Treasure of Tayopa
Treasure of Tayopa
| 01 January 1974 (USA)
Treasure of Tayopa Trailers

Modern day western about an expedition led by Winters to find a lost treasure in the Mexican badlands. Psycho Trapani turns the search into a bloodbath.

Reviews
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
GamerTab That was an excellent one.
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Michael Ledo This film could be a "so bad it is good" film. It takes a log time to develop. The part I liked best was Gilbert Roland talking to the audience with a drink in his hand. I was ready to hear him say, "Stay thirsty my friends." A group of people look in Mexico for the Tayopa treasure left behind by padre miners killed in 1646 in Arizona according to the narration. Kathryn (Rena Winters) leads a small group of men who are ready to strap 17 tons of treasure to their backs and walk out. A crazy man named Sally (Phil Trapani) has his eye on Kathryn. There is also a snake curse.It takes 50 minutes to get to Tayopa. There is a lot of dialogue and narration. The action was minimal. Kathryn gets naked and we get to see underwater blurred nudity. They do use metal detectors to look for the treasure. Is there a metal detector that works with the detector held at waist level? No reason. Just asking.Guide: No swearing, sex. Near nudity. Some unintended camp value.
Bezenby Four folks, including a lady who's name I've forgotten already, a guy called Tom, a guide and translator Phillipe (for whom the actor who plays him receives a credit for doing everyone's hair) and a crazy guy called Sally, head off into Mexico to find the fabled Treasure of Tayopa, said to be hidden in a mine somewhere in the mountains. They run into some dodgy banditos but none turn out to be as dodgy as Sally, who doubles back to massacre the bandits for pushing his horse! With the one remaining bandito in pursuit, the quartet head into the hills, but, as the lead actress says rather stiltedly "An air of tragedy has befallen us". Strangely introduced by a Mexican guy drinking hooch and stumbling over his own lines, Treasure of Tayopa is a very obscure wilderness movie full of weirdness (we hear the thoughts of our protagonists as they trudge through the land), brief gore and nastiness, really bad acting, a bit of skinny dipping and endless shots of people riding horses. Although very low budget and hard going at times, there are glimpses of that good old seventies grimness, as Sally uses his crossbow and machete to make short work of the bandits (who were, after all, planning to kill the explorers), and turns his craziness on his friends, including giving out a nasty beating to our lead lady. I can't see anyone but obscure movie fans seeking this one out, but be warned, this is strictly amateur hour, but it does have its charms (the 'host' is hilarious in his ineptitude and faux philosophy), and I might be going easy on the film as I'm kind of a sucker for 'people stuck in the wilderness with treacherous companions' movies (like 'Four Rode Out' and 'Apache Blood'). The bad acting goes a long way in this film too, and for those seeking it out, I hope you like lots of salaried shots!
geohaber-2 If you need to watch the worst movies you've ever seen, be sure to include this one on your list! It seems to have been inspired by The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but the only thing it shares with that movie are the words "The Treasure of" in the title. The acting ranges from bad to dreadful, the plot is so simplistic it might have come out of a middle school film class, and the photography and editing would have to be improved to rise to mediocrity. The music, at least as far as I was concerned, was passable in creating a nice western ambiance, and as a lover of the Arizona terrain, I enjoyed the scenery...which I noted from the credits was around the Carefree Resort, where my wife and I have stayed a number of times. It would be fun to do a "blooper" roll on this film, except it might be longer than the film itself. One standout boo-boo: after being savagely whipped, with her back covered in "blood," Rena Winters appears in a subsequent scene with a back as clean as a whistle and no signs of any blood--or even abuse--whatsoever. She does, however, retain her fake eyelashes throughout. The strangely named "Sally"--a psycho/cowboy--is the western version of Marty Feldman, and the main male lead, whose real name and character name I already forgot, sounds more like the Vice President of a New York advertising agency than a cowpoke in charge of a band of cowboy treasure hunters. All this notwithstanding, I found this to be a watchable film you will not have to do too much thinking about. Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood need not worry about competition.
smittie-1 Joking aside, this is a competently made, if rather low budget, thriller about a bunch of gringos (and Fillipe) who trek off into the Sierra Madres in search of . . . the treasure of Tayopa. Duh. Despite the cowboy hats and six-shooters it's less of a western and more of a '70s survivalist movie, with Trapani stealing the show as crazy ass Sally . . . though all of the actors are good, especially Rena Winters, who I could swear I've seen elsewhere, though the IMDb lists this as her sole credit. Numerous spoilers follow.After being introduced to our main characters the film jumps into a bit of back story, with "host/star" Gilbert Roland's narration accompanied by murals of the (fictional?) 17th century Tayopa mission, where Jesuit priests mined gold until they were massacred by Indians. Quickly enough we segue back into our tale, where, as already mentioned, Sally proves himself to be one messed upped mutha, coming on to Rena with increasing frequency and intensity, harassing Fillipe the guide, and locking horns with the ineffectual Stoppard. Along their merry way to Tayopa Sally murders some bandito types ("They pushed my horse - nobody does that" is a cheesy line, but Trapani made me believe it), resulting in the party being stalked by the ruffians' former employer, a sinister looking fellow dressed all in black. And he has a scar. But he's nice to his horse. Upon reaching their destination Sally snaps completely, attempts to rape Rena, kills Stoddard and Fillipe, and finally dies laughing maniacally, after his head is bashed in with a rock. The sinister fella only shows up to witness the aftermath. He is NOT the villain of the piece after all, despite what Mill Creek's product write up states. Really, most of the action centers on Rena and Sally, as individuals and as antagonists to each other. Rena shows herself as particularly resilient, at one point eating raw rattlesnake to stave off death, only after crawling out of a creek half-drowned and covered in welts. In her dying moments, she hallucinates (as I interpreted it) a priest, who offers her water. She dies. The end.After all that unpleasantness, Roland again addresses the audience, restating his assertion that "Tayopa's past will continue to drive people to search today, and plan to search for tomorrow." ---Spoilers end---Despite its low budget, Treasure of Tayopa makes good use of editing techniques and cinematography. I really can't see why it's as obscure as it is, or why nobody connected to it went on to bigger and better things.