EDITOR’S NOTE: Treasure of the Amazon was on the CBS Late Movie on December 13, 1985, May 13 and July 31, 1986, February 4, 1987 and August 17, 1988. 

In this strange world, the Amazon Rainforest is a place rich with treasure and death. There’s a whole bunch of jewels and Gringo the Damned (Stuart Whitman) and Klaus von Blantz (Donald Pleasence) are after it. Gringo just wants the money. Klaus wants to find the Fourth Reich. If that doesn’t put you on Gringo’s side, how about the first thing we see him do is chop a guy’s finger off and throw him in the river to get shredded by piranha?

Along with his partners Paco (Emilio Fernández) and Zapata (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.), he’s on the hunt for the gold. There’s also a crew of Americans — Barbara (Ann Sidne), Dick (Clark Jarrett) and Clark (Bradford Dillman) — who are nearly killed every few minutes. Also, something for daddy: Klaus’ native wife Morimba (Sonia Infante) refuses to wear clothes.

Is that working for you? What if Hugo Stiglitz showed up as a riverboat captain and John Ireland as a priest? What if we threw in some child headhunters? And hey, seeing as how this is a Mexican film, what if snakes get really killed, someone murders and eats a spider on camera and then someone really decapitates an alligator? The special effects for all the gore pale in comparison to this.

We can blame René Cardona Jr., who also showed real animal destruction in Tintorera (a movie more about two dudes using women as a conduit for their passion than a shark) and Night of 1000 Cats, a film in which real cats are thrown and mistreated. But you know, the guy knows how to make a movie. He really does.

You can watch this on Tubi.