Jungle Warriors

While filming a photo shoot in the jungles of Central America, an airplane carrying the producer and several fashion models is shot down and they are subsequently forced to travel on foot in order to escape the vicious drug dealers who are after them. Unfortunately, the producer named "Larry Schecter" (Marjoe Gortner) is soon killed and they are all taken captive and led back to the jungle mansion where the sadistic drug warlord named "Cesar Santiago" (Paul L. Smith) is anxiously awaiting them. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film had some potential but the weak acting and rather meandering plot greatly affected the movie as a whole. However, for what it's worth, I thought the presence of Suzi Horne (as "Pam Ross"), Mindi Iden ("Marci") and to a lesser extent Nina van Pallandt ("Joanna Quinn") brightened the scenery to a certain degree--but that still wasn't enough to overcome the general lack of intensity and passion shown in this film. Because of that I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly below average.

The Quick Pitch: A group of models headed to South America for a photoshoot are shot down while flying too low over a cocaine plantation. The women are imprisoned, tortured, and raped. They make their inevitable escape only to interrupt a high-level confab between the drug runners and the mafia. Much gunfire and bloodshed ensues.

Let me start this by saying that I'm usually a fan of WIP films - I love most of the stuff Pam Grier and Co were churning out in the 70s. Also, I realize that I watched a butchered version of Jungle Warriors. I know that lots of what most people call the good bits you find in a WIP were cut out. However, I'm not really sure any of the excised footage would change my opinion. Jungle Warriors is just too slow and predictable to be entertaining. I was bored out of my mind throughout most of the film. Throw in some pathetic acting, poor special effects, and lazy fight choreography and you end up with a real dud.

With that being said, one of the bigger issues I have with Jungle Warriors is the underutilization of Sybil Danning. When you watch a movie with Sybil Danning so prominently featured on the box/poster artwork, you want to see a movie with Sybil Danning. She's barely in the thing (at least my cut). And when she is, she really doesn't do much of anything.

As bad as the movie is, I did get a chuckle watching Paul L Smith do some serious running. I doubt he ever moved that fast in the rest of his entire life. Overall though, a real letdown from start to finish.

3/10

A cheap cross between women-in-prison thriller and jungle adventure, JUNGLE WARRIORS is notable for featuring a quite incredible all-star cast mired in B-movie hell. You get the likes of John Vernon, Marjoe Gortner, Sybil Danning, Paul Smith and Woody Strode appearing in what is essentially a girls-with-guns story beginning with capture, leading to torment, then escape, and finally catharsis. It's all very cheap and cheerful, and surprisingly quite silly despite the grim subject matter.

That's the gist of this very lively and very amusing trash. It's paced incredibly well, features the required dose of delectable nudity and exploitation, and is overall pretty well shot. It also features a B movie cast to die for, which is what may bring this diversion to the attention of sleaze aficionados. The godawful theme song is one debit, but that can't do much to affect the basic entertainment value of this thing. It gets off to a fine start and eventually leads to a wild finale with lots of gunfire and squib use and explosions. Director & producer Ernst R. von Theumer, brought into to replace the fired Billy Fine, knows full well what kind of movie he's making and does his best to ensure that the viewers have a good time.

A bevy of babes fly to an unnamed South American country to scout locations for a photo shoot, not knowing that they're doing this at a bad time. A major deal is going down between an American mobster, Vito Mastranga (John Vernon) and powerful drug lord Cesar Santiago (Paul L. Smith). The plane in which the models travel ventures too close to the drug lords' domain, and is subsequently shot down. The girls and their companions, Joanna Quinn (Nina van Pallandt), Larry (Marjoe Gortner), Laura (the ever bubbly Louisa Moritz), and pilot Ben Sturges (Kai Wulff) are captured by Cesars' minions and tortured by his kinky lesbian sister Angel (Sybil Danning, looking mighty fine as always).

The cast of familiar faces also includes Alex Cord as Vitos' concerned nephew Nick, Woody Strode as an efficient goon in Cesars' employ, and Dana Elcar as a federal agent. It's a treat to see all of them here. Danning is particularly juicy, but Smith, as could be expected, is an absolute hoot as a tough as nails baddie. The ladies playing the models are lovely. The story is a pretty straightforward one, and it moves along nicely to that aforementioned action climax.

This one doesn't appear to be that well known, so if you're looking for lesser known B level sleaze epics from decades past, give it a look.

Eight out of 10.

I admit that I might have had a higher opinion of "Jungle Warriors" if I had been able to see it in its full form; the Region 2 DVD version features many painfully obvious cuts that make the film more of a jumble than it already is (it would struggle to get a PG-13 in this form). What's left of "Jungle Warriors" is not that good, anyway: it only gets interesting when the girls are machine gunning down the bad guys, but that doesn't happen often enough (actually, most of the bad guys just kill each other off). Admittedly, casting Paul L. Smith and Sybil Danning as kinky half-siblings was an inspired exploitation idea, but Danning is actually kind of wasted in this film. *1/2 out of 4.