Review: Jungle Warriors

A pilot (Kai Wulff) leads coke-snorting manager Marjoe Gortner, producer/photographer Nina van Pallandt and a bunch of fashion models (Louisa Moritz among them) into the South American jungle for a shoot. The plane crashes down, and our protagonists end up in a whole mess of trouble with drug kingpin Paul L. Smith, his sister/lover Sybil Danning, and their scumbag armed goons led by a silent Woody Strode. Alex Cord and John Vernon play Smith’s visiting American mob associates, whilst Dana Elcar is on the phone back home as an FBI man.

 

There aren’t very many people who will have heard of this 1984 jungle exploitation pic from director Ernst von Theumer (“Hell Hunters” with Maud Adams, Stewart Granger, George Lazenby, and William Berger), let alone seen it. If you’ve heard of it, it’s likely because a) A massively drugged-out Dennis Hopper was arrested, fired, and replaced in a naked incident that the actor apparently had no subsequent memory of, or b) Its infamous, nasty group rape scene. To be honest, both of those things make the film sound more memorable than the rather routine flick von Theumer ultimately gives us.

 

Coming from producers responsible for the likes of “Chained Heat” and “Red Heat” (the Linda Blair one) it’s all rather dull, familiar, and surprisingly lacking in sex and nudity. It sure does have one of the best exploitation movie casts of all-time on paper, though. The only faces missing here are Donald Pleasance, Mary Woronov, and Fred Williamson. Perhaps Fred was busy in Italy making one of his post-apocalyptic action flick ‘guest star’ appearances at the time. Instead we get a mute Woody Strode firing a crossbow and…uh…standing around a lot. The Hollywood veteran was usually a wasted talent at the best of times, and looks pretty damn old and tired here. That said, he still looks like he could kick your arse and mine easily. Meanwhile, we also get one of the worst, most poorly sung theme songs of all-time by Marina Arcangeli. It’s truly horrendous, poor Marina is in dire need of a whole batch of throat lozenges. I don’t know how in the hell former fake evangelist Marjoe Gortner ended up in films, but he’s certainly no actor. That said, he’s oily as hell here in easily his best performance. He’s not in the film for terribly long, but he lingers in the memory more than anyone else here. My feeling is Hopper was meant to play the coke-snorting sleaze Gortner plays, whilst Gortner was probably originally meant to play the pilot (According to “Good Efficient Butchery” – one of the best movie review sites out there in my opinion – there’s information suggesting both Hopper and Gortner were meant to be in the film). Kai Wulff ends up in the role of the pilot here. Wolff picks up where Marjoe leaves off but also doesn’t hang around for terribly long, as the filmmakers put these sexy fashion models in as much helplessness as is humanly possible in one film. Like Gortner Wulff’s actually pretty decent too, and you might remember him as the German pilot from “Three Amigos!”. The best performance by a mile comes from hefty veteran villain Paul L. Smith, who went from playing a brutal prison guard in “Midnight Express” to playing a drug lord here. He’s well-cast in both films. Everyone’s favourite sexy Danish T&A film veteran Sybil Danning is equally well-cast as Smith’s sadistic sister/lover, but you sadly won’t see very much of her in the film, to my great disappointment. Veteran oily villain John Vernon isn’t around much either, and is frankly coasting, whilst Dana Elcar literally phones in his performance, and Alex Cord probably gives the worst performance of the name actors. Nina van Pallandt is essentially our lead here as the most prominent among the models, and she’s pretty forgettable. The other actresses playing the models are even worse, including the normally fun Louisa Moritz whom I didn’t even recognise for once.

 

The film is relatively violent at times, with a nice decapitation in particular. You didn’t see too many of those in 1984 outside of the horror genre. However, the director doesn’t really have a great handle on action, it’s all done a bit flatly. As I said earlier, the film just doesn’t have the requisite nudity and sex you want/expect/need here. At least not of the consensual kind. I don’t know how you can have a film with this plot and not have a lot of naked hot chicks, or the requisite lesbian scene or two. It boggles the mind. On the nastier side of the spectrum, the infamous group rape scene is actually nowhere near as graphic as you’re likely expecting. Hell it’s not even the most graphic scene in the film. However, it’s totally different in tone to the rest of the silly action/adventure. It’s nihilistic, brutal, and nasty and in my view it’s also completely unnecessary. It shouldn’t be in the film, it straight up doesn’t need to be here nor does the film benefit from it in any way.

 

Distressingly routine jungle exploitation movie gets whatever mileage it has out of the schlock cast and a bit of nastiness and brutality. Most of the more interesting cast members don’t stick around long enough, and there’s lots of dull spots. Mediocre, it needed a better director of action and a lot more T&A. The screenplay is by the director alongside Robert Collector (director of the dull “Nightflyers”, screenwriter of the underrated “Memoirs of an Invisible Man”), and an uncredited Marc Furstenberg (whose other credits are few and minor).

 

Rating: C