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

Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare Beach is the movie I wish Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers had been: one that did away with all the annoying narcissists posing as characters. Also known by the uninspired, T&A-leering title of Welcome to Spring Break, Lenzi’s Beach depicts what would happen if, during that week of collegiate revelry and bacchanalia, a freshly charred Death Row inmate appeared to come back to life to get the ol’ from-the-grave revenge — and did so while clad in motorcycle gear. You may laugh, readers, but it could happen to you!

In scene one, greasy biker gang leader Diablo (Tony Bolano, Band of the Hand) is executed for the murdering a young woman, but vows from the electric chair that he was framed and he’ll return to make ’em all pay — you know, the usual garbage threats. Yet shortly thereafter, as beer-guzzling, sex-hungry breakers descend upon Fort Lauderdale, a helmeted mystery man in black rides into town. He’s kind of like Grease 2’s Cool Rider, but with a crotch rocket whose backseat is jerry-rigged to give his passengers an ass-frying, heart-stopping mass of high voltage.

A cop named Strycher (John Saxon, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) investigates, as does fallen football hero Skip (Nicolas De Toth, The Invisible Kid) when his walking STD of a best bud (Rawley Valverde, Made in America) vanishes while on the prowl for a quick birth-canal rental. Helping Skip out in the hunt — and his potential love life — is a bartender named Gail (Primal Rage’s Sarah Buxton, she of the bee-stung lips), who happens to be the sister of Diablo’s victim.

As the man behind the infamous Cannibal Ferox, Lenzi unsurprisingly shoots this film’s “shocking” death scenes with glee, almost as if he can’t wait to harm the worst of his story’s worst as quickly as we’d like to see them go. Bolstering my theory: The most obnoxious character of all takes a savage beating, courtesy of Diablo’s biker buddies … and then gets killed by the moto-villain. I’m also guessing Lenzi knew the movie’s big “mystery” was as solvable as a Highlights for Children puzzle page, because he attempts to distract with subplots that have nothing to do with anything, from multiple wet T-shirt contests and a serial pickpocket to Nightmare Beach’s idea of running joke: an enterprising young woman (Christina Kier, in her only role ever) separating old, fat guys from their cash by turning tricks in her hotel room. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.