Anthropophagous 2000

This is a remake of the classic Joe D'amato, George Eastman film "Anthropophagus". The movie is about a man, wife and child who are shipwrecked out at sea. After days without any food the man goes crazy and eats his family. Upon return to his home town (the little boat they were on somehow brought him back) he murders and eats everyone in the town. Sometime later a group of tourists come to the town only to discover the horror of what has happened.

This was a good remake in many ways and a bad in only a few. First I should start with the gore. The original film was gory for the time but pales in comparison to a movie like "The Beyond" or "Zombi 2". The remake, however, is one of the goriest films ever. Schnaas takes the role of the beast in the movie and kills people in many innovative ways. For instance, he bashes someones face in (literally) with a rock and then disembowels him. Then a later scene he gains the power to remove a womens head with his own hands making it look pretty easy. And of course two of the most controversial scenes are in the movie taken right from the original.

Second, the acting was actually not bad for a movie filmed with what looks like a camcorder. The main stars of the movie play their roles appropriately even if the script is a bit dry.

Now my only complaint with this film was it was missing the utter dread that made the original movie so good. This movie is not creepy at all. Although, I will say it's always dreadful to see someone being chopped to pieces with an ax but I am mainly talking about the atmosphere. It was very bland but the movie more than makes up for it with the gore scenes which lets's face it, make this movie.

I would have to say I love this film and recommend it to anyone that is a shock/gore fanatic. 8/10 stars

Anthropophagous 2000 (1999)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

German director Andreas Schnaas' remake of Joe D'Amato's infamous Anthropophagous is pretty much a direct rip and follows the same storyline of vacationers stuck on an island and being terrorized by a cannibal. I've heard a lot about Schnaas but this was the first film of his I've seen. He's got quite a reputation for gore and the film doesn't disappoint on that level. There are all sorts of insanely violent scenes with tons of gore but the special effects are so incredibly poor that you can't help but laugh at them. It's that laughter that gives this film its charm, ala an Ed Wood movie. Technically speaking everything here is pretty horrid and doesn't hold a candle to the original flick. The famous "abortion" scene is also done here but not nearly as well.

Not that Joe's old cult film needed a remake, or a sequel. Andreas Schnaas, who clearly must have loved the original film growing up, probably always wanted it to be more gruesome than it actually was. Because let's face it, the original film is a cult film mainly for the word of mouth of the infamous two scenes that were mainly cut from most versions available for years. When many of us finally saw the infamous fetus scene, honestly, we laughed! It was hard to believe it was cut at all. How could anyone take it seriously, it was so poorly done! I think Schnaas made the movie he wished D'amato had made. Which is mainly an extreme gorefest and nothing else.

If you are watching this movie for the splatter and gore, you definitely could pick a worse film. The gore, for the budget, is some top notch stuff. Some of it is so over the top that it becomes more hilarious than outright disturbing. Which is trademark Schnaas.

If you are watching this movie hoping that a filmmaker came along to try and actually make a better film out of Anthropophagus, than you might want to know that this is not the movie, and Andreas Schnaas is not that filmmaker. Say what one will about exploitation maestro Joe D'amato, but his original film is leagues better than this movie. And it mainly comes down to the simple fact that, although it may have lacked a lot of gore and splatter, it made up for it with its grim atmosphere and the performance of Eastman as the Man Eater.

Anyone that has watched any of Schnaas's VS movies, or any of his work before this will immediately know that he clearly was trying here. Having said that, he just has no knack keeping things interesting in between the gruesome FX work. The movie is boring and the viewer is left waiting for the next grand gore piece. Thankfully, the gore really does make up for the films awful pacing. When it comes you will immediately forget you were bored to begin with.

I like Andreas Schnaas and I like most of the splatter garbage he has been spitting out for years. And I do like this movie because I enjoy his work. But it's undeniable just how subpar this one is when comparing it to the original film. If you like Schnaas and his work, than you will probably like this. If you are a gore fan just looking for a good splatter flick, you won't necessarily be disappointed. But you may want to keep the fast forward button on stand by, just to get to all the good stuff quicker.

"Anthropophagous 2000" is the first Schnaas film I've seen. As a huge Joe D'Amato fan, I couldn't but give it a try. Well, I wasn't totally displeased, but I wasn't overly excited either. When Andreas Schnaas is good, he is very good, but when he's bad, he's rotten.

The film has its strong points: (1) The atmosphere is creepy and suspenseful. (2) The violence is brutal and plentiful. (3) There are enough surprises to keep viewers interested (especially if you are familiar with the original Joe D'Amato classic). (4) Andreas Schnaas is very good as the Grim Reaper (at least he tries his best to make a solid performance).

But there are also weak points. To name the most important ones:

(1) The major letdown is the lack of realistic gore. The gore effects in "Anthropophagous 2000" are of very uneven quality: some are quite impressive, while others are cheesy to the point of offense to the viewer. Was Schnaas distracted by other projects while he was making this, or did he run out of money, or did he simply lose interest?

(2) The sex scenes are laughable. How people are supposed to have sex with their under- and outerwear on (and how we are supposed to believe they're having sex) is beyond me. I'm not asking for Andreas Bethmann- type explicitness, but those scenes just don't work.

These drawbacks aside, "Anthropophagous 2000" is a nice effort. It's brutal, it's gory, and it's definitely worth a look – or maybe two. But it could have been better.

Not Schnaas' best work ( which is Violent Shit 2) but all in all ok. As always the "actors" are crap, but that's not the essential thing in his movies. The effects are the most important thing in Schnass' production, and they are really great in this one. There's actually not that much gore in it, but the scenes that made it are super and the baby-eating scene is no less than brilliantly sick and twisted... just as we like it!!! I wonder what Schnaas could do with a Pearl Harbor budget!?