RANA: QUEEN OF THE AMAZON (1994) ** ½

Rana:  Queen of the Amazon is sort of like the W.A.V.E. Productions version of Sheena.  It’s broken up into three different parts, which kind of makes it feel like an updated Shot on Video version of an old Saturday morning serial.  It’s technically inept, but it has a great theme song, moves at an agreeable pace, and offers up a reasonable amount of fun.  

The first chapter is “The Jungle Woman Versus the Nazis” (** ½).  Alexandria (Dawn Murphy) is a government agent hunting the evil Nazi, Dr. Ilsa von Todd (Tina Krause) who is planning to create a race of zombie soldiers in the Amazon jungle.  She stumbles upon a sexy jungle woman named Rana (Pamela Sutch) who helps her bring the doc to justice.  

This section features a couple of the W.A.V.E. hallmarks that fans have grown to love, mainly:  Hot chicks Kung Fuing each other, catfights, bondage, some whipping, and a long (ten-minute) strangulation scene.  The highlight is an extended sequence of Tina Krause getting dressed.  Although it doesn’t show any nudity, it’s still rather steamy.  Any actress can be sexy when she’s taking off her clothes, but if you can find one who’s just as sexy putting on her clothes as she is taking them off, then you have a true B-Movie Queen on your hands.  Tina is one such talent.  

The next chapter is “The Jungle Woman and the Flowers of Death” (** ½).  Ilsa escapes from justice and returns to the jungle to complete her work.  Alexandria follows in hot pursuit and becomes poisoned in the process.  Rana goes off into the jungle to find an antidote when she is cornered by Ilsa, who has found another jungle woman, Teela (Laura Giglio) to be her new henchwoman.  

That’s mostly what happens in this chapter, but the real plot description for W.A.V.E. fans will be:  Women trapped in quicksand (a seven-minute sequence that’s more about the actress being wet and struggling than anything), catfights, Kung Fu, strangulation, and bondage.  This chapter is probably the weakest of the three, but Giglio is a lot of fun as the wild-eyed evil native gal.  

The final chapter is “The Jungle Woman and the Fangs of Death” (***).  Rana tells the story of how she came to live in the jungle.  Meanwhile, Ilsa captures some government agents and sicks her giant snake on them.  

This chapter is less about filling in Rana’s backstory and more about bondage, whipping, struggling, catfights, Kung Fu, and strangulation.  All of that is well and good, but the thing that makes this sequence so memorable is the hilarious snake puppet.  It looks like a refugee from Mr. Rogers or something.  

Although the snake steals the show, some of director Gary Whitson’s other low-fi DIY techniques gets in the way of the fun.  The outdoor scenes have poor sound (it’s supposed to take place in the ‘40s, but you can hear the sound of a modern plane flying by overhead in one scene) and the overdone jungle sound effects often obscure the dialogue.  The zombies are kind of weak too (they look like The Crow-era Sting with a bad case of eczema).  That said, if you want to see Pamela Sutch running around in a loincloth for 100 minutes while Tina Krause keeps hot babes in bondage, then Rana:  Queen of the Amazon will pass the time nicely.