Cannibal Ferox

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?).

I love this flick, so am I perverted or even totally weird?!? None of both, because "Cannibal Ferox" is a great guilty pleasure and an excellent stare-if-you-dare-movie! It is banned in 31 countries and there are truly good reasons for that: nearly no film delivers such an immense load of explicit gore, blood and guts, castration and sadism as this one features! But even though you like to hear it or not, Lenzi´s film is pretty suspense-packed, full of dramatic and entertaining from beginning till the end! Once more the a whole zoo of animals was slaughtered and the most disgusting take is when in a nearly heart-braking scene a little tethered and despaired screaming anteater gets strangulated by a huge Anaconda! However this shot has an almost symbolic character in view of the plot... The cast includes such exploitation-greats like Robert Kerman ("Eaten Alive"), John Morghen ("Cannibal Apocalypse"), Perry Pirkanen ("Cannibal Holocaust") and in the first line the wonderful Zora Kerova ("The New York Ripper"), who makes some really bad experiences with meathooks at the unhappy end..! Faint-hearted persons will surely turn away in deeply disgust, however all those who threw their political correctness over board may surely enjoy this sick symphony of sheer cruelty!

i'm not a naive person. i realize that animals in nature are killed and sometimes slowly. i just don't understand what it had to do with the film. why did they have to have 5 minutes of an innocent animal screaming before the huge snake finally coiled tight enough to cut off it's air. i love cannibal, zombie, and monster movies. i enjoy movies of humans getting killed. you wanna know why? because i know at the end of the day they took home a paycheck no matter how small it was. they got to get up, take a shower and go home. they didn't end up in a digestive system for real for somebody's (mainly mine) entertainment. that part of the movie in no way, shape, or form had anything to do with any part of the movie. it wasn't like blondy could send the little sucker to get help or anything. i'm also just wondering if maybe one of the sickos that made this movie just didn't add in some extra audio of the little guy screaming just for his own "i killed the neighbors cat last night mom" ya yas. this might seem stupid but i'm just saying the people signed up to be killed, the little animal didn't. just some food for thought.

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.

In Brooklyn, in New York City, the drug dealer Mike Logan (John Morghen) steals US$ 100,000.00 from his suppliers and flees to Colombia. The police detectives seek out the touristic guide Myrna Stenn (Meg Fleming), who shared her apartment with Mike.

Meanwhile, the anthropologist Gloria Davis (Lorraine De Selle) travels on vacation to Paraguaya, in Colombia, with her brother Rudolph "Rudy" Davis (Bryan Redford) and her friend Pat Johnson (Zora Kerowa) expecting to find the town of Manioca to prove her thesis that cannibalism does not exist. However, their Jeep breaks down in a lonely road and they need to walk. They meet the Americans Mike Logan and his friend Joseph "Joe" Costolani (Walter Lloyd) that is wounded and Mike tells that the local Indians have eaten their guide Portuguese and they join the trio of friends.

Soon the promiscuous Pat stays with Mike and Joe tells the truth about Mike to Rudy and Gloria and how cruel he had been with the Indians, torturing elders, women and children. Rudy and Gloria feel that they are in danger but there is no place to hide from the young cannibals that are returning to their hamlet.

"Cannibal Ferox" is another brutal Italian film of cannibalism extremely realistic. The story is not bad and the special effects are very impressive; however, the cruelty with live animals is unbearable and does not add any value to the movie. I do not know what viewers could or expect to see in a B-movie with the title "Cannibal Ferox". I saw this film on a Brazilian DVD and the quality of the image is only reasonable. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Cannibal Ferox"