Mondo Cannibale

This is often credited as "the first cannibal horror film", although it has less to do with cannibalism than with Italian shockumentaries such as "Mondo Cane". Viewing it is an often repellent but altogether fascinating experience - one that you will not soon forget. Umberto Lenzi's direction, which is a curious mix of skill and amateurishness, combined with the location shooting, give it a documentary-like feel that compensates for the thin and sloppily set-up plot. (***)

Ivan Rassimov plays American photographer John Bradley, on vacation in Thailand. He and his guide end up deep in the jungle, where he is abducted by a primitive tribe. They put him into a variety of tortures and trials, until finally accepting him as one of their own. He finds adjusting to this new life to be surprisingly agreeable, especially when he becomes smitten with Maraya (Me Me Lai), the lovely daughter of the tribes' leader.

Considered to the vanguard film in that jungle / cannibal genre popularized by the Italians, this is definitely a trail blazer, but people who've already seen more famous entries in the genre may be caught off guard with this one. It's more of a straight drama (heavily influenced by Elliot Silversteins' Western "A Man Called Horse") with touches of horror than a body munching / body count / exploitation feature. In reality, despite the presence of a hostile cannibal tribe in the film, only one person ever gets turned into a feast.

"Sacrifice!", a.k.a. "The Man from the Deep River", isn't without its gory pleasures, however. It benefits from excellent location shooting and utterly convincing local color. It's wonderfully shot, and scored, and is overall quite appealing and engaging. It's not to all tastes, though, because it includes some brief moments of animal cruelty that will turn off some members of the audience. This, of course, has only become one of the elements that recurs throughout many an Italian jungle adventure.

Rassimov is good as the hero. The intoxicatingly gorgeous Me Me Lai, who went on to appear in "Jungle Holocaust" and "Eaten Alive!" as well, is very easy to watch. (Viewers should be quite content with the amount of female nudity that is present.) The other performances are quite effective.

This is as good a story of both the beauty and savagery of nature as one could see.

Eight out of 10.

This, Umberto Lenzi´s first cannibal movie, is by far the best of the three he made. Not as gory as Eaten Alive or Cannibal Ferox (well, is any movie really as gory?), but with a better plot and acting. Ivan Rassimov, who is awful in Eaten Alive, is really not bad in this one. Actually, cannibals are really not that important to the plot. This appears to be more of a "Man called Horse" rip-off, Rassimov is captured by some tribe somewhere in Asia and has to go through some harrowing tests to be accepted, later he encounters some cannibals. I don´t recall seeing a better directed Lenzi film, although if you´ve seen a few of his films you´ll know this ain´t no masterpiece. I read in an interview that this is his favorite of the three cannibal flicks he made. Unfortunately there is a bit much real life animal cruelty, which will upset some. Nice score, though.

Though this made it onto the Video Nasties list when it was released and classified as a horror film I must admit to finding little horror in it at all. It is more of a drama, with gore, about a photographer in the Thailand jungle who is captured and subsequently brought into the tribe where he has to marry the chief's daughter to stay alive.

It also isn't a bad movie...

The major trouble with the film is that it's all staged, which means the scene's of animal cruelty are real. With other films of this ilk, most of the cruelty scene's were filmed by a third party for documentary reasons, though added to the movies for entertainment; you can usually notice the difference in film quality. So the cockfight and the snake vs mongoose are real, though I'm unsure at to the decapitation of the monkey skull so they eat the brains, as there is a cut which may indicate they changed out for special effects - one can always hope.

However, at the heart of the film is the change in John Bradley's (Ivan Rassimov) character from being a captive to a reluctant member of the tribe to a fully fledged tribe member, thrown into the mix is the love story between himself and Maraya (Me Me Lai).

It's not a fantastic film though Umberto Lenzi directs nicely, though I think the steady pace is a little too slow at times. It is beautifully filmed and I like that Lenzi filmed it in vivid colour and resisted making it more grimy and gritty. However, this beauty has a downside some of the sets are too clean and structured, not what you would expect to find in the middle of a jungle. The actors aren't too bad either and do a respectful job of bringing the tribe to life and showing their traditions and day to day living habits.

I really wouldn't recommend anybody to watch the film as it falls between the gaps trying to please everybody. For example, for an adventure, it's too slow so if you like adventure films you may not like this. The love story, which is more suited to this pace, at times could have made a decent "chick-flick" in its own right, though I don't think lovers of this style of film would enjoy the torture and cruelty aspects of the adventure.

This is a earlier film directed by Umberto Lenzi in 1972. This is also considered to be the first of a series of many cannibal films. Although, this film dosen't necessarily focus on the cannibalism but more on character development and story.

Basically, a man goes into the amazon and is captured by a vicious tribe. It isn't until he kills one of their own that he is excepted into the tribe.

I just saw this movie and I thought it was a decent film. Nothing to spectacular but enjoyable nonetheless. The main problems with this film is it tends to drag at many points and the gore is very limited. Another problem with this film is (just like almost all other cannibal films) the fact that they have real animals being slaughtered. Just like in my review of Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox, I just don't understand the use in killing animals on the screen for shock value.

Altogether, this isn't a bad film but nowhere near as good as some of Lenzi's later work. 6/10 stars