User Reviews

Mandrake is set in the hostile jungles of deep South America where a team paid for by rich businessman Harry Vargas (Benito Martinez) has orders to locate & take a centuries old dagger from an ancient burial ground. Soldier for hire McCall (Max Martini) is the brawn while shapely archaeologist Felicia (Betsy Russell), the small team of explorers find the burial ground, find the dagger & remove it from a pile of old bones. Straight away things go to pot, they are attacked by a local tribe who believe that dagger should not be removed from it's rightful resting place & a huge tree monster who has been released from it's banishment once the dagger had been removed. Stuck in an isolated jungle with a huge tree monster after them the explorers find themselves easy prey & soon the survivors realise that the only way they will live to see civilisation again is to send the tree monster back from where it came...

Edited, co-written & directed by Tripp Reed this is yet another made for television Sy-Fy Channel creature feature, personally I am getting sick of them as usually they are terrible but I suppose I can watch them for free on television so it evens itself out a bit. Hey, I said a bit. Well, someone must still be watching these things otherwise they wouldn't get made, would they? Having said all that I suppose Mandrake isn't as bad as some of the crap the Sy-Fy Channel show, I suppose the monsters which is a possessed tree monster is a bit different & there aren't quite as many dumb moments here as one might expect. I mean even all the mobile phones, radios, communications equipment & GPS locator's work throughout which is maybe a first. The reason for our heroes to go back into the jungle to save missing friends & the idea of sticking together rather than splitting up is reasonable enough motivation although it's harder to understand why the rich Vargas would risk his life in search of this dagger, he goes into the jungle himself only a few days after the previous expedition was slaughtered. Look, everything is alright, the character's are alright, the plot about ancient curses, treasure hunts & tree monsters is alright if undemanding & predictable & even the special effects are alright but I can't really muster up any more enthusiasm for Mandrake other to to simply say it's alright & not as bad as I expected but that's not really that much praise. At just over 80 odd minutes long Mandrake moves along at a decent pace, is never flat out boring & doesn't outstay it's welcome.

To be fair the tree monster made up of trees, branches, vines & roots looks quite good & is something a bit different from the giant animal/insect/fish films the Sy-Fy Channel usually churn out. The CGI computer effects won't exactly impress anyone but they aren't too bad either although why doesn't the tree monster attack people using all of it's vines & roots rather than just a single one while the other's uselessly just wave in the air in the background? There's a bit of gore, the tree monster impales a few people with it's root & vine tentacles, someone is ripped in half & a pair of severed hands are seen but overall most of the attacks are fairly tame.

Filmed in Shreveport in Louisiana the locations look more like woods rather than deep jungle & I half kept expecting to see some houses or a road in the background. The acting is OK if not particularly special.

Mandrake is a slightly better than usual Sy-Fy Channel creature feature which isn't really saying that much to be honest, it's a passable time waster & nothing more.

The dialogue in 'Mandrake' is hilariously bad which means you can never take any of the characters seriously. I presume it wasn't written by a ten year old, but one suspects it may have been. The characters themselves are thin cardboard cut-outs and none of them are likeable from the start, or throughout. None of the cast stand out except for Wanetah Walmsley as 'Red Woman' who was creepy without saying a word. The movie is mainly people running around woods in Louisiana (laughably supposed to be a South American jungle) and shouting and shooting a lot. The film was about a dagger with some '-ologists' after it and a hidden tribe and a tree monster thrown in. Did like the CGI tree monster when it was fully revealed and the sound scape had eerie moments in the background. A dull movie nevertheless.

This movie reminded me again that never be too impressed with the cover photo of a movie. You may expect much more from cover pic. But about this movie, just don't expect much. You may not if you see the rating. But it not too bad at all.

Also the movie name is much much big crazy. "Mandrake", it is so weird. but never mind. The name has no role in this movie. It is not even mentioned anywhere. Just watch the movie with some potato chips. Thats it.

There is nothing much to explain in this movie. The Jungle Feeds on the Blood of Invaders. Sound little crazy, isn't it? The jungle is alive. Yep. the trees are alive and they catch human and eat them.

Some expedition team goes to dig a family heir and realizes that the jungle is alive and well connected to the dagger, which why they are here. the forest goes totally crazy when the dagger is pulled out from dead body buried separately in a tomb.

And the natives shows up and kill the team members. Few survives and realizes that stab the dagger through the heart of an invader is the only way to stop the jungle.

And they stab the sponsor( the so called villain) and escape from the jungle.

There really isn't a mandrake in the story. There is a plant that kills people, a cross between Treebeard and that thing on "Evil Dead." A rich man sends out a team to recover a dagger, a family heirloom that is 500 years old. They are able to find the grave and the dagger easily. Upon removing the dagger they release a curse which includes an evil tree creature. There are also natives in this area that sacrifice trespassers. Everyone fights everyone.

Betsy Russell provides the token eye candy in this made for TV movie. Some blood, some killing, a little horror. No bad language, sex, or nudity. Great movie to let the kids watch before going out on the nature trail. Otherwise, you might want to avoid.

This was quite a popcorn entertaining film. I enjoyed watching it. Its a shame it didn't focus more on the magical side of the dagger and the plants coming to life. They could've shown a flashback of the conquistadors when they first appeared. It would've been spicy if they included more showings of the monstrous trees instead of noises and crawling vines. We only got to see the beast mandrake right at the end. Also one of the workers was dragged into the bushes but it's unclear by what or whom. It made inhuman jabbering noises and couldn't have been the tribe members, and the creepy plants didn't speak!