Jungle Warriors (1984) User Reviews

Commando models in green exploitation hell!

[Sorsimus · 3/10 · 8 January 2003]

A seemingly ordinary jungle action fare, this one benefits from a couple of notable twists, the main one being the group of heroines consisting of models! Although this probably helps to make this film utterly unbelievable, that is in turn heightened by good villanous casting, giving us no less than four major "bad guys", including the seldom disappointing Woody Strode and never disappointing Sybil Danning.

Add to this mixture the total lack of any concern for realism, and you get what I call an entertaining little picture. OK, it's not a masterpiece on any level, but it is good at what it wants to be.

Released on video in Finland in the early eighties.

That song!

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 3 September 2015]

A group of fashion models travel with their producer Larry (Marjoe Gortner) and pilot/guide Ben (Kai Wulff) to a South American jungle for a photo assignment. What could possibly go wrong?

Jungle Warriors is worth seeing for any self-respecting fan of crap B-movies if only for its horrible theme song, which has to be the most tuneless bit of warbling ever to grace a movie. The woman responsible for this insult to music lovers everywhere is Italian singer Marina Arcangeli: I'm guessing that her surname translates as Archangel, but let me assure you that there's nothing angelic about her voice, which is pure audible evil, sucking at the soul with every screeching syllable.

Abysmal title song aside, this film is a fairly routine piece of cheesy 80s European action with a predictably dumb plot: the models are captured by a gang of ruthless drug runners who occupy a nearby Spanish fortress and, after their male companions are killed (Larry is caught in a booby trap, Ben has his head hacked off), they are left at the mercy of the despicable baddies, who rape and torture them. Escape is, of course, inevitable, but how many of them will make it out of the jungle alive?

This nonsense is made slightly more bearable thanks to a solid cast that includes seasoned genre regulars Paul L. Smith, John Vernon, Woody Strode, and Sybil Danning. Beware, however, of the severely edited R2 version of the film: the copy that I saw had clearly suffered at the scissors of the censors, the more extreme moments shorn of gore and nudity, making the experience rather frustrating for exploitation fans such as myself.

5/10 (although it might possibly be worth a 6 with the juicier stuff intact).

A feast of wasted opportunities

[IndustriousAngel · 5/10 · 2 November 2016]

This is an 80s actioner about as generic as they come, only without good action, without memorable characters, and even without sexiness (which should have been the point of putting fashion models in the jungle). The thing is, this could have been soooo much better if anyone really had put some passion into this project. The setup has a lot of potential, but nearly every single opportunity gets wasted by bad writing or directing. The pretty girls get no sexy scenes, the villains get offed in very uninteresting ways (and much too quickly - what a waste of Sybil Danning), the heroes don't get much heroing to do, and the jungle setting is used for maybe 10 minutes.

That the movie had potential is witnessed by the fact that I was able to sit through it without fast-forwarding; despite all its flaws it's at least quickly paced and loud - 5/10.

Lacked Passion and Realism

[Uriah43 · 4/10 · 5 September 2016]

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.

First the bad news .......

[merklekranz · 5/10 · 2 October 2019]

First the bad news. "Jungle Warriors" has about as much realism as a rat f...ing a grapefruit. More bad news, for a women in prison type, this seriously lacks skin. Still more bad news, Sybil Danning is basically wasted with not much screen time, and very little to do. She is however boldly featured on the DVD cover. The plot revolves around an uneasy alliance and drug deal between cocaine producer, Paul L. Smith, and Mafia kingpin, John Vernon. Drop into this jungle stew, seven no talent actress beauties led by Nina van Palandt who suddenly morph into jungle warriors, and that about wraps up the bad. Now for the good. The final showdown between Paul L. Smith and one of Vernon's goons is quite brutal and was for me the highlight of what must be considered bad news cinema. - MERK

Cheap and cheerful

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 11 June 2022]

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.

Jungle Warriors is unfortunately lackluster.

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 23 December 2014]

A pretty irritating guy named Larry (Gortner) is in charge of corralling a bunch of models and flying them down to an unnamed South or Central American country (the movie itself was shot in Mexico). They inadvertently land in the thick jungles of drug-smuggling country. This particular gang of drug lords is commanded by Santiago (Smith) and his sister Angel (Danning). They have a team of thugs led by Luther (Strode). It's not looking good for the models, and making things even worse is that a mobster named Vito Mastranga (Vernon) and his associate Nick Spilotro (Cord) are collaborating with Santiago and Angel and are in negotiations for future highly illegal doings. With no prior combat training, the models are going to have to take up arms against their captors if they ever want to strut on the catwalk ever again. Will they be able to pull off this daring feat? You'd think - you'd REALLY think - that a movie about a bunch of models who get together and have to shoot a bunch of guns to escape the jungle and get back at the baddies would be a surefire formula for cinematic greatness. Or at least entertainment. Somehow Jungle Warriors manages to fumble this potential home run, to use a spot-on sports analogy. Lamely, the movie is talky, boring, slow, lacks action, and the worst crime of all is that it's not exploitative enough. To compare it to something, Raw Force (1982) is better, and Jungle Warriors kind of falls into that video store shelf-filler netherworld inhabited by the likes of other similarly-themed mediocre flicks like Savage Justice (1988) and Sweet Revenge (1987). Though to be fair and balanced, it is better than Mercenary II (1999).

Perhaps you even saw this or the aforementioned titles collecting dust on the shelf of your local video store. Sybil Danning's face couldn't be much bigger on the U.S. VHS box art (as was the case with her "Adventure Video" series), but she is painfully underused in the movie itself. Another quite easy thing the movie could have done to improve itself would have been to include more Danning. Actually, pretty much the entire cast gets the short end of the stick somehow. Woody Strode says nothing, Danning is barely there, Paul L. Smith has no facial hair and does minimal fighting, John Vernon is in a veritable sit-down role, Alex Cord does what he can, and only Marjoe Gortner adds some Woody Allen-like spice to this mush. The models don't seem to have individual personalities.

It's a plot we've all seen many times before, and they saved all the supposed action for the climax. Some pew-pew machine gun shooting and maybe an exploding helicopter at the last minute doesn't make up for all the waterfall footage we'd seen for the previous eighty or so minutes. But on the plus side, 80's buffs will be delighted to see a vicious-looking drug goon wearing an E.T. shirt, and a too-brief glimpse of the wardrobe girl on the fashion shoot who has a sideways ponytail and is listening to a Walkman with orange ear covers. She should have gotten her own movie, she was the best character. The whole thing tops off with a theme song featuring the aggressively abrasive, Lene Lovich-like vocals of one Marina Arcangeli. So it all ends on a bad note, literally.

Jungle Warriors is unfortunately lackluster, and it should have been called, if we may borrow a phrase from ourselves, Jungle Slog.

Pedestrian action film

[gridoon2024 · 4/10 · 28 March 2009]

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.

Through the jungle in high heels, interesting cast

[manuel-pestalozzi · 7/10 · 16 March 2006]

I like jungle movies. Usually some people are cast away in the virgin forest and have to find their way out of it – often they are very ill equipped, wear a nightgown (see Ann Sheridan in Jacques Tourneur's Appointment in Honduras) or high heels, like in this flick. The story is very simple, but effective. Some babes and another team of bad dudes have appointments in an exotic country, the first for a shooting session with a fashion photographer, the second for some drug trade. The groups meet and clash and there is a lot of barrel melting gun action.

As I said, it works and delivers good and insightful entertainment. I found the cast very interesting. There are some good character actors. Marjoe Gortner (Earthquake, The Nelson Marcus Murders-Kojak pilot) plays the fashion photographer as an overexcited, bossy, fussy mother hen, it looks like he thinks it is the biggest part of his career. Don Siegel regular John Vernon (was also Cuban thug in Hitchcock's Topaz) is the Mafioso who doesn't seem to have a worry in the world although the whole atmosphere is very tense. He is always laughing without any apparent reason (I suspect he was drunk during the whole shoot). Woody Stroude appears too, as a mixture of guerrilla and bodyguard. He seems to have a good time and displays much unexpected charm.

That's not all. The movie also boasts two iconic female leads: Nina Van Pallandt (Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye) is the leader of the fashion shooting crew. She gets a lot of screen time and is surprisingly effective in a role that would have been tailor made for Pam Grier. Muscular, wispy haired sex symbol Sybil Danning (kind of Austrian women's answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger) plays the sister of the drug lord (a Broderick Crawford lookalike, is also good and convincing).

MINOR SPOILER The story goes as those stories go. There is a good climactic scene towards the end: The drug lord and his entourage have dinner with the mafioso and his team on an open air terrace under the trees. Everybody is friendly, but it's clear that they all distrust each other. At the same time the captured babes manage to free themselves inside the drug lord's palace, of which the party is not aware. The women try to get away, they shoot at a guard. As soon as it rings out, hell breaks loose on the terrace, everybody overturning tables and reaching for a firearm. It's really well done.

A last word about the location. Almost all of the action takes place in the drug lord's castle, an old, venerable, architectonically interesting Mexican fortress that is put to good use by the film makers. I could bet on it they used exactly the same place for the Harrison Ford starrer Clear and Present Danger (as a Colombian drug lord's lair).

Welcome to the Jungle; we are dull and daft.

[Coventry · 3/10 · 1 May 2023]

There were two reasons why "Jungle Warriors" was on my must-see list. #1: because I love the juicy-sounding original title in German, "Euer Weg führt durch die Hölle", which roughly translates as "Your path goes through Hell". And #2: because of the downright sublime B-movie cast list including names like John Vernon, Sybil Danning, Woody Strode, Paul Smith, Alex Cord, and Marjoe Gortner.

Well, what can I say? "Jungle Warriors" wasn't worth my time, and it certainly isn't worth yours. Cool as it may sound, a title is a terrible reason for wanting to see a film. And the ensemble cast may look terrific on paper, but it this case it's meaningless. John Vernon and Woody Strode clearly weren't the least bit interested in their roles, only in their paychecks. Sybil Danning never looked more unattractive. Only Paul L. Smith does his stinking best, but he's not a good enough actor to carry the entire film.

The plot also could have been elaborated much better, as it holds quite some potential. During a photoshoot in an exotic jungle location, several fashion models and their producer are taken captive by a local drug cartel. When a major deal is about to take place between the cartel and an American mob boss, the models plan a daring escape. There's action, gore, sleaze, and yet for some incomprehensible reason "Jungle Warriors" is dull beyond words. According to the old and crummy VHS, I watched the uncut 95-minutes version, but the only thing more boring than the spineless gore is the earache-inducing theme song by Marina Arcangeli.

The latest weapon in the war on drugs: fashion models.

[Hey_Sweden · 8/10 · 18 April 2014]

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.

Kill them all but bring Mastranga alive to me!

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 20 November 2014]

****SPOILERS**** Numb nut like movie with the distinction that one of its stars Dennis Hooper never made it on the screen by being replaced by Marjoe Gortner after he was arrested by the local police while walking in public stark naked and as drunk as a skunk. The film itself had to do with a Mafia South American alliance to ship a load of cocaine to the states that went, excuse the pun, south instead of north of the border. That's when the mob boys headed by Vito Mastranga, John Vernon, decided to double cross their Brazilian partners headed by the gorilla like, as well as cultured, Cesar Santiago, Paul L. Smith, that lead to the fireworks at the very end of the movie.

There's also this group of fashion models lead by Joanna Quinn, Nina Van Pollandt, who's plane crashed in rebel held , the Santiago boys, territory that were held hostage who in the end revolted and brought the entire drug operation to an end. That with DEA agent D'Antoni, Dana "Egg" Elcar, coming to the girls rescue, as if they needed him, with a fleet of helicopters. As for Santiago and his #1 henchman Nick Spilotro, Alex "Rip" Cord, they together with Mafia chief Mastranga ended up dead on arrival when the two crime faction came to blows with each other over Mastrangas double cross. This also lead to Santiago's step sister Angel, played by the busty Sybil Danning,getting wiped out when a hand grenade, thrown by Mastranga men, blew up under her feet.

****SPOILERS**** Slow moving at first the film picked up steam in the final sequence with the models taking control of the situation, after being beaten and gang raped by Santigao's men, and putting an end to this massive drug operation. With all the action in the movie the best was saved for last with what sounded like a drunk and high on drugs Marina Arcangeli singing, or trying to sing, the movies theme song "I'm in your Reach".

A real letdown

[bensonmum2 · 3/10 · 25 July 2019]

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

Remake of Five Gates

[drystyx · 6/10 · 8 October 2015]

This is a B movie, action, with lots of gun play and violence.

It's also got too much in common with FIVE GAES TO HELL to not be somewhat of a remake of it. But instead of captive nurses, these are captive models, whose men folk are killed, and it's "women" vs. mercenaries.

Even though it's not a war film, as "Five Gates" was, the evil men here are soldiers for a "war lord".

This is very edgy, well directed, and with lots of famous character actors.

It's also better than "Five Gates", because it takes a lot more risks, and dares to be different. It isn't as "contrived" for the most part.

The sound quality is less than desirable, though. The lady singing at the beginning and end is not delivering "studio" sound. The song is very distorted, for whatever reason. Perhaps one of the worst "sound" mixes in film History. It sounds as though they actually taped her song in the jungle itself.

Enjoyable junk

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 29 September 2011]

A group of gorgeous models doing a photo shoot in South America run afoul of ruthless drug lord Cesar Santiago (hulking Paul Smith in excellent smoothly villainous form). However, the gals manage to acquire some heavy duty firepower and make a fierce stand against their cruel and vile captors. Director Ernst R. von Theumer, who also co-wrote the cheerfully crass script with Robert Collector, relates the entertainingly trashy story at a brisk pace, maintains a blithely lurid tone throughout, stages the last reel outburst of stirring action with real rip-roaring gusto, delivers a handy helping of bloody violence and raw brutality, and further spices things up with a tasty smattering of gratuitous female nudity. The choice cast of veteran exploitation cinema regulars have a ball with the winningly low-grade material: Statuesque blonde goddess Sybil Danning vamps it up deliciously as Santiago's sadistic lesbian sister Angel, John Vernon really sinks his teeth into his meaty role as jolly and easygoing mobster Vito Mastranga, Margoe Gortner frets up an obnoxious storm as whiny and irritating modeling agency producer Larry Schecter, Woody Strode projects considerable charm and authority as Santiago's formidable right-hand man Luther, and Alex Cord does well as Mastranga's antsy and slimy attorney partner Nick Spilotro. Moreover, Dana Eclar is a hoot as excitable fed D'Antoni and the always delightful Louisa Moritz has a regrettably minor part as sweetly ditsy make-up artist Laura McCashin. Nicholas Josef von Sternberg's glossy cinematography gives the picture an impressively slick look. Roland Baumgarter's rousing score hits the right-on rocking spot. The theme song is hilariously awful. A total schlocky blast.

Interesting cast in standard exploitation film

[lor_ · 14 February 2023]

My review was written in November 1984 after a Times Square screening.

"Jungle Warriors" is a routine actioner filmed in Mexico last year, notable chiefly for its interesting B-film cast. Poor pacing loads all the action into the final reel, a ploy not likely to please the target audience.

Lame structure shoehorns two stories awkwardly into one package: A big drug deal is going down in a Latin or South American country between Cesar (Paul L. Smith) and Don Vito (John Vernon) while Pan American Drug Enforcement Agency leader Michael D'Antoni is out to bust ehm. He has a secret agent on the job, one of five U. S. models on location with their producer (Marjoe Gortner) and photographer (Nina Van Pallandt) for a shooting session in the jungle.

Cesar becomes suspicious and shoots down the models' plane, taking them captive, to be tortured by his incestuous half-sister Angel (Sybil Danning) and serve as playthings for his men. The girls escape in time for a final-reel shootout between Cesar's and Vito's forces, just as the government agents also arrive.

This mixture of women-in-prison (in Cesar's dungeons) and the usual drug action pic is unconvincing, with not enough nudity to satisfy the exploitation film trade. Substituted is flip dialog delivered by a host of slumming actors, of which Vernon is the hammiest and Smith extremely low-key as the oversize villain who goes crazy at the end. Van Pallandt is ou of place as a macha femme and Danning, though well-cast as an "Ilsa of the SS-type nasty person, has relatively little to do. Picture's main in-joke is that prominent actors in the cast are killed off suddenly and unpredictably.

Tech credits are adequate, including a direct-sound English-language track.