Beware Boiúna (2026) Review: Our Scores, the Jump Scare Times, and What a Boiúna Is

The Boiúna is a serpent from Amazonian Indigenous folklore in Brazil. It is also known as the Cobra Grande, meaning "large serpent," and as Mboiaçu.

The name means "black snake." It comes from the Tupi word mboy'una, and it is pronounced boy-oo-nuh.

In the folklore it is a nocturnal black snake and the most powerful creature of the Amazon's rivers. It is a shapeshifter, and the forms it is described as taking are mundane rather than monstrous, such as a canoe, a sailboat or a woman. Those forms lure or frighten fishermen who enter its stretch of water. It functions as a territorial guardian of the rivers and as a cautionary figure about where people should not go.

The film's own logline refers to the creature as "her," which is consistent with the folklore rather than a departure from it.

The film is not a Brazilian production. The legend is Brazilian and the story is set in Brazil, but Beware Boiúna is a German, American and Colombian co-production from Constantin Film and JB Pictures, and it was shot in Colombia. It reaches Brazilian cinemas on November 12, 2026, about six weeks after the US opening, under the title Boiúna: Terror no Amazonas. That does not make the film illegitimate. If you are looking for Brazilian horror specifically, this is not it.

The film went into production as Titan. Lionsgate then retitled it Boiúna: Legend of the Amazon, and later retitled it again to Beware Boiúna, confirming the October 2 date at the same time.

The practical consequence is that searching for this film is unusually messy. Moviefone still hosts it under a /movie/titan/ URL. Coverage from earlier in 2026 refers to it as Boiúna: Legend of the Amazon. Anyone who read about a Lionsgate giant snake film called Titan and went looking for it later would have a hard time confirming they had found the same movie.

Titan, Boiúna: Legend of the Amazon and Beware Boiúna are the same Mike P. Nelson creature feature, released in US theaters on October 2, 2026.

Beware Boiúna had its world premiere on September 17, 2026 as the opening night film of Fantastic Fest, which ran September 17 to 24 in Austin, Texas. It was the festival's 21st edition, and the festival describes itself as the largest genre film festival in the United States.

The lineup ran eight days and the opening slot went to one film. Nelson is a returning filmmaker at the festival, and the lineup announcement introduced him as a Fantastic Fest alum.

The first reviews came out of Austin within a day of the premiere, including Bloody Disgusting's, Dread Central's and Daily Dead's, about two weeks before the October 2 theatrical date. Dread Central gave it 3.5 out of 5 and Daily Dead gave it 2.5 out of 5. Festival screenings were ticketed and in person only, so October 2 was the first date most people could see it.

Two other films we are tracking played the same lineup. Ghost in the Cell won Best Picture in the Horror Features competition and opened in US theaters the same day as this one, October 2. The Cycle, Jordan Downey's Shudder title, had its world premiere there, won a Special Mention in the same competition, and streams from October 23.

As of October 15, 2026 Beware Boiúna is still in some US theaters. It opened on October 2, 2026 at 1,121 theaters and was down to 151 from its second weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo and The Numbers put its US total at about $815,000 through October 14, 2026. Checking a local listing before travelling is sensible.

As of October 15, 2026 there is no announced streaming date, no announced digital rental date, and no announced streaming partner. Movies Anywhere has a pre-order page for the film, and the only date on it is October 2, 2026, the theatrical opening. Lionsgate titles have historically reached digital rental within a couple of months of a theatrical run, but the company has not committed to anything for this film and we are not going to publish a guess as though it were a date.

The likeliest first streaming home in the US is Starz. Lionsgate's agreements give Starz the first streaming window on its theatrical releases and give Prime Video the window after that, starting with the 2026 slate. Beware Boiúna went out under the Lionsgate Premiere label, and neither company has confirmed that it follows the same path.

This page and the film page will be updated the day a digital or streaming date is announced.

Beware Boiúna opens on different dates around the world, and in several countries under a different title. These are the dates we have confirmed from a distributor or a local listing.

- Australia: October 1, 2026. - Germany: October 8, 2026, from Constantin Film. - Spain: October 16, 2026, as Boiúna: La leyenda del Amazonas, after its European premiere at the Sitges festival. - Argentina: October 22, 2026, as Terror en el Amazonas. - Brazil: November 12, 2026, as Boiúna: Terror no Amazonas, from Paris Filmes. - Italy: November 26, 2026, as Il risveglio di Boiúna, from Vertice 360.

We have not found a confirmed cinema date for the United Kingdom as of October 1, 2026. If your country is not listed, no date we could confirm has been announced there yet.

It is a creature feature, and it is only mildly scary. We scored Beware Boiúna 4.0 out of 10 for fear, level with Slither and Antlers and a point above Predator. Some of that fear comes from waiting for her to appear, not only from the attacks.

She is kept off screen for most of the first half. There is one glimpse of her in the opening scene, and then she is not seen again for about 50 minutes. The first clear looks come around an hour in. Several reviews made how little she is shown their main complaint.

Gore lands at 6.0, level with Tremors and Deep Blue Sea. The MPA rated it R for bloody violent content, some grisly images and language. Intensity is 5.0, level with Jaws, which is the middle of our scale for how hard a film is to sit through.

Atmosphere is the highest of the four at 7.0, also level with Jaws. The color is highly saturated and the brightness is mid to low. The film shows the heat of the Amazon: everyone is sweating, and there are beads of moisture on the beer bottles and shot glasses. The forest is dangerous and unforgiving but not malevolent. The action scenes use a chaotic shaky-cam style that is a bit much at times and makes them hard to see.

We counted seven jump scares first-hand, one major and six minor. The major one lands at 41:50. The first comes at 12:50, four fall between 50:04 and 59:29, and the last is at 1:25:25.

Critics were split. As of October 15, 2026 it holds 59% on Rotten Tomatoes from 56 reviews and a Metascore of 49 from 8, and Letterboxd members average 2.9 out of 5. Our Overall score is 7.4 out of 10, level with The Ruins.

Two notes for some viewers. There is a scene of sexual assault, and animals are shown dead and attacked.

Lionsgate released the first trailer on August 13, 2026, and it is embedded below. The film runs 104 minutes.

The five-axis score profile and the full list of jump scare times are on the film page.

Mike P. Nelson directed The Domestics, the 2021 Wrong Turn reboot, and a Silent Night, Deadly Night remake in 2025. He co-wrote Beware Boiúna with Alan B. McElroy. His next film is a new Saw movie, and the franchise announced him as its director on September 24, 2026.

McElroy wrote the original Wrong Turn in 2003 and returned to write Nelson's 2021 reboot. His screenwriting debut was Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, which he completed in under eleven days ahead of a Writers Guild strike. Nelson and McElroy have a track record with stories about people who go somewhere remote and are hunted there.

Production ran in Leticia, Colombia, the country's gateway city to the Amazon, from late October to December 2024. Roughly half the cast is Colombian, with Juan Pablo Shuk of Narcos and Jaime Newball among the local leads. Constantin Film, the German studio behind the Resident Evil film series, produced alongside Jeremy Bolt and Robert Kulzer.

Kiana Madeira played Deena across Netflix's Fear Street trilogy, and Jessica Rothe played Tree Gelbman in Happy Death Day and its sequel.