren’t explosives handily sitting around.

Perhaps best of all, none of the characters are dumb enough to intentionally seek out Boiúna, as she is called by the indigenous people who reside along the Amazon River. Opening narration explains to us the legend of Boiúna. Always awake, the prehistoric-sized anaconda rests in the water. She is still in times of peace, but active when there is conflict. This is her territory, and “she decides who lives and who dies.”

After that, we see violent conflict almost immediately, as a camera crew and the authorities invade an illegal gold mining camp near the Amazon in Colombia. Boiúna decides a bunch of folks should die, although to be fair, the humans have already come to their own homicidal conclusions on that score.

From here, we cut to the tranquility of the H.R. Hermes, a nailed-together but functional ship under the captaincy of easygoing Raúl (Jaime Newball). There’s little doubt that engineer Lena (Kiana Madeira) views Raúl as a father figure, and he loves “like the daughter I never had,” but she’s mainly on the job in a quest to find her missing brother Jorge (Sergio Herrera).

The Hermes is currently taking a trio of medical aid workers to various riverside villages, where malaria is rampant. The contingent of healers consists of Dr. Pedro Villanueva (Vincente Peña) and his assistants Allison (Jessica Rothe) and Callum (Will Close).

It is made plain early on that Boiúna is hardly the only danger around. She doesn’t fully reappear for a good while. By then, there have been numerous fatalities, all from other causes.

When Lena tries to cheer up a shaken Allison at a local bar, they are approached by American surveyor Brennan Malloy (Logan Marshall-Green). It’s unclear whether he and his crew are engaged in legal activities or not, but they are definitely up to no good in terms of both the environment and the locals.

One thing leads to another, and soon Malloy and Company are using their big corporate ship to pursue the Hermes in parts of the river that are mostly unpopulated – well, mostly unpopulated by humans, anyway.

BEWARE BOIÚNA sails along briskly, with outbreaks of gore and dark humor here and there. (Poor Callum has a mosquito incident likely to deter tourism.) There’s good action suspense among the characters, who are all well-played. Madeira is first among equals as a very plausible butt-kicker who nevertheless respects and fears Boiúna.

Despite the effective glimpses of the snake’s sides seen through the trees and mostly excellent stunt work, there are a couple of glitchy shots. There’s also a narrative issue that probably won’t bother most viewers, but Boiúna seems to have trouble keeping her meals down. Yes, snakes sometimes regurgitate, but this is generally a sign of distress. Given what/who she eats, BEWARE BOIÚNA fairly enough plays this for gross-out and shock value, but we start wondering if this is going to turn into a plot point.

Bonus values include the fact that BEWARE BOIÚNA was actually shot in Colombia, it highlights some real-world issues, and Lena’s t-shirt game is consistently outstanding.

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Movie Review: BEWARE BOIUNA

A decent giant snake movie

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A decent giant snake movie

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