Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death

I personally, find this movie so delightfully trashy as to be the epitomy of what "B" films are SUPPOSED to be about: implausible situations, done with the tongue firmly embedded in the cheek, tweeking the audience every chance they get.

If you enjoy B movies like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or just like silly movies that don't take themselves seriously this is the movie for you.

First, you have the two queens of B movies here: Shannon Tweed and Adrienne Barbeau. You name the B movie and chances are one of them is in it (it also has Karen Waldron who was in one of the Tomato sequels is in this as the overly vacuous Bunny).

You also have a young, before-I-got-political Bill Maher. He's perfect as a stereotypical "man's man".

The plot is ridiculously silly and they know it. IF you just need a no-brains-needed laugh, this is for you.

Truly ridiculous film from one time Full Moon Films Director/Writer J.F. Lawton who has gone on to write numerous more successful, and quite similar, films and series for cinema and television. This film is sometimes credited as launching star Bill Maher to comedy prime time though as the exploration guide to Dr. Margo Hunt (Shannon Tweed) and her assistant Bunny (Karen M. Waldron) he rarely shines in this watchable but mediocre movie. Tweed and co are sent in to the jungle to look for a scary man-eating tribe and to try and secure the future of Avocardos for the USA. There are direct parallels here with the current need for oil and in many ways, because of the current climate, the movie manages to become clever satire when this was probably never the intention. Several digs at the then growing women's movement are thrown in such as Maher's "She wants to eat me, see for yourself what the women's movement is all about" or the suggestion that no Feminist has advocated Feminism since the 1960s. These jokes aside however - and the obvious fact that the women are all 'sexy' and scantily clad - it is the women who are frequently shown to be smart and the men merely void of intelligence and only useful for the reproductive gene they hold. The Carl Dante music (a regular Full Moon composer at the time) is more than suitable and the film easily watchable, though perhaps only once.

This is really rather good and much under rated. Unfortunately it gets put amidst the T&A 'bad' B movie category where it just doesn't belong, although ironically it does begin that way with incompetent men and near naked women bathing in a waterfall. Once properly underway, however, this is a funny film with Bill Maher reminding one of early Robin Williams and cutie, Karen Waldron doing a perfect impression of Goldie Hawn. Shannon Tweed is surprisingly good in the main lead and works well with the others thanks to such a very good script. This is not funny like Airplane and the remit, social satire on sexual politics is a bit narrow but it really is enough to keep you smiling. The scantily clad women are something of a bonus but would be a great disappointment for anyone seeking this out for that reason, and hence, I guess , the less than deserved acclaim this film tend to get. Very much worth a watch.

Anyone who doesn't get this movie must not have been tortured by "Heart of Darkness" in High School. Kurtz has gone native in the jungle, and the tale is of the intrepid party braving the unknown to retrieve him... er, her. Kurtz dies, gasping, "The horror... the horror."

"Apocalypse Now!" -- another movie based on 'Heart' -- was an incredibly powerful film. Better than the original book, in my estimation. 'Cannibal Women' is the opposite end of the spectrum... a total farce. And it's also better than the original.

So if you didn't like this movie, read "Heart of Darkness," then watch this again. It'll make more sense, and it'll certainly seem a heck of a lot funnier.

(Okay, after 'Heart' *anything* is funnier... but you get the idea.)