1980, Italy. Starring Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Lorraine De Selle, Danilo Mattei, Zora Kerova, Walter Lloyd, Meg Fleming, Robert Kerman, John Bartha, Venantino Venantini. Directed by Umberto Lenzi. Available on DVD (Amazon).

Hey kids, it's another Italian cannibal film! Collect 'em all! Just like a Pokemon, they're all basically the same, with very minor alterations to keep the boys and girls coming back time and time again. I don't know if I've seen more Italian cannibal films or Italian zombie films. I certainly enjoy the zombie films more, but there's room for everyone in my black little heart. I don't think any country embraced the cannibal film like Italy did. I mean, I've seen a couple Hong Kong cannibal films, a few American cannibal films, but Italy made a whole genre out of it, sort of like how Jess Franco and Joe D'amato worked together to create and populate the Satanic Lesbian Nun genre -- one of my personal favorites, of course.

Followers of this site probably know the name Umberto Lenzi. Among other things, he directed one of my all-time favorite films, Violent Napoli, as well as the only movie I have seen that actually features zombies standing around with their hands in their pockets (City of the Walking Dead). Lenzi's work, while uneven, is always full of gusto and energy. So when he set his sites on the blossoming cannibal market, it seemed like a sure thing. Usually, when I or any other writer uses the phrase "it seemed like a sure thing," that means that something didn't work out, and it was all a huge failure.

That is not the case here.

Cannibal Ferox became one of the most popular and controversial of all the cannibal films, taking its place on the pedestal right next to Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust. Like that film, it has the same basic message and the same basic faults. However, it has one thing no other cannibal film I have seen possesses -- a Mafia sub-plot! I know, I know, how can you possibly tie together a tribe of cannibals deep within the Amazon and New York city Mafia thugs? Well, if you are Umberto Lenzi, it's a snap! Lenzi loves crime films. The greatness of Violent Napoli is all the testament we need to the man's skill at directing a slick, action-packed crime film. The problem is that Lenzi can't stop. City of the Walking Dead features zombies that haul ass, fly helicopters, and use machine guns. Cannibal Ferox has it's Mafia subplot, which is tangential at best.

The action begins in New York, where Italian law requires all cannibal movies to begin. A junkie, a girlfriend, and a couple of fairly worthless thugs are all looking for some drug dealer, only he's nowhere to be found. Why? Because he's in another movie, called Cannibal Ferox, which takes place in the Amazon Jungle.

So let's go there, shall we, and meet our future main courses. There's "the guy," his sister Gloria (the good girl), and their slutty friend. Gloria is going to the Amazon to prove that cannibals don't exist. THIS NEVER WORKS!!! When will people learn? If you go to the jungle to prove there are no cannibals, there will be! Come on, people! Get with the program! But this is all for Gloria's college thesis. Heh, you know, I have a lot of friends who wrote a thesis, got their master's degree, and none of them had to go to the Amazon and battle cannibals in the process. They spent most of their time in the library actually (this was before the internet, way back when). I sure am glad I never took an anthropology class with whatever professor told Gloria to go down the Amazon and snoop around for cannibals.

The Amazon is dangerous enough as it is without cannibals running around. But I guess this professor isn't too bad. After all, Gloria's entire paper hinges on proving that recent accounts of cannibalism in one particular spot are false will somehow disprove all claims of cannibalism every anywhere. I only got a degree in English and film, but even I can see some problems with this thesis. But along the same lines, I'd like to offer up the fact that no square dancing has ever taken place in my household. Therefore, using Gloria's logic, no square dancing has ever existed anywhere. It's just another myth perpetrated by The Man.

But Gloria's brother is the adventurous type, and hey! It never hurts to bring a slut along!

They get about ten feet into the jungle before their jeep gets stuck in the mud. Well, what would you do? Walk back along the road, or plunge headfirst into the jungle on foot? That's right, you'd walk back to town. That's because you're not a character in an Italian cannibal movie. Hell, you probably wouldn't even be down in the Amazon looking for cannibals in the first place. But then, you'd be a pretty boring movie, wouldn't you?

So our intrepid trio trudged into the unexplored vastness of the Amazon Jungle, where they meet an old guy sitting by himself eating grubs. Okay, whatever. I guess this guy just likes to hide behind big leaves while he eats grubs. Maybe he's ashamed. I don't know. Maybe he's friends with those zombies from Zombie 3 who hide in the jungle just waiting for someone to randomly happen by.

While the grub eatin' guy is only of minor concern to our hearty travelers, they are taken aback by the appearance of two white guys -- Mike and, umm, the other guy. No need to learn his name; he dies pretty soon anyway. Mike and his pal are running like hell through the jungle and claim to have been attacked by cannibals. Mike's li'l buddy is dying of jungle fever, which does not mean he has a thing for Pam Grier, though I would be surprised and disappointed if he didn't.

Our trio of city slickers seems to find nothing remotely suspicious about stumbling upon two white guys in the jungle who claim to be running from cannibals. They simply accept the story at face value and start killing animals. This is the part most people have a problem with, same as Cannibal Holocaust. The animal mutilation is real stuff. This became a staple of cannibal movies for some reason, and every one of them it seems had to feature scenes of turtles getting disemboweled and animals shredding each other. You know, the harsh reality of nature and all. Only it always comes across as exploitative, cheap, and sadistic on the part of the film makers, not of the characters they are supposed to be holding up for criticism. I'm no hippie, but killing animals for the purpose of making a movie doesn't sit well with me -- and it's made even worse by the fact that none of this, absolutely none of this, would hurt the film if it was removed. It's sadistic filler and nothing more.

Once we're over that, we get back to the business of gore effects and killing humans, which is fine with me. Our group wanders into the village Mike alleges they just escaped from. Once again, you have a chance to test your cannibal movie chops. You are hiking with two coke-snorting strangers you met in the jungle. Together, you find the cannibal headquarters. Do you haul ass out of there, or set up camp in the middle of town? That's right, you haul ass out of there.

Which is why our cast decides the middle of the cannibal village is a fine ol' place to sit and rest a spell.

Gloria begins to notice strange things however. Like the entire village is comprised of old folks, women, and children. These inhabitants are terrified of Mike. When Mike and the slutty girl get coked up and rape and murder a couple of the locals, Gloria gets even more suspicious that maybe Mike is not that nice a guy. Gee, you'd think a coke-snorting rapist-murderer would set off some alarms, but remember, this is the same woman who is writing that asinine thesis about cannibals. I'm sure she thinks that despite the fact that Mike gloats about his murderous, drug smuggling ways, society has forced him to be this way, and thus, if she can just reach him, he will turn out to be a dandy dude.

At some point we cut back to New York, where the thugs are still pursuing the woman who is dating the drug dealer we can, at this point, assume is Mike. She is giving a tour of Chinatown, filling some out-of-towners up with a story about seeing the most famous opium den in Chinatown. New York residents will recognize the "opium den" as the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, home of some of the best ice cream in the world. I guess Italians don't much care either way, but you'd think they would pick a storefront that isn't underneath a giant yellow flag depicting a squat, happy dragon gobbling down some ice cream.

Or maybe it's opium in his bowl.

Back in the Amazon, Mike's sick buddy finally spills the beans via a deathbed flashback. To no one's surprise but Gloria's and her brother's, Mike is actually a murderous thug who came to the village in search of emeralds after running afoul of a drug cartel in New York (hey, remember those guys?). When no emeralds turned up, Mike flipped out and began torturing the natives in the cruelest of ways. Pulling out eyeballs, gutting, castrating -- Mike is most definitely insane. As soon as the men of the tribe come back from their hunt, they will probably extract gory cannibalistic revenge on Mike and anyone in his party. I guess we're supposed to feel bad for Gloria and her brother -- the nice ones -- but shit, they made the decision to wander off into the jungle with coke dealers. I say they deserve whatever horrors the cannibals visit upon them.

As usual, the locals didn't start out as cannibals. Mike's barbarism drove them to it. I've heard a lot of things -- I'm so mad I could spit. I'm so mad I could punch you. I'm so mad I could kill you. I've never heard of anyone being so mad they simply had to eat their fellow man. Yet the barbarisms of modern society driving the primitives into a state of cannibalism is the crux of almost all cannibal films, so we'll go with it.

Well, when you camp out in a village full of cannibals you just murdered, eventually those cannibals get all riled up and kick your ass. It doesn't take an NYU doctoral candidate to figure that one out. Sure enough, the cannibal men come home and are simply delighted at all the new guests. They make a quick dinner out of Mike's buddy, then throw everyone else into one of those half-submerged bamboo cages like people always put Rambo in. They trot Mike out, and sure enough, take revenge on him by executing one of the movie's two prize scenes. It's not just that the castration is shown in all it's blood-spurting detail; it's that Mike's penis stretches and snaps! Ow! And to top it off, the blade-wielder pops it in his mouth like a gumball. Err, bad pun. Sorry.

But things have only just begun. The melt his stump shut and throw him in the cage. Gloria spends time doing that heart-felt "Help us!" to the nearest cannibal, as if he can understand English or really gives a shit. Her brother get's killed during a botched escape attempt. The slutty girl gets to star in the film's second signature scene, where she his hung on metal hooks piercing her breasts. I didn't know breasts were strong enough to hang by, but I guess so. Mike gets his cranium split open so the locals can dine on his brain. And even though they were not cannibals until Mike made them be that way, they just happen to have a "top of the head slicing" table around. I guess they just never throw anything out. They probably still have Apple IIe's as well.

I assume at this point Gloria is seriously rethinking her thesis, but then again, this is the woman who marched off into the jungle with coke dealers, so all bets are off on her common sense.

With the help of a sympathetic cannibal, Gloria escapes and is picked up by a helicopter carrying Mike's now ex-girlfriend and the police chief from New York. The hell? Since when do local police chiefs go on Amazon expeditions to bring back small-time drug dealers? And since when do they let the guy's ex come along? But whatever. They pick Gloria up, she goes home, writes her thesis, and becomes a college graduate. Ha! All I had to do was a week's worth of research in the library. For her blood-soaked ordeal, Gloria is now qualified for a low-paying job as a museum tour .

I guess everyone bought her thesis, which is doubly silly since obviously cannibalism does exist. Didn't the professor wonder what happened to her brother and the slutty woman? But it was good enough for the board of directors, I suppose. And thus ends Umberto Lenzi's feel-good hit of the summer, which may or may not be the inspiration for Mosquito Coast starring Harrison Ford. It makes all the typical cannibal movie statements about man's inhumanity to man, how we in the civilized world are the true savages, so on and so on. True, but at least I don't have to eat live grubs behind a big leaf. Whatever laudable political message this movie has is undermined by it's frequent use of animal murder footage, which was totally gratuitous.

Still, as far as cannibal movies go, Cannibal Ferox is entertaining. It's fast-paced, and the whole Mafia subplot is so silly you can't help but admire Lenzi's bizarre train of thought. It's like he started out making one movie and ended up with another. And he actually manages to tie it all together, which is impressive in itself. If you can get past the animal scenes, this is a nasty little flick with great gore, a brisk pace, and plenty of gut eating. Ever wonder why all cannibals eat people in the same way, by just sort of mashing the innards on their face? You never see an organized cannibal meal. Just because you eat the same thing as a zombie doesn't mean you can have the same table manners.

Labels: Director: Umberto Lenzi, Horror: Cannibals, Year: 1980