Die Rache der Kannibalen

There are so many versions of this movie floating around that I have absolutely no idea what was cut from the version I saw, and what wasn't. All I know is that it was the recent Grindhouse Releasing version.

I expected absolutely nothing from this movie, other than completely amateurish nonsense in the vein of an updated Hershell Gordon Lewis. I was shocked to find that Cannibal Ferox really isn't a bad movie at all. The storyline, acting and production values were as solid as you could expect from such a multi-lingual low budget exploitation flick, especially considering the amount of outdoor location shooting, and Grindhouse have done a really good job with the remastering. Lorraine De Selle is great, trying to take the whole thing seriously while Giovanni Lombardo Radice chews the scenery around her with leering, bog-eyed abandon. Zora Kerova looks like she wandered in from the set of Friday 13th Part II, all blond curls and pert tits, and suffers the consequences. The whole New York subplot stinks of running-time-filler and could be totally done away with.

The gore is minimal but effective – a blink and you'll miss it latex castration and a rather more shocking breast-on-hook impalement. The much criticized animal cruelty really isn't as bad as everyone tries to make out – usually consisting of little more than Discovery Channel style documentary footage of animals chasing and killing each other. On the few occasions in which people actively kill animals, they do so quickly and efficiently, and there's no sense that the animals are suffering, or no more than they would in the average abattoir. It's interesting that when animals are butchered for your viewing pleasure in Italian exploitation movies it's banned in a dozen countries, but when Coppola does it (far less humanely) in Apocalypse Now, it's art.

This was my first journey into the Cannibal genre, and if I can get my hands on Cannibal Holocaust, it won't be my last. Ferox is a fun, trashy, low budget, exploitation fest that is far more enjoyable than some of the big-budget mainstream dross that I've had to endure (Constantine anyone?).

The film begins with the murder of a drug addict in an unknown apartment by some gangsters looking for a man named Mike Logan. As the police begin their investigation into the shooting, the action relocates to the Paraguayan jungle, where two students, Gloria (Lorraine De Selle) and Rudy (Danilo Mattei), and one tag-along Pat (Zora Kerova) are making their way into the heart of the jungle looking for native tribes who have been accused of cannibalism. Gloria is out to disprove the claims of cannibalism for her dissertation, and after they come across two mangled bodies of tribesmen, they also come across Mike Logan carrying his injured partner Joe (Walter Lucchini), who both claim to have been attacked by savage cannibals.

Between 1977 and 1981 there was a huge boom in cannibal films. They boasted exotic locations, horrific gore, real animal killings, and the threat of the unknown in the primitive tribes. It was Ferox's director Umberto Lenzi who kick-started the sub-genre with Deep River Savages in 1972, but they only really hit their stride in 1977, when the Grindhouse theatres were at their most popular. The cannibal genre died out pretty quickly, thankfully, as they represent everything that is ugly about the horror genre, and Cannibal Ferox, possibly the second most notorious after Cannibal Holocaust, is no exception.

The gore and violence is by no means convincing, or even disturbing, but it is clear from the off that the film's sole purpose is to be more repulsive than anything else before it. Multiple cocks are hacked off (and one is eaten - yummy), a woman is lifted into the air with fish- hooks through the breasts, there is an eye-gouging, and of course, no cannibal film would be complete without a bit of the ol' brain eating. This is all well and good and what can be expected from an Italian exploitation film at the height of the nasties era, but the animal killings are simply needless.

I always found myself defending Cannibal Holocaust for the animal cruelty, as that is a genuinely good film, and the horrific animal scenes really do add to the horrible and deeply unsettling atmosphere. But after seeing Ferox, I realised there is really no excuse for it. Regardless of the film's quality, there is no place for the pointless killing of animals. Radice refused to wield the knife during the pig- killing scene, and in the DVD commentary, director Lenzi said 'Robert De Niro would have done it!', to which Radice replied 'Robert De Niro would have told you to f**k off!'

Anyway, the film really is pretty damn awful. Why the action keeps shifting back to New York is anyone's guess. Mike is a wanted drug pusher that legged it off to Paraguay in search of cocaine and a fortune in gemstones, but surely knowing this is enough? There is a rescue attempt near the end that looks like joining the two stems together, but nothing comes of it. It seems to be there only to add a few more minutes onto the running time, allowing the film to render itself a feature. As you would expect, the acting/script/story is guff, but the strange thing is the moral message it seems to be putting out. When it revealed that Mike was lying and it was in fact him that attacked the tribe (shock horror), it seems to be a 'don't judge a book by it's cover' type message. But when the tribe acts out their revenge, they revel in the torturing.

Well anyway, the real torture victim was me, who had to sit through this. There's a few more cannibal films to get through for the nasties project (maybe I'll leave them to Marc), and although I'll welcome (if that's the right word) another viewing of Cannibal Holocaust, I have to say that I would be happy not to have to sit through another cannibal film. And there's always the Mondo sub-genre I suppose!

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I just finished watching this movie, and it actually wasn't bad. The acting was a little cheesy and the plot was at first corny but it eventually picked up and became what it was supposed to be, a gory hard to watch cannibal movie. I didn't enjoy or was not happy with the animal deaths, but the movie was supposed to be shocking and hard to watch, and that is definitely what those scenes were. It had very good gore effects for 1981. The brain eating, the stomach eating, the hooked girl, and the other scenes of cannibalism were gross and pretty hard to watch. I guess I'm a gorehound, but most movies never really deliver on gore in my opinion. This one did, and that was all ready enough for it to be good. I also like the idea that the cannibals are not the real bad guys, and that we are. If you are a fan of horror movies, especially low budget exploitation horror, then this movie is for you. If you have a weak stomach then do not see this. Still haven't seen cannibal holocaust or any other Italian cannibal film sadly, so I don't have anything to compare this to.

Still one of the funniest movies of all time, assuming you're not shocked by cheap gore. Never mind the "20 scenes of extreme brutality" mentioned in the introductory "warning" (ROLL UP! ROLL UP!), there are at least 30 scenes of extreme hilarity....

If you're looking for a good cannibal flick, "Cannibal Holocaust" is the one - still pretty dumb, but good. "Ferox", on the other hand, is the one to choose if you want a good bad-taste laugh. There are way too many hilarious moments to list, but I love the central premise that Lorraine de Selle is going into the jungle to prove that cannibalism DOESN'T exist, and NEVER HAS. Right - I just walked home from the pub and didn't get into a fight, that proves that no one has ever got in a fight on the way home from the pub. And no one who's seen this film will ever forget John "Giovanni Radice" Morghen's acting as he wails the immortal line, "then...THEN THEY ATE HIS GENITALS!!!"

The commentary track on the DVD is fantastic - Lenzi is a hilariously arrogant idiot, while Morghen's camp, bitchy comments had me in hysterics.

But don't believe this nonsense about how "Ferox" is "sickening" for showing a snake crushing something to death, or South American tribes killing a turtle. Have you never watched a documentary about snakes on the BBC or the Discovery Channel? Guess what - they show them crushing things too! And if you don't believe that nature documentary crews actually feed "innocent" animals to predators just to get good footage, you're very naive. As for the turtle -- these tribal guys live IN THE JUNGLE, ok? "But you don't have to show them actually cutting the head off a live turtle!" Well first of all, the fact that it's a "live" turtle is neither here nor there - if it was a dead one, it would still have been killed, duh. And secondly, what? We can eat our turtle soup, but we don't want to watch it being made? Grow up.

This is one of the better cannibal boom films out there. Umberto Lenzi does a great job with the directing of this movie.

Bong it up and burn it down.