L'esclave blonde

Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story (1985)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Eighteen-year-old Catherine Miles (Elvire Audray) is on a trip in the Amazon with her parents when they are attacked by a tribe of jungle people. The parents are murdered and their heads cut off but Catherine is saved by a member of the tribe who appears to have a thing for her. Catherine is then taken back to their village where she witnesses all sorts of horrors.

There's no question that Italy was the home of the cannibal movie and many think that it reached its height with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. This film here came towards the end of the genre and was also known as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST 2 as well as several other titles. For some reason this movie doesn't get much attention from fans when they discuss the genre but I personally thought it was a fairly entertaining movie, although it certainly doesn't rank among the best.

What I enjoyed the most was Audray herself. The horrible English dubbing makes it hard to really judge her performance but I thought she was extremely cute in the part and I also thought she was rather believable in the role. This was especially true as the character becomes more like those holding her hostage. The supporting players are decent at best but there's certainly nothing horrible here.

The film also benefits from a very good score by Franco Campanino, which clearly wants to be like the one in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. There's also the violence and gore, which is pretty fun, although there's no question that the effects aren't as good as what we saw in films from earlier in the decade. There are a couple decapitations, several other body parts cut off and plenty of blood throughout. Fans of gore will certainly get a kick out of some of the violence here and especially a couple head shots.

AMAZONIA: THE CATHERINE MILES STORY starts off with the lead character going to trial for murder and throughout the film we get some narration of her testifying in court. I personally thought this set-up was rather lame and it actually hurt the film a bit. With that said, I thought the movie was fairly entertaining for what it was and it was worth watching for fans of the genre.

White Slave starts off looking like it's going to be a really lame pastiche of Cannibal Holocaust, what with an opening montage of the Amazon set to ho-hum music imitating Riz Ortolani's famous score for that other film. And actually it stays lame for a fair while - but then it gets good! Amazon headhunters ambush the boat of some well-to-do white landowners and their daughter, who's back fresh from studying in London. They remove the heads of the parents and drag the daughter back to their village, where gradually (and after much gnashing of teeth by all concerned) she's absorbed into their tribal lifestyle - which never seems to involve any more headhunting for the rest of the film, but don't dwell on that.

The film makes sure to include a little bit from all of the major food groups of this horror subgenre: gore, hazardous jungle treks, badly graded stock footage of wildlife, animals stupidly killing each other for real, tribal warfare, cruel and probably entirely fictitious tribal customs and punishments meted out left, right and centre, and plenty of nudity. Interestingly, there's no cannibalism at all. While the first third of the film really seems to be going through the motions with these things, there's a whole bunch of plot from then onwards and dare I say a good degree of human warmth. Once Catherine is fully ensconced in the tribe, she deals with character rivalries, tribal customs and conflicting loyalties and emotions. There's some honour and romance at stake, plus a minor mystery to be dealt with and revenge to be had. White Slave mobilises from being an extremely by-the-numbers exploitation film to one with an involving story and human qualities you can get into. You still have to put up with one of the silliest court trials in the world (it's used as a framing device), but overall, I found this film to be a pleasant surprise.

WHITE SLAVE has some decent elements and originality going for it. The story is about a girl who's lost in the jungle after her boat is attacked and her parents are killed. She ends up becoming part of a tribe because she has no choice and can't escape. One of the tribesman takes her as his wife, and he ends up being a pretty decent guy, as savage tribesman go...But she's having no parts of it because she believes it's his fault for the death of her parents. As she learns the tribal language, and her "husband" learns English, the lines of communication open up, and the death of her parents may not be what they seem... Definitely not as memorable as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or even CANNIBAL FEROX - but the twist in the story is a welcome change to an otherwise rather straight-forward genre. Not nearly heavy enough on the red stuff for most "gorehounds" tastes, but still worth a look. 7/10

This Italian film with once again more alternative titles than actual dialogue is a mid-80's exploitation attempt by enthusiast director Mario Gariazzo, who obviously was deeply impressed by the work of his fellow Italian filmmakers Rugero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi. It's a supposedly true story (yeah…sure) about an 18-year-old girl who visits her parents' plantation in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Shortly after her arrival, her parents are brutally murdered and beheaded during a boat ride. The poor cutie is taken prisoner by a savage and primitive tribe. During two years, she's has to take part in traditional and barbaric rites of this tribe. She's sold to the richest man in town (price = one goat and a chicken), has to work and, eventually, she escapes with the head warrior she has fallen in love with.

Now, 'Amazonia' isn't a bad little flick but it tries to be so much bigger than it actually is. The entire production seems to shout out: 'Look, we're as good as Cannibal Holocaust!!!' The opening sequences, in which the beautiful jungle is shown guided by a great score, is an exact copy of Deodato's film and throughout the whole film, the same documentary style is used. The film could have done without these pretentious aspects. At his best, Amazonia is like a fairly reasonable crossover between Cannibal Holocaust and Umberto Lenzi's 'Deep River Savages' (in which an Englishman spends years among a primitive tribe in New-Guinea). It's not nearly as memorable as the majority of Italian sleaze classics and that's merely due to the atrocious acting of Elvire Audrey. There's some great gore and terrific authentic sleaze to enjoy, though.

Although not technically a cannibal movie (the main tribe are 'head-hunters'; cannibals feature very briefly but no cannibalism is shown), Amazonia shares enough similarities with the infamous gut-munching gore classics of the 70s and 80s to be considered part of the genre.

Catherine Miles (Elvire Audray) is a beautiful 18-year old taken captive by a group of savages after her parents are killed on a river trip. Sold to a member of the tribe for the sum of 'a goose, a water-dog and a turtle', Catherine endures terrible suffering until she is helped by Umukai, a warrior who treats her with a bit of respect. After many months spurning Umukai, believing that he was the one who killed her mum and dad, she discovers that others were in fact responsible. Falling in love with her friendly native hunk, she convinces him to help her take revenge on those really responsible.

Amazonia is pretty close in theme to The Man From Deep River, Umberto Lenzi's classic from 1972, but doesn't quite match that one in terms of quality. However, with a fair amount of cheesy gore (several be-headings, blow-darts in the face, some bloody bullet wounds) and loads of female nudity (courtesy of Audray and the native women, some of whom are pretty foxy), fans of this kind of thing should find just about enough to enjoy in this flick to make it worth a watch.