Garret Dillahunt is heading deep into the jungle, and he's not coming back the same man. The actor leads Bloodwood, a psychedelic Amazon revenge thriller that marks the feature directing debut of Robert Menzies, who wrote the screenplay from his own novel. Michelle Hurd and Henry Ian Cusick round out the lead trio, with Essential Film Group handling worldwide sales out of Cannes.
A Revenge Mission That Turns Into Something Else
Dillahunt plays Jake, a man running from his past who travels up the Amazon to hunt Vargas, a trafficker responsible for his wife's death. Cusick plays Vargas. What starts as a cold, planned-out mission slowly comes apart. The deeper Jake goes, the more the jungle works on him, fracturing memory, time, and what's real. By the end he's locked in a hallucinatory reckoning with the choices that put him on the river in the first place.
Hurd's Wildlife Vet Carries Her Own Weight
Jake doesn't go upriver alone. Michelle Hurd plays Ryan, a guarded wildlife veterinarian guiding him through the rainforest while hauling around a past of her own. That pairing gives the film a two-hander spine under all the trip-out visuals, and it's the kind of role that lets Hurd do real work instead of just pointing the way to the next set piece. Cusick, meanwhile, gets to play the target who may be harder to corner than Jake bargained for.
Built With the Amazon, Not Just Set in It
Here's the part that sets Bloodwood apart from the usual jungle thriller. The production is backed by the Ayahuasca Foundation and Camino Verde, and it was developed with guidance drawn from Shipibo traditions of the Amazon rainforest, with the filmmakers leaning hard on cultural respect and accuracy. That's not window dressing for a movie about perception coming undone in the deep green. It's the whole engine.
When and Where It Shoots
Menzies is shooting on location. Principal photography runs in Peru across June and July, with additional filming in Kenya set for September 2026. For a first-time director swinging this big, the on-the-ground approach signals real ambition. If the hallucination sequences land the way the setup promises, Bloodwood could be one to watch for fans who like their thrillers to mess with your head as much as your nerves. Keep this one on the radar.