You can imagine the excitement when this film was first pitched; it was clearly sold as The Blair Witch Dinosaur Project. The reality is however, that some high concept ideas should remain exactly that.

Deep in the Congo, a mythical beast known as the Mokele Mbembe is said to exist. It's the Congo's equivalent to the Loch Ness Monster and stories of its existence have been told for generations.

In an attempt to see if there is any substance to this myth, the British Cryptozoological Society decides to send out a team, headed by renowned explorer Marchant (Richard Dillane). Due to problems at home however, he also ends up having to take his teenage son Luke (Matt Kane) with him, but on strict instructions to stay behind at the hotel.

Seeking a little adventure himself, Luke sneaks on board the helicopter that takes off for the jungle. After a while, the helicopter encounters some unfriendly flying beasties who take the 'copter down.

With all communication devices unusable, the group find themselves in the middle of nowhere. Luckily all their filming equipment survived – all HD quality no less – and they manage to document everything that happens to them next. Needless to say, they are not alone.

Quick, paddle faster! If we hurry, we can still catch up with our sinking careers.

With so many films in recent years adopting the camcorder approach to filming, it should really become a new genre. When it's done well, it can be quite an intense experience. When it's done badly, it's like sitting through hours of holiday footage shot by a really dull family. And despite the appearance of dinosaurs, this film still manages to be the latter.

Clearly there were budget constraints on this particular project. The fact they had to create some CGI monsters obviously had a knock-on effect with the casting; it's pretty much a bunch of unknowns, and it shows, with many of them looking forward to nothing more than walk-on parts in the likes of Casualty .

It also seems that they only had enough cash to knock up about three different breeds of creature, which is a bit embarrassing. What you have mostly then is high definition footage of dense jungle foliage brushing against the lens.

Overall, it somehow manages to make an episode of Primeval look thrillingly hi-tech, which is no mean feat.

There must be a saturation point where using shaky camcorder footage is seen as lame and old hat, and that point must have been past some time ago. And as far as dinosaurs are concerned, you're more likely to be thrilled by 1975's classic the Land That Time Forgot, never mind the likes of Jurassic Park.

This is a project that well and truly shouldn't have gotten made. It is completely devoid of any originality and lacks anything remotely resembling a thrill. We can only hope and pray that something as poor as this finally signals the extinction of the handycam film.