Whether working together (The Executioner Part II) or separately (Don’t Go in the Woods), actress Renee Harmon and director James Bryan never disappoint me in disappointing me. The last of their seven collaborations, Jungle Trap is the only one to have been considered lost, which is where it could inflict the least amount of harm. The duo wrote the script — yes, there is one — and commenced camcorder shooting in 1990, yet the movie remained unfinished until more than a quarter-century later, when the Bleeding Skull powers that be provided a meaningful assist.

Anthropologist Chris Carpenter (Harmon, Frozen Scream) prepares for a return expedition deep into the Amazon rainforest, although she’s hardly over the experience of losing two people on the previous trek. This mission takes her to the supposedly luxurious Palace Hotel, built over sacred burial ground of the indigenous tribe, whose members were slaughtered to make way for this “millionaire’s playground.” For some reason, Chris and her fellow white explorers fail to recognize any potential negative ramifications that might present.

Located in the middle of the jungle, the hotel — which looks like a semi-decorated, summer-seasonal corner of your local Pier 1 Imports — is haunted. A snake slithers up someone’s bed (pay no attention to the crew member’s hand giving the serpent a good shove at the upper-right edge of the frame). Shrunken heads and full-sized spectres appear willy-nilly. Members of the Carpenter party get decapitated. Feather-laden ghosts of the tribesmen attack, as does stock footage that would not match even if Bryan tried — not least because said clips were shot on film, whereas Jungle Trap could afford only VHS, as if you’d want it any other way.

I would not, because I fear that might jeopardize the movie’s most surreal touches, like the elderly bellhop who appears in the brush as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Or that the production values might rise in turn, denying us such sights as cast members cramped together in what appears to be a box crudely pinched into a shape approximating the interior of the elderly bush pilot’s airplane. Or that Harmon would be costumed for the evening “horror con” party in something other than her pointy Kleenex dress. At least we know that no matter how many nickels Bryan put into this thing, Harmon still would be rocking her inscrutable, in-need-of-decoding German accent. —Rod Lott