Mondo Cannibale 2 - Der Vogelmensch

JUNGLE HOLOCAUST is a brutal, no-holds-barred early entry in the bizarre cannibal subgenre of the seventies and early eighties. It's shocking, violent, immoral, sleazy and exploitive. In other words, it delivers.

I can't defend this movie from an ethical standpoint. Even the observation that the live animal slaughter (which is fairly minimal here) is committed by people who apparently were members of a real tribe of primitives, as part of their daily routine doesn't change the fact that it was shot for purely sensational purposes. But it is undeniably intense, suspenseful and creepy.

A plane lands in the Amazon wilds while searching for a couple of lost explorers. The people in the plane wander off a little too far and become separated. The movie then follows one of them, who is captured by a tribe of cannibals and kept prisoner for months. He finally manages to escape and kidnaps a young, beautiful female member of the tribe to use as a guide.

The movie has a gritty realism to it that makes it play almost like a documentary. It captures the gradual transformation of the character from a "civilized" man to a grunting "savage" extremely well, although a scene in which he wins over his female companion by raping her is a little over-the-top, to say the least.

The midsection of the movie is almost entirely devoid of dialog, so the atrocious dubbing is confined mostly to the first and last sequences. Overall, it's a very well-made and unsettling thriller, although it would have been far more suspenseful had there not been a disclaimer at the beginning saying the main character survived to tell his story.

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.

(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 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!

Jungle Holocaust opens with some beautiful shots of a small aircraft flying over a seemingly endless jungle. The four people on the plane are going to the middle of said jungle to check up on a mining crew one of them sent out there. When they get there the camp is of course empty, and all that they find of the inhabitants is a heavily decomposed head. They end up having to stay the night in the plane because the pilot, understandably, will not fly over the jungle in the dark. At this point their situation goes from bad to worse as they have to deal with getting separated, a tribe of natives who just happen to be cannibals, being lost, and being far out of their element.

The movie centers around Robert Harper (Mossimo Foschi) and his ordeals with the cannibals and the jungle in his struggle to get home. The character development is a highlight as the events take their toll on Robert's psyche. He becomes more savage, animal like, and at times it seems, insane. Actor Mossimo Foschi does a very good job portraying all of this, by the way. Actress Me Me Lai is never clothed, a plus in my book, and performs well, though her obviously fake breasts do detract from the believability as she is supposed to be playing a native.

There isn't much gore but some of what there is can get a bit strong. Some will find a scene with a crocodile particularly hard to watch.

Overall Jungle Holocaust is one of the best of the Italian Cannibal genre and is oddly uplifting for this kind of film. Highly recommended.