Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Better Late Then Never

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Blistering performances.

After an enjoyably trashy opening sequence, in which a group of WWII Japanese soldiers are forced to hide their shipment of gold in a cave when attacked by blood-thirsty head-hunting natives, this jungle-bound adventure movie from prolific producer Dick Randall rapidly turns into a very tedious trek through extremely familiar territory, as a team of modern-day treasure seekers set out to recover the long-lost horde.Despite a promising premise and an excellent cast of exploitation regulars—including Edmund Purdom (Pieces, Nightmare City), Laura Gemser (the Emanuelle series), Stuart Whitman (Welcome to Arrow Beach, Eaten Alive), and Harold 'Oddjob' Sakata—Invaders of the Lost Gold is instantly forgettable low budget junk that becomes more and more painful with every passing minute.The story lacks excitement, with much of the film's running time devoted to bickering between characters and unlikely romance rather than on action and adventure, and the whole damn mess just simply isn't exploitative enough: Gemser strips off (I'd have been more surprised if she hadn't), but tasty TV blonde Glynis Barber keeps her clothes on (and I so wanted to see Makepeace nekkid!); there's almost no gore after the opening scene; and the ending totally wimps out, with not a savage native in sight.

There's a reason why "Horror Safari" isn't as known or infamous as most of its contemporary Italian jungle adventure-movies like, say, "Cut and Run" or "Massacre at Dinosaur Valley". Despite the cheerful title and a promising sounding plot description on the back of the DVD-cover, it's a tremendously dire and stupid movie. We have a bunch of very unlikable characters searching for a shipment of gold that was left behind in the Phillipines jungle (among a cannibalistic tribe) near the end of WWII. The expedition is put together by a rich bastard and assembles the most incompetent adventurers you've ever seen. The "leader" is an American drunk who's heroic years are long over, one of the original Japanese army commanders that lost the gold in the first place, a black strongman who's far too friendly to be believable, two women that are completely useless and one mean, double-crossing sleazebag. "Horror Safari" feature the absolute weakest death scenes I've ever seen; hands down. Instead of getting torn apart by the cannibals – that have just vanished suddenly, by the way – the characters just fall off of cliffs or walk straight into the open mouths of plastic crocodiles. One poor girl, the dreadfully miscast Laura Gemser, even spontaneously drops dead during a skinny dip! Honestly, if there's anyone who can give a reasonable explanation for Gemser's character dying, please email it to me! This must be one of the worst films ever made, complete with lousy editing, uninspired use of beautiful locations and bad acting with an even worse dubbing. Even the most hardcore fan of Italian cult cinema shouldn't waste one penny on this piece of crap.

Invaders of the Lost Gold (I think the IMDb is wrong stating that's it's called Horror Safari) begins by informing us via an on screen caption that we are in the 'JAPANESE OCCUPIED PHILIPPINES 1945, a consignment of gold is being escorted to the coast by a small platoon of Japanese soldiers...'. The platoon of soldiers are making their way through the dense jungle. They are attacked by hostile natives, they hide the gold deep in a cave. Only three men survive and escape. The film than fast forwards to 'Tokyo 36 years later'. Rex Larson (Edmund Purdom) has found out about the stash of hidden gold from a friend in American intelligence. He tries to contact the three survivors, after unfortunately short lived meetings with two he tracks down the third named Tobachi (Harold Sakata) who agrees to go along and lead him to the gold in exchange for 25%. Larson then contacts Douglas Jefferson (David De Martyn) for financing as the expedition will cost a lot of money and the gold needs to be smuggled out of the Philippines and turned into cold hard cash, Larson believes Jefferson has the right contacts. Also along for the trip is boozy jungle 'expert' Mark Forest (Stuart Whitman), Janice Jefferson (Glynis Barber) who is the daughter of Douglas Jefferson, Cal (Woody Strode) who happens to be Jefferson's body guard type guy and two guides who are friends of Marks, Fernando (Junix Nocain) & Maria (Laura Gemser). They hire a boat to take them deep into the jungle, once there they set up camp. In fact these guys don't have just ordinary tents they bring along a marquis! As they get nearer the gold the expedition members start having mysterious 'accidents' that always end up being fatal. As their number starts to decrease at an alarming rate the survivors must watch their own backs and trust no one as one of the group wants more than their fair share of the gold and will commit murder to get it! This Italian financed production was directed by an Englishman, has an international cast and was shot in the Philippines so it comes as no real surprise that this is a complete mess of a film. Co-written and directed by Alan Birkinshaw this film is far to slow and devoid of any meaningful action. The script by Birkinshaw and Bill James gets the viewer hooked with a terrific opening sequence that unfortunately is as good as the film gets. The rest of it is really dull, first we get 30 odd minutes of Larson setting the expedition up which is frankly as exciting as watching paint dry. When the film finally switches to the jungle most of the time is spent watching our expedition travel down a river in a boat, dull. Things pick up a little, but not much, towards the end as people start to die in extremely boring ways and the surviving cast members finally find the gold and put both us and themselves out of our misery as this thankfully signals the end of the film. Apart from the opening scene there is no gore whatsoever, the nudity is provided by Laura Gemser and lots of lovely strippers in one of the haunts Whitman's character hangs out in getting drunk, a totally gratuitous sequence there only to show some naked female flesh. The cast is great but criminally wasted, Stuart Whitman, Edmund Purdom, Glynis Barber and Harold 'Oddjob from Goldfinger (1964)' Sakata who has the market cornered in short funny looking steel-rimmed bowler hat wearing villains, it's just a shame that not many films call for them! It's also a shame they didn't have a better film to appear in together. Basically it's awful, simple as that. It had great potential but in the hands of amateur filmmakers like these it fails to deliver anything that even approaches entertainment. One to avoid.

While there is no actual flesh eating, the slaughter at the beginning resembles the Italian jungle horror films of the previous five years ('Cannibal Holocaust', 'Make them Die Slowly' etc..). We get decapitations, heads on spears, and a spike pit. Cut to some years later and all the movie offers from that point on is a tacky adventure tale. Sure there is a hari kari scene and Laura Gemser's full frontal nude dip in a pond, but everything else is garbage. The end arrives abruptly, yet without any shocking twist.I'd like to add that the one dollar copy of this video I found is titled 'Invaders of the Lost Gold', written in a 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' script.