Anthropophagous 2000

"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.

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

In this retelling of Joe D'Amato's cult classic 'Antropophagus' from the 80's, a marooned lunatic preys upon hapless teenagers.

Joe D'Amato was, in all honesty, not the best director. Carving his name in a niche market of extremely gory and often hardcore pornographic films, his status diminished more and more, until he died of a heart attack in 1999. Mostly, he is remembered for his morally and stylistically repugnant films like the 'Ator' and 'Emanuelle' series, in particular 'Emanuelle in America', but also for his bizarre horror efforts, such as 'Buio Omega' or the aforementioned 'Antropophagus'.

So already you have a sort of love him or hate him situation. Andreas Schnaas evidently despised him, because where 'Antropophagus' was offensive, 'Anthropophagous 2000' is inept and borderline unwatchable.

It all becomes very clear when you sit through a love scene between a long-haired weirdo and his girlfriend who looks like Chong Li from 'Bloodsport'. The, dare I say, dialogue is laughably bad and sometimes totally inaudible. After the scummy sex scene, they are both murdered by our main antagonist, Nikos Karamanlis. The sex is ugly, the gore is over the top and the acting is ludicrous, but you knew that already.

The question is, is it worth it?

No. D'Amato's films were pretty terrible, but like many other video nasties and exploitation films from that time, they have a certain twisted charm, especially some of the soundtracks.

'Anthropophagous 2000' has virtually no redeeming qualities. You will probably laugh a few times, but I doubt that was Schnaas intention. The exposition delivered by the titular cannibal in particular is just unbelievably bad.

Not uncommon for Schnaas. Part of a burgeoning scene scene in the 80's, his previous efforts such as 'Violent Sh*t' or 'Zombie 90' are funnier than this, but technically even worse. Other well known members of this movement were Jörg Buttgereit and Olaf Ittenbach. Both have made vastly superior films to anything Schnaas has ever done.

Now it probably sounds like I'm knocking him pretty hard, but the truth is, you can absolutely watch 'Anthropophagous 2000'. My advice would be to get highly intoxicated first.

Now, before I begin, I must emphasise that I am NOT bias against trash films. In fact, I LOVE Schnaas films, Nikos The Impaler is one of my most favourite films of all time.

But this was complete SH*T, Andreas tried to make the tension a little bit slower. Which ultimately failed, and just made the film Painful to sit through. I must admit though, the gore wasn't too bad, but there was so much of an abundance I felt a bit cheated.

Thing that made Anthropophagus (The Original) good, was how scary George Eastman was, but somehow, Schnaas, even in his make-up, isn't scary AT ALL. I think I speak for all Schnaas fans that Schnaas should just stick to playing a Cleaver wielding, masked maniac.

Anyone wanting a good horror film, watch Anthropophagus, a good trash film, watch Nikos. But please, avoid this excuse of a film.

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.