Logline:
On a rescue mission to the Amazon, Dr. Jeffery Levy an anthropologist, finds himself unevenly matched against a highly evolved humanoid species that threatens to tear him and his party to pieces.
Synopsis:
A remarkable find deep in the Amazon jungle leads a prominent anthropologist (Dr. Morgan James) to announce that he will lead an expedition to seek out and bring back undeniable proof of the existence of the last living cluster of Neanderthals on Earth. His theory and his party evaporates only days into their journey after sending back images that cannot be explained, even by the top specialist in the area Professor Jeffery Dunlevy. Dr. Levy is sent on a rescue mission to find James, his hated rival. Levy agrees with the condition that he gets to choose his team. In choosing, he leaves his girlfriend and assistant Dr. Aislin behind. Levy has a complicated history with James and Aislin is a part of it.
The mission is blanketed in secrecy. They pick up a high-powered military escort and a CDC mission specialist. Dr. Aislin also finds a way to join the expedition at the last minute. They follow the trail of the missing expedition. It intersects with an abandoned oil drilling facility. A bloody uprising occurred in the facility. The news claimed it was indigenous people who had attacked, but the facts point to a much more sinister adversary. An earthquake shakes the facility and the rumble never fully dies out. They continue on the trail and find local tribes are all migrating out of the region. Even the brutal cannibal tribes are being pinched because of a Runda or “Shiver.”
They find the place where Dr. James made his last stand, and Levy comes to know that the danger they are facing from below is much further along the evolutionary path than even modern humans. They have been adapting to the most competitive environment on earth for thousands of years, and now, having glimpsed human society at its most brutal, they are ready to unleash their own wrath upon the world above. Ingenuity and Levy’s keen eye for behavior keeps them ahead of the Shiver, but in retreat he is separated from Aislin. A daring rescue attempt leads to the discovery that Aislin has been taken below. Levy decides to infiltrate their underground world. He finds both Aislin and James are alive. They want to journey to the hub of the humanoid society before they leave. A tracker that Levy put on one of the leaders during a confrontation leads them to the center of the underground world. Levy learns then that James has a very dark purpose. James injects him with a super-polio virus. He didn’t come here to study these creatures. He betrays Levy and only with the kindness of the female humanoids he makes it back to Aislin and the surface. They are rescued, but Levy learns something about his own humanity before he bids a violent farewell to the creatures of the Amazon.
He wakes up weeks later in a hospital. The government denies most of what happened to him, and it is hinted that Dr. James died spreading the disease. Levy can’t believe that they erased an entire species, but he does have one last trick up his sleeve that ensures that they will know more about these creatures, just in case they ever return.
