Mondo Cannibale 2 - Der Vogelmensch

A plane full of annoying oil hunters crash their plane deep in a jungle and almost immediately the non-Caucasian members of the expedition are caught and devoured by a band of revolting cannibal natives, leaving the smart, sensible survivalist Ralph stranded with the weenie, whiny, panicky dolt Robert, who gets them completely lost within minutes. They manage to construct a remarkably sturdy raft that is almost instantly crashed into some rocks. The duo is separated and Robert eats some mushrooms that make him vomit, and then he is captured by the always-naked, mostly male cannibal tribe. They tie him up, rip off his clothes, and tug at his genitals. There is more male frontal nudity in this than at a pool party at James Whale's house.

There is, of course, one beautiful female native with no body hair and breast implants who falls for Robert- although not until after he ties her up, leads her around on a leash like a dog, and beats the snot out of her. This is a pretty detestable movie.

The print I watched was called "Last Cannibal World" and it seemed to have all the good bits (the gore and sex, that is) cut out. The tons of cruelty-to-animals (not as much fun as cruelty-to-humans) and the offensive male-female relationship result in a non-extraordinary cannibal movie devoid of any likability. I was never bored, though, and there are lots of scenes of that pathetic blockhead Robert getting humiliated. He's peed on, gets rotten vegetables thrown on him, and it tied up and swung around on a rope because they think he's a bird. And, according to some text at the beginning of the flick, it's all true!

I guess when you've run out of Westerns, Gialli and Eurocrime films to make you've got to start looking elsewhere for inspiration. Last Cannibal World isn't the first even Italian cannibal film (that being Deep River Savages) and it's not Ruggero Deodato's first jungle film either - that's Gungala, a film with a far less sinister atmosphere than this vileness. What this film did was kick off another genre exploiting free-for-all of cannibal movie clones which isn't what you'd call the best period of Italian cinema.

Some guy actor called Massimo Foschi, who will be spending the majority of this film naked, plays an oil prospector called Robert Foster. Robert in a private plane with jungle expert Ivan Rassimov and two people who will shortly become cannibal fodder because they are not white. Robert's concerned that they can't get in radio contact with the makeshift airfield an advance party of engineers has set up, and things get worse when they tried land and a wheel is knocked off the plane by the long disused radio. That's no good.

The pilot reckons he can get the plane up and running in short order, but then Robert ruins everything by running into the jungle looking for his missing engineers and gets lost. Eventually Ivan Rassimov finds him and they head back to the plane, finding the murdered corpses of the engineers on the way back. Now Robert is in a hurry to leave the place, but the pilot tells him it's too late and they'll have to fly out first thing in the morning. We the audience are then clued in that someone is out there in the dark (via a nice jump scare), but when the female companion of Robert has to go outside to pee, she's captured by the natives waiting outside and things go tits up right away.

Robert shows that he's probably inherited his oil company because he seems to operate without any foresight or intuition. The pilot gets a spike ball to the guts, Robert loses Ivan on some river rapids after they get lost again, then Robert thinks it's a good idea to eat some strange mushrooms before tripping out, getting caught by natives, getting stripped to the nuts and getting his tummy banana tugged on by some backwards cannibals.

They also think he's a bird and dangle him off the ceiling of the cave their in before trying to eat his watch and throwing him in a cave with some birds while periodically throwing slops at him or peeing on him. Robert also gets to meet Me Me Lai, who mistakes the universal hand signal for 'I need food' for 'give me a handy'. Me Me stands out a mile not only because she's the only cannibal with all her teeth, she also seems to have a very good plastic surgeon judging by those fake boobs!

We spend rather a long time watching the natives being primitive and eating snakes/crocodiles, stock footage of animals eating other animals, and the natives being savage by having a rival native's arm eaten by ants before eventually escapes with Me Me and the romance/lengthy chase sequence begins! Turns out the most romantic thing you can do with a native is punch her directly in the face.

If you remove the animal cruelty from this one (and luckily my copy is missing the croc eating scene, but keeps the gore intact), you have a decent jungle adventure which thinks it's being clever in showing one civilised man's descent into savagery as the only way he can survive his ordeal in the jungle, although it's all just an excuse for gore and violence. The animal stuff is kept to a minimum thankfully, but that would be remedied in Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, a truly nauseating exercise without any redeeming features.

The goriest part of this film is reserved for Me Me, who is rewarded for leaving the tribe by being served up with a bat confit, grub ganache, native drool foam, bamboo tuille and a crocodile jus. This won the tribe Masterchef: Cannibals in 1977.

(aka: JUNGLE HOLOCAUST)

Unlike Deodato's later atrocity CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, I can at least stomach this one since only one crocodile is killed and skinned by the natives, and then they eat it afterwards. This is something they've been doing for thousands of years, so who are we (as so-called 'civilized' human beings) to say they can't?

Shot in Malaysia and the Philippines, this one is about an airplane (carrying Massimo Fosci and Ivan Rassimov) that lands in a survey camp in order to follow up on their research, firsthand. The plane is damaged on landing and the camp is found deserted. Of course, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out what happened to them.

As Fosci and Rassimov trek into the jungle, they get separated from the plane and then Rassimov disappears down some rapids, leaving Foschi alone to get captured by the natives. They take him to an underground cavern and rip his clothes of, and then start probing his genitals with a stick. Then they tie him onto a rope and haul him up to the ceiling. Native girl, Me Me Lai gets to watch all this and is fascinated by Foschi. It's love at first sight.

Next, we see a native guy tied up and his arm is cut in order to let the ants eat it all the way to the bone. Cool shot. Then the native boys urinate on Foschi on a ledge high up above his enclosure. He get's all wet. Ha! They keep him there because they are going to use him as bait for the crocodiles, so he escapes and forcibly takes Me Me Lai with him. Along the way, he rapes her in the elephant grass, but it looks more consensual than a rape.

He hooks up with Rassimov who has survived the rapids and they trek back to the plane. Rassimov is badly hurt while My My Lai get's captured by the cannibals and is eaten alive in some scenes that later appeared in Umberto Lenzi's EATEN ALIVE (1980).

In a memorable scene, Foschi cuts open the native guy he has killed and starts to eat his innards, just to let the other cannibals watching know he means business. Himself and Rassimov make it to the plane although Rassimov dies while the plane takes off.

The Shriek DVD includes revealing interviews with Foschi, Rassimov and Deodato, plus film posters and trailers. Rassimov comments that it was far easier to work for Deodato than it was for Lenzi while Foschi and Deodato both say that it was the producers who inserted the 'crocodile getting killed' scene and not Deodato. I think that's a load of bullsh#t, myself and I don't believe one word of it.

Still, it get's a 6 out of 10 for holding my interest and for not being as sh*tty as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST.

A four-headed team clumsily ends up stuck in a jungle. Pretty soon, two of them die (rather clumsy again) while savage aborigines are chasing the other two males. The duo depletes one last time when one of them disappears during a wild-river flow …does it have to be said…clumsy! The supposedly last cannibal tribe on earth imprisons the one man left, named Robert. They don't start cooking him just yet, but fool around with him a little, first. He escapes and takes a local girl with him, who serves the role of beautiful hostage. However, the journey through the undiscovered jungle is hard, long and full of surprises.

Ruggero Deodato's general rehearsal before unleashing the notorious `Cannibal Holocaust' upon the world is an explicit horror film, but not as shocking or repulsive as its successor. This film merely serves as an old-fashioned adventure-movie, there were Cannibal Holocaust is a severely shocking ethical portrait. If you ignore all the illogicalness of this film, you'll have yourself a good time. That's a fact. It's a rough and straight-to-the-point horror production with more than enough footage to keep you entertained…although a lot depends on your definition of entertainment, of course. Italian horror standards stand throughout the whole film: gore, sleaze and cruelty! Since so many things are happening during the first 20 minutes of `Jungle Holocaust', the film tends to get tedious after a while…or so you would think! Surprisingly enough, there still are more than enough adrenalin-filled sequences that keep you alert and – and this really is positive in my book – Deodato gives an excellent portrayal of how someone is unintentionally driven into complete madness and a total loss of realism. Jungle Holocaust contains quite a lot of animal cruelty, which can be regarded as offensive by Italian horror-haters. The crocodile-dissection easily equals the vicious tortoise slaughtering in `Cannibal Holocaust'. The cannibals themselves are some of the wickedest I ever saw and they seem to follow some bizarre rituals, too. They show an unusual interest for male nudity and they don't seem to worry too much about controversial handlings such as murdering an infant (pretty disturbing sequence that was). They do bring forward beautiful women, as Me Me Lai is the sexiest native girl I ever saw. Jungle Holocaust is essential viewing for Italian horror/sleaze fans. Not as memorable as `Holocaust' or `Ferox'…but certainly worth your time.

I saw this one again after not seeing it for 6-7 years and I must say it`s still my number one outdoors\jungle movie. It plays out like a mix of Indiana Jones type adveture, the intrapment of "deliverance", the real violence of "Faces of death 1-4" and the make-up effects of Lucio Fulci`s films.

ITALY AND REALITY The Italians are experts in making movies without rules. I mean in Hollywood for instance thy obey different rules because they are afraid movies will not sell, or they need an R- rating. All this ruins the art in movies. If you are setting out like Deodato is in this movie to make a movie about cannibals, you need scenes of people getting eaten or killed in different ways, and of course an explenation to why. This movie contains both.

ANIMAL CRUELTY I did not enjoy the animal cruelty, but who did. Ruggero Deodato disliked these parts too. They were filmed after the movie was made by the producer and a little crew. They threw small animals like bats on to python`s and filmed the fight and then finished it of by placing terrible sound effect`s over the "action" to give it an even stranger feel.

EMOTIONAL Apart from the animal crulety though, I love the film. It is very well made. The film manages to be cruel and savage in scenes and then suddenly go over to scenes that almost made me cry. It packs lot`s of emotion and depth. And as mentioned before, is very bold in portraying the violence as harsh as in real-life. Im talking about the special-effects not the animal cruelty off course.

TRUE EVENTS The movie is based upon true event`s and this notion really add to the terror and emotional termoil I felt watching it again after so many years. I have had it on video uncut for several years, and finally I found it on DVD from Shreak-show uncut with interviews and trailers.

WHO IS IT FOR? Well it is definitly not for anyone. I see from reviews on IMDB that many people watch this movie and want it to be a Hollywood-movie or something. Almost all the complaints by critics and users are about silly things we are used to from Hollywood. This is a low-budget movie shot in the jungle of Malaysia in harsch conditions. This is what made it authentic. Some people have seen so many fake-to-reality Hollywood-films they would not know reality if it bit their behinds. I am not a fan of cannibal-movies made in Hollywood, as they tend not to be about cannibal\native-life and more about the characters who are mostly american and pretty dull. So then. If you are a big Hollywood fan and don`t like realistic and real violence right up in your face don`t see it. But if you are bored\annoyed about Hollywood always showing you some kind of romantic escapade instead of telling the story(titanic-syndrome)and can stumack the violence -see it.

Score: 10 out of 10