A big game hunter named Samson (David DaLie) goes into the jungle to fill an order for a travelling circus. His professor buddy has a house in the middle of the jungle, and he invites Samson to stay with him while on his hunt. When some natives kill his friend and kidnap his hot daughter (Angelica Morales), it’s up to Samson to save her before she can become their virgin sacrifice.
Jungle movies were big in the ‘30s, all the way through to the ‘50s. By the time the ‘60s rolled around, filmmakers had to do something to spice up the sagging genre, and nudity was a surefire way to do just that. Now, there had been nudity in jungle pictures prior to Virgin Sacrifice, but these scenes were mostly in the anthropological vein of topless tribal dancing or mundane scenes of native women going about their day wearing only a skirt.
What makes Virgin Sacrifice different is that the nudity occurs during the titular ritual where a virgin is tied up and has her blouse ripped off before she is killed by a witch doctor in a weird mask. Another thing that makes it different is that this scene occurs right up front as our big game hunter has a flashback to seeing the ritual the last time he was in the jungle. Most of these vintage exploitation numbers usually make you wait till the end to see the T & A. This one hooks you right away. (There’s also a tantalizing skinny-dipping scene later on in the flick, although nothing is explicitly shown.)
Notice I said the nudity makes Virgin Sacrifice “different”, not “better”. After the opening instance of sacrificial skin, things bog down in a hurry. Once our hero finally gets to the jungle, we get all the requisite scenes of him (or more precisely, his stunt double) wrestling with wildcats, receiving ominous native warnings, and shit like that. All of this isn’t too terrible or anything, but the long scenes of native dancing to monotonous rhythmic drumming started to lull me to sleep after a while.
Fortunately, it’s only an hour long. Despite the short running time, it’s still heavily padded with long scenes of people traipsing through the jungle. Even then, I was somehow able to power through it. I have to admit, the nudity (however brief) did help make it all go down a little smoother.
AKA: Fury of the Jungle.
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