The Panther Squad

My review was written in July 1986 after watching the movie on Lightning video cassette.

"Panther Squad" is bound to be a disappointment for Sybil Danning fans as, in stepping into a co-produce role in addition to starring, the statuesque actress has deleted the sexy elements of her earlier work. Feature, filmed last year in Spain and Belgium, is a direct-to-videocassette release.

A dumb sci-fi storyline has an anti-pollution group called Clean Space terrorizing the space program of New Organization of Nations (a followup to the UN). Clean space sabotages a launch of NOON's futuristic Space Jeep and kidnaps the female backup astronaut in order to prevent a second mission.

NOON calls in female commando Ilona (Sybil Dannig) who brings in her six femme assistants to free the astronaut and put Clean Space out of business.

Not only is there no nudity and no sex in the picture, the action scenes are poorly photographed and edited. Sight of Danning and her minions in campy, bare-midriff leather outfits easily disposing of male cast members is silly wish fulfillment executed on a G-rated level. Sci-fi content is limited to Danning using a disintegrator gun in the final reel.

Actors speak English slowly and clearly, allowing for acceptable post-synched dialog, but the lines are stupid, such as Danning confronting a megalomaniac general's soldiers, yelling: "Surrender or I'll blow your Nikes off!". It's sobering to find out that the environmentalists are portrayed as the bad guys.

The other user reviews are pretty accurate.

It's like if Andy Sidaris was 14 and got a budget to make a film. Just like Hallmark Xmas movies, this one could easily be re-worked and improved to make a modern Sidaris flick, it has many, if not all of the same 80s elements.

From start to finish, this is terribly written/acted and awfully staged. There are so many continuity mistakes it was hard to keep up with them, the key ones being the girl-count from scene-to-scene. Maybe one or two of them took a food or bathroom break, but they had to keep on filming, who knows?

All of the women on Sybil's "squad" apparently can kick any well-armed and trained terrorists butt, and still look like they just came out of a salon, and their outfits, what little fabric there was to them, remained intact an unblemished despite multiple high-action conflicts in various nature settings. Don't look for any nip-slips, or cheeks, they're not here, the costumes keep body-parts well constrained. And on that topic, I think this is the only Sybil Danning flick without ANY nudity at all.(Her in a leather halter top is as risqué as it gets) this was on Tubi, so I am fairly certain it wasn't censored, but there's no bad language, the violence is subdued, so I'm curious as to the R-Rating. Toss in some early 80's B-band demo tracks, and your trip to the pre-Sidaris side is complete. Seriously, don't waste your time with this one.

This movies is properbly the best from Sybil Danning. A team of sexy commandos go to rescue the world from an terrorist orginisation. This theme is nothing special but the talent of sybil's group make this one very impressive. They do run, fight a lot and beat up the bad guys. However, this is a low budget film that unable to make a convincing sences at the end of the story. Indeed, such kind of girl-n-gun genre would never be convincing enough. Who care. I should say this is very good one you can find among the euro spy action and Miss danning is impressive. Definitely, it delivers the elements that charlie' angels does.

Panther Squad is a 1984 action film directed by Pierre Chevalier (House of Cruel Dolls, The Invisible Dead, East of Berlin, and Ladies House of Pleasure) under the name Peter Knight. It was written by Georges Friedland (Angel of Death, Maniac Killer, Night of the Eagles, and Moonwolf) and Ilona Koch. It was produced by the legendary Jesus Franco (Jailhouse Wardress, Golden Temple Amazons,Faceless, House of Cruel Dolls, Zombie Lake, Barbed Wire Dolls, The Sadist of Notre Dame, Angel of Death, Diamonds of Kilimandjaro, and Sinfonía Erótica). Ilona (played by: Sybil Danning from The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, Hercules, Nightkill, Battle Beyond the Stars, Julie Darling, Chained Heat, They're Playing with Fire, Malibu Express, Reform School Girls, LA Bounty, The Phantom Empire, Grindhouse, and Halloween) who is known as The Panther leads a squad of female mercenaries. When a famous astronaut is held captive by a group of murderous environmental extremists known as Space Clean, the desperate world leaders turn to The Panther Squad. These dangerous women go on a search, rescue, and destroy mission to save the future. Can they succeed during this risky and brutal job????

Panther Squad is kinda a shocker and not really in a good way. You would think something like this would be loaded with sleaze and nudity but there's actually none here. It has decent action every once in awhile but it's a little slow and boring for the most part. The action featured here is a little tame compared what was being made around the same time from this sub-genre. It has some classic Eurocine choppy editing and it's very low budget in every possible way when it comes to the production so those features kinda add to it's bad movie charm. I did enjoy the classic 80's style score and it's cheesy rock theme song. Panther Squad is definitely one of those 80's action flicks trick you with it's cover artwork and plot that's promised on the back. It just doesn't live up to anything to be real. Cult actress Sybil Danning gets one of her rare leading roles in Panther Squad. She's probably the best thing about this mess. She still looks great here and the other woman tease some eye candy but nothing ends up happening with this sexy cast of women. It has a few familiar faces in this that includes Jack Taylor (Pieces, Angel of Death, and House of Cruel Dolls), Donald O'Brien (Emmanuelle and the last Cannibals, The Sect, and Zombie Holocaust), Karin Schubert (Emanuelle Around the World), Jean-René Gossart (Maniac Killer), and Antonio Mayans (Angel of Death and Diamonds of Kilimandjaro). Panther Squad has a few solid moments but for the most part it's just a bad movie. This might be a good one to hang out with some friends and play a drinking game with. It's worth checking out at least once but definitely don't get your hopes up for it. If you are still curious about it, it's available on Tubi right now.

Embarrassingly bad, grade-Z "action" film, but the spectacle of a leather-clad Sybil Danning is worthy of a single star. If you're looking for a serious actioner with girls kicking a**, don't bother; obviously the people involved in making this don't have a clue. The man who plays the only male agent gives the only convincing performance; he looks utterly stupefied.