Special Report: Beware Boiúna (2026)

Hold your ears, folks. It's showtime. People pay good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn and no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Turn it off. Mother of the waters. That's kind of like folklore. Depends on who you ask. When there is balance, she rests.

In balance, she defends. What does he say? She. Why, you know. She decides who lives.

She decides who dies. If we don't leave here now, we all die. Shh! This is her domain. Run!

Run! Run! Hey folks, welcome to The Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White. Today, I am talking about the giant snake creature feature, Beware Boina.

First up, you're going to hear from director Mike P. Nelson, how producers Jeremy Bolt and Robert Kulzler spent two years talking him into making a giant snake movie. And then you're going to hear from stars Kiana Medeira and Jessica Roth on how a fun, thrilling monster movie also became a story of who the monster really is. Beware Boena opened October 2nd, 2026. Visit Beware Boena the movie for more information and to find out where it is playing near you.

Had a great time talking with these folks. I hope you have a great time listening. Can you tell me a little bit of your background and how did you get into making films? It's been a long journey. As cliche as it may sound, especially of being a child of the 80s, so much of it came down to watching movies. movies with my dad and then of course hoisting his hundred pound video camera on my shoulder and just not stopping since then and writing stories always finding a way to write a story about a monster something horrific happening something scary happening and then just continuing that on if i in my teenage life my young adult life.

And into now where did the idea for this movie come from. So I had just done Wrong Turn with Constantine and Robert Kolzer. And him and Jeremy Bolt had teamed up and wanted to do a giant snake movie. And my first answer to that was, no, absolutely not. It just wasn't in the thing.

It wasn't in the cards. I was just like, eh. You're like, Anaconda exists. What else can I say? And that was kind of it.

I was like, I thought I knew what snake movies were. And I was just kind of like, do I want to do that? And movies are two years of your life, minimum, minimum two years. I mean, and this one was even longer. So I was like, do I want to go down that road?

And my first response was no. You know, there was story ideas, there were screenplays, and I just could not get, I just, it wasn't my vibe. And so they were like, okay, what is your vibe? I was like, okay. Now we're getting somewhere.

Let, let me, let me, let me get back to you. And so I just wrote up a bunch of things that I'd like to see in a creature feature, AKA a giant snake movie. And, uh, pitched him the ideas and pitched him some of the movies that I was inspired by that I kind of wanted to chase. And they were like, okay, yeah, we like that. Let's go.

Let's start from square one. Let's tell a brand new story. Uh, do you want to work with Alan again? I was like, absolutely. And, uh, Here we are.

We found it. Was there a certain thing that kind of unlocked it for you? It's interesting. I am such a huge fan of the movie Sorcerer. And it allowed me to sort of be like, well, what if Sorcerer was like a creature feature?

And I say that strictly not to make the same story as Sorcerer, but how Sorcerer is structured. And what it was trying to do, which was like, yeah, it's a thriller about these men who that are transporting this super high explosive stuff, but set on the backdrop of this, this crazy political strife and this oil and, and these criminals. So ultimately that part of the movie is only half the story. The other half of the story is like these men who are trying to start over again and what they've gone through. And I love that.

I love that movie. I always took the time. to immerse us in an environment, which is the jungle and just what it feels like to be there, who these guys are. And then suddenly 50 minutes into the movie, do you want to drive some explosives? And this is a chance you get at your new life. And I'm like, Oh my God, what if we bring these doctors in?

You know what I mean? And then it was like, and then something tragic happens with them and it makes them have to escape. And they have to hide deep in the jungle. And who do they come across? What do they come across?

Something terrifying. And what will they do to survive? It was taking the time to immerse yourselves with these characters in this environment. Understand that this environment is just as much of a character as our characters. And then release the beast.

I read Freakin's autobiography, and Sorcerer was not an easy film to make. It doesn't sound like this one was an easy film to make either. No, it comes with its challenges. And we knew it going in that it wasn't going to be easy, but I think the one thing that it taught me is be ready to pivot. The jungle's going to do its thing, and you just have to be on your toes.

We lost sets. Sets were built, and the river came in and took them away. We were supposed to be shooting from one area of a set one day and we got to set and it was completely flooded because it rained. Nothing you could do. It's like, at least it rained at night and not during the day when we were supposed to shoot.

But now we have to change our shot list and shoot from this side. That was just... But I will say, with everything that did change, and I don't even like to say go wrong because we ultimately figured it out, We were also, I think, really blessed because a lot more could have gone terribly wrong and it didn't. That is something that I'm very fortunate that, whereas, you know, there's always somebody that gets a little hurt on a set or in this case, somebody did get bit by a tarantula one day. They were fine.

It just, it hurts. Somebody fell off a walkway one day. They broke a bone. It hurts. But the fact that we're shooting on a moving boat, On the river, with a crew.

Again, I think we were being watched over. I do really believe that, to go there and make this movie. The shooting of the movie sounds intense, so I kind of want to switch focus and talk about the post-process. How was that for you, and what were some of the biggest challenges there? We're going to start with editing.

Obviously, you're rediscovering your story again when you're in the editing room. What was cool is we were able to tell pretty closely the story that we wrote. So what was on the page is really what you get. Yes, there was a handful of things that we decided we didn't need. Yes, our movie started out being a lot longer, and we ended up cutting about 20, 30 minutes out.

But that's kind of pretty common. And then it was, you know, finding pace and really... you know, deciding, you know, do we want to commit to this sort of like two-part movie, you know what I mean? Like immerse yourself in the jungle, then get chased by a giant snake. And what was really cool was we were getting great feedback from that, you know what I mean? I think there was a moment when we were even in the script phase where we had the giant snakes work its way throughout the entire movie and the one thing that kept standing out to everybody was this just feels like it feels like we're abiding by creature feature rules and so i was like okay then let's lose it all let's just make a movie about these characters in the amazon and And something bad happens.

And they have to escape. That's our first movie. Where they escape to is the wrong place. And then our movie finishes from there. And our characters learn things the hard way.

And then that's what we stuck to. We stuck to our guns and the editing room. And then when it came to VFX, like discovering that snake, what she looked like, how she moved. I think what was great about that is we had a really good idea of how we wanted to show her when we were shooting. We weren't So many movies that incorporate VFX, I think, go in with one idea and then end up being like, that didn't work, so we got to, let's just show the snake doing this.

When we show the snake in our movie, I'm going to say every scene was very, that was meticulous. We needed to make sure that we were ready for VFX to come in and do what we wanted to do. Did things slightly change after in post? They always do. But for the most part, it was always about making a real-feeling, tactile snake that if you were to put your hand on it when it was moving, you could feel the bumps in the scales going along.

The one moment that I always used as a sort of guiding force for this was, we're going to show the biggest snake to ever exist through teeny slots. on a dock and we're going to make you feel its size through the smallest little window we possibly can make. And from there on, that's how we, that was our moniker. It's like, okay, now we're in the most claustrophobic place in the world, which honestly the jungle is the biggest, most claustrophobic place in the world. And we are going to only be able to see as much of the snake as we could see if we were in the jungle. And that's what we were able to bring to it both on our shooting days and and then in post, how we were able to make it to feel.

Mr. Nelson, where can people keep up with you online? I dabble in Instagram a little bit. I'm not going to lie, I'm not the best social media person, but if I find something cool to post, I'll throw it up on there. But yeah, that's where most of my news about what I got going on is going to be.

That'll be the best place. Congratulations on the new film. I really had a good time with this, and I hope a lot of people get to check this out and have a great time as well. Awesome. Well, dude, I appreciate that.

It means a lot. Can you tell me how you got involved in this film? I actually worked with our producer, Jeremy Bolt, on a previous film called Perfect Addiction. And when we were wrapping that film, he mentioned to me, he's like, I have another project. So in a couple of months, hit me up.

And a couple of months went by and I emailed him and he was like, hey, yeah, so I have this project called Boyuna, which is called Boyuna at the time. Um, I think you'd be great for this role of Lena, read the script and let. Me know what you think. And I read it and immediately was like, whoa, this, I love it. I'm down.

What are the next steps? And so I got on a call with Mike P. Nelson, our amazing director, and we hit it off and his enthusiasm for the project really like locked me in day one and it started building from there. And it was a similar journey for me. I didn't know Jeremy before, but big fan of Jeremy now.

Um, But Mike reached out and we also had a call and it turned into a love fest. I'm just such a fan of his work and became a huge fan of Kiana's work as well. And there was just something really unique and beautiful about this story because not only is it a fun, thrilling, terrifying creature feature, but it delves into some really interesting and complex questions about love. what it is to be a human, what it is to fight for what you believe in, who really is the monster in this film, and all of the ways that we also kind of take nature for granted and what nature does when that happens. And I was just very excited to do that. But also, I have to say, getting to go down to the Amazon rainforest definitely was a huge perk and a big factor in my personal decision.

I'm glad they weren't trying to use Santa Monica and double for the Amazon. I know, right? I mean, you know, we had some really talented actors on the set. We would have pulled it off, but it was just an incredible experience to be immersed in the location. Every piece of sweat you see is real.

The dirt is real. The mud is real. The fear is real. Yeah, and at least for me, when I screened the film, I was like, this feels like the real jungle. Like there's just an element that you can't mimic anywhere. on a soundstage, you know, and that was important to Mike from day one that the audience.

And for me personally, when I watched it, I was like, oh yeah, he really did a great job at executing that. It's harrowing for me as a viewer to watch this. How was it for you guys to actually be in this? It was really fun. You know, I think the fun thing about horror films a lot of times is some of the scariest moments in the film are actually incredibly technically chopped.

And so there are moments that I watch later and I'm like, oh, my God, that's so scary. And while we were filming it, it was kind of broken into pieces because of safety or because of a rig or whatever it is. So there was that. But I do have to say there were a few sequences, especially the things we shot at night. that were truly terrifying. Because again, we were in the rainforest.

We didn't know what creatures were out there. And that feeling, I think, really permeated the scenes in a beautiful and delicious way. Because even if Jessica was afraid of a jaguar coming to get her, Allie was afraid of Boyuna. So there is still that feeling of, I don't know what's out there. And it might be coming for me.

And I have to be very, very quiet. And I am so powerless in this situation. Yeah. And I think as actors, we always make it intentional to be present. And being in the actual Amazon, you have no choice but to be present.

The sounds, like you mentioned, everything, your body naturally is on alert. And I think that just lent itself to the performances as well. Did you have any close encounters with any Interesting insects or animals? Counter, but thank God it wasn't that close to us. We were told that a poisonous dart onto a cast chair when no one was sitting in it.

And that's the type of frog that even upon contact could poison you. Well, will poison you. Yeah. Yeah. That was scary conceptually.

But we also, we had an incredible animal wrangler on set. So there was our beloved snake wrangler who before was 10 steps ahead of us, would always go clear each space, make sure the animals were removed, but in a way that was safe for them as well. So he was looking out for us. He was looking out for the jungle and it made it a very safe and good experience. Yes.

Have you seen this with an audience yet? No. Not even with each other. Yeah, we all saw it separately. So getting to go to Fantastic Fest and see it with an audience and on the big screen, I think is going to be incredible.

And we just really want to encourage people to see this in theaters because the cinematography is so beautiful. The jungle is so lush. The stakes are so high. The snake is so big. Like see this.

On literally the biggest screen that you can. Yes, it'll be worth it. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time and congratulations on Beware Boyuna. Thank you so much.