Mondo cannibale

This was the third jungle cannibal film I've watched from Jess Franco. Easily the best of the lot, but the competition for that crown isn't much. Franco was simply riding the Cannibal phase, and it simply shows.

I guess, I would say this low-rent production was enjoyable in parts. Loved the slow-motion cannibal munching and the nauseating camera zooms. Those poor ladies. Franco really throws caution to the wind. Although gore fx is a real mixed bag, it works, in spite of some laughable moments.

This includes hilarious dubbing. Even the birds are dubbed?! It was strange hearing cannibals speaking fluent English. Using words like exterminate. But even then, they weren't the most convincing looking tribal cannibals. Nice make-up, but they sure did smear it at times, when eating alive their victims.

The plot throws out many senseless developments. I liked how 'everything' suddenly comes back all at once from our prototginist's lost memory. And how about these people deciding to tag along on a dangerous jungle expedition. They thought they were going on a tea party?! It ain't no walk in the park either... even though some scenes (the nicely trimmed vegetation) look it. Stiff acting and repetitive actions galore.

Surprisingly the funky soundtrack is what I think is the best thing here. Well, I guess I can't leave out Sabrina Siani and Lina Romay either.

This film was released in 1980 ..around the time most Italian cannibal films were being filmed and released. This was possible the worst one I've seen next to cannibal terror ( and both films share footage) the so called cannibal tribe in this movie is more like a bunch of average Joe's wearing towels and clown makeup and I've noticed no women ( more like a sausage party than a primitive cannibal tribe) the acting is horrible and the plot wreaks but i still find it enjoyable in a comedic way. And I've seen Al Cliver in a lot of other great films like Zombie...the beyond...rulers of the city and joe d'amatos endgame

Thank you for this great review. But I need to mention that I Cannibali is not the movie you watched, but the Jess Franco flick Mondo Cannibali, aka Cannibals. There's some comments there, describing Mondo Cannibale as a boring movie. I agree. Certainly not a masterpiece in Jess Francos collection. Don't bother, watch Cannibal Holocaust again instead.

Jess Franco fans like myself are kind of like drug addicts, always watching another film, hoping against hope to again capture the initial rush of something like "Succubus", "Venus in Furs", or "Eugenie--Story of her Journey into Perversion". Usually, we just wind up with mediocre dreck that leaves us vaguely dissatisfied. Sometimes though we REALLY get burned, like with this film. To be fair jungle action films are not Franco's forte--his films often fail to maintain a basic suspension of disbelief that they were NOT filmed in European zoo. Cannibalism is not Franco's thing either, for instance, he doesn't seem to realize that even cannibals COOK their food before they eat it. Franco actually used the same long, slow-motion takes of people eating raw flesh in extreme close-ups at the climax of one of his WIP movies, but in that context it was pretty sickening (if that's a plus). Here though it's just tedious and dull--the only way this rates a "99 on the vomit meter," as Joe Bob Briggs supposedly said, is if extreme boredom causes you to somehow throw up.

Naturally, with cannibal scenes this laughable the film is nowhere near as potent as one of your better Italian cannibal epics (although they don't slaughter any real animals, at least). But one thing I certainly would expect from a Franco film is sex and nudity--and that's were it REALLY disappoints. Lina "Mrs. Jess Franco" Romay is in the cast, but Franco uncharacteristically keeps her under wraps except for a brief t-shot when she's being eaten (literally). She is by far the most talented actor in the movie, but still what a waste of an actress who had one of the best bodies around in those days. You have the opposite problem with Sabrina Siani, playing the same barely-legal jungle girl character played by Alice Arno, Katja Beinert, and Ursula Fellehner in other Franco movies. Siani spends the entire movie half-naked, but she's such a terrible actress even that gets boring, and her one sex scene can best be described as somnambulistic. I also couldn't help wondering how the dark-haired little girl in the beginning grew up to be a blonde teenager (albeit with dark roots). Where did she find peroxide in the jungle? (Of course, she had to be blonde or this "white goddess" wouldn't have looked any whiter than the obviously European "cannibals").

But I'm forgetting something--oh yeah, the plot. Well, it's pretty much the exact same plot as "Diamonds of Kilimajaro", but with more inept "cannibalism" scenes and less gratuitous nudity. Watch that one instead.

I think this movie is the same as rhe 1979 Franco Prosperi listed in the "Mondo Cannibale" listing. It is indeed a Jesus Franco movie. And it is indeed badder-than-bad !!! If you get bored, count the screenplay inconcinstensies.