Cannibal Ferox

"Cannibal Ferox" is the story of a junior anthropologist, whom brings her brother and a friend into the amazonian jungle in an effort to disprove cannibalism. Along the way they meet Mike and Joe, two dealers on the run from the mob, whom have also angered the natives of the jungle. In classic cannibal sub genre style, the home team takes bloody revenge on the entire lot.

Given the other reviews, I was expecting a warmed over copy of "Cannibal Holocaust". Though there are obvious parallels between the two (the theme of the so called "civilized" being the bringers of barbariety, the direction style used in the jungle scenes, gratuitous animal cruelty and small roles for both Richard Bolla and Perry Pirkanen), there's a vast difference in tone between the two films.

While "Cannibal Holocaust" was relentlessly sadistic, "Cannibal Ferox" plays a variation on the theme with it's underlying bits of horror camp.

The main characters' descent into jungle murder and madness is marked by classic horror bad decision making (How does not finding cannibals in one isolated village somehow disprove the entire phenomenon's existence? Why stay and camp in a village that has a decaying corpse hanging in town square? What's sexy about a mud covered coke fiend? The world may never know.), and their gruesome fates are sealed fairly early on, for sheer bold stupidity if nothing else.

Giovanni Radice rips through his role with almost gleeful bug eyed abandon, Zora Kerova is the obligatory slutty blonde whom meets a nasty end, with Lorraine DeSalle playing straight woman to the other leads hamming it up.

"Ferox" has buckets of blood for the gorehounds, but other than the animal scenes, it's not nearly as real looking as "Holocaust". This is not a detraction to the film, but fits into the low rent quirky tone very nicely, further complimented by the incogruous 70's wah wah music used throughout.

Overall, a fine example of grindhouse horror, worth repeated viewing and seven stars. 1 star detracted by the obvious filler New York sub plot (only bright spot is another delightfully trashy performance by Mr. Bolla), 1 star for being a bit slowly paced, 1 star for a bit too much of the heart of "Cannibal Holocaust" being cannibalized by this otherwise enjoyable film for fans of the more extreme horror romps.

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"

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.

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!