Horror Safari (1982), by Alan Birkinshaw

I was introduced to this movie under the title of Invaders of the Lost Gold. I have no idea why the marketers of this movie felt like they had to rip off Harrison Ford to succeed, but this movie being a Raiders bootleg is just icing on the cake. This is movie is a veritable trash hall of fame--nearly everyone in it has been in something magnificent. Edmund Purdom from Pieces! Laura Gemser from Women's Prison Massacre! Woody Strode from The Outing! Plus it's directed by Alan Birkinshaw, the creator of Killer's Moon, one of the most entertainingly sleazy Clockwork Orange ripoffs of all time (never thought I'd say that). And it is the final film of Harold Sakata, who as we all know played the villainous Big Buddha from 1966's Dimension Five--oh, and he was also a villain in some forgettable piece of trivia called Goldfinger. It has good vibes from all corners of cinema, and while it is slow at times it stands up to the legacies it basks in.

At the end of World War II some Japanese soldiers hid some caskets of gold in the Philippines. Naturally, once the '80s roll around, there are some people who want to get that gold, including Edmund Purdom, but also Stuart Whitman, from basically every TV show ever, who Joe Don Bakers his way through the movie in a spectacular way. Joined by the other stars they travel into the snake-infested jungles, which, by the way, also house a tribe of Amazon cannibals. Okay, they're not near the Amazon, but c'mon. Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals had been out for five years before this, and it would be all too easy to channel that once Laura Gemser signed on. That means this movie is a war movie, a jungle survival movie, a crime thriller, a seedy romance, and an Amazon cannibal flick. Therefore it will be occasionally snooty and largely tedious. Fortunately, it is a movie where if you zone out, you will benefit from zoning back in. Typically you will see some stuff that is hilarious even with context, like people pouring beer on their eyes, or prolonged closeups of what may be the filthiest ship captain in existence. (Not even Jell-O wrestlers get that dirty.) The dialogue, too, sometimes reaches Bruno Mattei levels of inanity. You will never forget Edmund Purdom's whopper unleashed during a shady business deal with a Japanese man: "Now let's skip this Oriental tea party, and get down to some hard drinking!" Edmund Purdom then shoots that man in the chest.

You may wonder how far this movie goes into its various genres. Let me tell you, the soap opera stuff, the thriller stuff, and the adventure stuff all goes over well. However, as far as cannibal flicks go, there is a tremendous amount of buildup followed by a baffling letdown. It is actually pretty funny how tiny a role they end up playing past the movie's first half. Rest assured, however, this movie may well contain some real animal violence. Wait, that's a horrible thing. Jesus. Anyway, a snake may get shot in this movie and it is some awful shit, but then again it appears to be the same snake stock footage from Manos: The Hands of Fate, which originated with Disney. Meaning it probably was not shot. Still, in these movies it would be par for the course, and the deeper I dig into the darkest reaches of Internet exploitation records and IMDB's lowest rated pages, the more terrified I am of seeing that sort of cruelty when I find a dearth of content warnings (having walked blind into horse cock and live amputation surgery without warning). This has a 2.4, making it one of the worst movies of 1982, even beating out the disturbingly similar Oasis of the Zombies, which shares an equally schlocky treasure hunt plot and is generally hated even by the most tolerant of Jess Franco fans. Except for me.

Moving to the movie's story, the grittiness of this movie is perhaps best compared to the unforgiving conditions of B. Traven's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It reaches absurd levels of cruelty, with snake poisonings, crocodile devourings, and cannibal spearings, and there's no shortage of paranoid arguments. I think someone cheats on someone's wife at some point. This is complimented by the devastated film, covered in stripes and flaws that would give Leonard Kirtman or Nathan Schiff a heart attack. That makes it cozy for people like us. Sure, there are tons of shots that are irritatingly dark, but once gets used to those things in this business. Among other production details that the filmmakers lavished upon us, with us getting little say in the matter, is the "Oriental" music that plays throughout most of the thing. Luckily it is very similar to the unbelievable themes of a similar type used horrifically in Psyched by the 4D Witch. This is the most stereotypical music I can think of, which may be forgiven in that it was apparently shot in Hong Kong. But it's initial release was in Turkey...see why I love the trash cosmos? All of this needlessly convoluted shit clearly has a story behind it. That history makes it seem like it was a battle to get this out--that the people behind it stuck with it, to gain whatever profit they could, just so they could do it all over again with something equally cheap. Trash's vicious cycle.

Speaking of the people behind it, one of the writers was Dick Randall, the producer of such films as Pieces (as well as Pod People, also made by Juan Piquer Simon), Emanuelle, Queen of the Desert (starring Laura Gemser, who else), and Death Dimension (another Harold Sakata villain vehicle). That explains the unholy allegiance forged here that really does improve the film if you are familiar with some of the old friends of trash divers. However, each of these actors have fame for a reason, and so they are capable of delivering an entertaining enough piece for people who haven't met them yet. If you have a strong stomach, use this as a launch point into their careers. Don't expect a masterpiece but if you have the right expectations, it will do good things for you.