Like, how sincere. Not a come-on for the target audience, no siree.
Anyway, we open in New York as the film-makers make the usual Italian attempts to cram in as much New Yorkicity as possible.
The mob are looking for a guy called Mike, who has stolen $100,000 of their money.
Then into the "Rio Delle Amazonia" – or at least some aerial shots – and our heroes. Gloria (Lorraine De Selle), a PhD student, is looking for evidence that cannibal ferox (i.e. savage) is a myth perpetrated by racist whites to justify colonialism. Her brother Rudy and friend Pat (Zora Kerowa) are along for the ride, the latter also looking to score some coke.
After their jeep breaks down the trio advance through the jungle on foot. While searching for the river they happen upon their first native, happily munching on a fat grub. And, unbeknownst to them, hidden in the undergrowth, a whole bunch of other spear chuckers…
The trio camp down for the night, leaving their mongoose out as an early warning system. Sure enough, an anaconda comes along and snuffs it. "Oh poor little thing" indeed. But, as Rudy says, "It might have been one of us." Oh, if only.
Continuing on, Gloria and co. find a dead native, impaled on a giant spiked ball. Then Mike (John Morghen) and Joe show up, claiming to have been attacked by cannibals, prompting a hasty retreat.
Resting by the riverside Mike – the same guy as the mob are looking for, just in case you hadn't guessed – tells them the whole story, or at least his version of it: He and Joe, fellow New Yorkers, came here in search of cocaine. In town they met a Portuguese prospector, Suarez, who claimed to know the location of a fortune in emeralds. In the jungle they were set upon by cannibals. Suarez was killed, but he and Joe managed to escape…
The next morning, Gloria has disappeared, prompting the others to mount a search. Rudy and Joe go in one direction, Mike and Pat the other. Rudy and Joe find a native village – along with the remains of Suarez and some dead natives. Pat and Mike find Gloria at the bottom of a pit trap along with a pig which Mike duly knifes.
Regrouping at the village, where Rudy comments on the absence of the menfolk, the group decide what to do next. The choice is made for them when Joe collapses, feverish.
Regaining consciousness Joe manages to tell Gloria and Rudy the truth: The Portuguese was actually a villager. When the emeralds he had promised failed to materialise and with the men of the village away hunting Mike, coked out of his mind, tortured and killed him.
Alas, no sooner has the truth emerged than the menfolk of the village show up seeking revenge on Mike and, by association, the other white devils…
With its main selling poin being the claim to be "banned in 31 countries", Cannibal Ferox is a classic example of how film censorship can be counterproductive.
Unlike Ruggero Deodato's far superior but equally brutal Cannibal Holocaust the film has nothing to say. Its reason for being is simply to showcase a parade of atrocities, those inflicted on the animals being all too real and those on the humans all too fake.
Director Umberto Lenzi creates little in the way of atmosphere, failing to use the jungle locations effectively and directing flatly and unimaginatively. That he was more at home with straightforward action fare – his polizia are, by all accounts, among the best examples of the genre – is all too apparent.
Lenzi also takes the blame for the script, complete with its non-sequiturs – where did a supposedly stone-age tribe get the iron hooks they use to hang up Pat, how does Mike continue to fight so effectively after he's had his penis chopped off (and eaten) by one of the natives – and casual racism, half-justified as usual as the reasonable response of the primitives to the civilised man's shenanigans.
The main compensation, then, is the cast, which represents a who's-who of Italian exploitation circa 1980: John " Cannibal Apocalypse " Morghen, Lorraine " House on the Edge of the Park " De Selle, Venantino " City of the Living Dead " Venatini and Zora " New York Ripper " Kerowa are all there, along with Robert " Debbie Does Dallas " Kerman (AKA Roberto Bolla), escaping porno once more only to find himself in yet another cannibal film. Hell, even Perry " Cannibal Holocaust " Pirkanen shows up as one of the heavies. It's like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, only for the nasties crowd…
While Cannibal Ferox itself may be utter shit, this "Deluxe Edition" Region One DVD from Grindhouse Releasing is excellent.
The picture, presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, is a touch on the soft and grainy side but is largely free from damage and artefacting.
The audio track has been reworked, with a new Dolby Digital mixes of both the English and Italian dubs. Oddly, however, there are no subtitle options. Then again, I doubt that there are any subtleties to Lenzi's dialogue that one would only get in the original.
The best of the extras is easily the commentary track, in which the fruity sounding Morghen and the heavily-accented Lenzi provide separate, contrasting views of the production. Lenzi considers it a near-masterpiece, Morghen that it's a piece of shit. Particularly amusing is the way the two have been juxtaposed, so that when Lenzi, for instance, tells us that the Indios were the real primitive article, Morghen tells us how they were driving around listening to rock music.
If this in itself wasn't enough to justify the purchase we also get a slew of other extras: the Italian, US and German trailers; biographies of Lenzi, Morghen, De Selle and Kerova; comprehensive galleries; and a brief interview with Lenzi, conducted in Italian with the interviewer providing English translations.
Grindhouse have also invested care in the little things: The booklet folds out into a reproduction poster, while the DVD menus have nice animated effects such as one cannibal slicing Morghen's head off and another liftiing it back into place with his spear.
There's also an Easter Egg: On the Grindhouse Releasing page the "Banned in 31 Countries" seal is a link to a piece documenting the film's 1997 re-release premiere.
It all makes you hope Grindhouse will get round to releasing Cannibal Holocaust as well…
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
2.3 / 5
(32 votes)
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