Ultimo mondo cannibale

Jungle Holocaust is a great cannibal film. But not only is it a cannibal film, it is also a jungle adventure, one mans story of survival. This is Ruggero Deodato's first cannibal film, therefore paving the way for the classic Cannibal Holocaust. Like CH, this film is also shunned by many for it's real animal killing and it's realistic human killings. But, it is not only the gore that make this a good film. It also has great direction and stunning visuals in the jungle, plus a good score and pretty good acting. It is a very realistic movie, filmed on location with real natives. Don't get me wrong, the gore is great, too, so if your looking for a movie with realistic gore, i highly recommend this, along with Deodato's next film, Cannibal Holocaust. Check it out if you like Italian cannibal films or if your a Deodato fan. Not for the squeamish. I give it a 8/10.

(aka: JUNGLE HOLOCAUST)

Unlike Deodato's later atrocity CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, I can at least stomach this one since only one crocodile is killed and skinned by the natives, and then they eat it afterwards. This is something they've been doing for thousands of years, so who are we (as so-called 'civilized' human beings) to say they can't?

Shot in Malaysia and the Philippines, this one is about an airplane (carrying Massimo Fosci and Ivan Rassimov) that lands in a survey camp in order to follow up on their research, firsthand. The plane is damaged on landing and the camp is found deserted. Of course, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out what happened to them.

As Fosci and Rassimov trek into the jungle, they get separated from the plane and then Rassimov disappears down some rapids, leaving Foschi alone to get captured by the natives. They take him to an underground cavern and rip his clothes of, and then start probing his genitals with a stick. Then they tie him onto a rope and haul him up to the ceiling. Native girl, Me Me Lai gets to watch all this and is fascinated by Foschi. It's love at first sight.

Next, we see a native guy tied up and his arm is cut in order to let the ants eat it all the way to the bone. Cool shot. Then the native boys urinate on Foschi on a ledge high up above his enclosure. He get's all wet. Ha! They keep him there because they are going to use him as bait for the crocodiles, so he escapes and forcibly takes Me Me Lai with him. Along the way, he rapes her in the elephant grass, but it looks more consensual than a rape.

He hooks up with Rassimov who has survived the rapids and they trek back to the plane. Rassimov is badly hurt while My My Lai get's captured by the cannibals and is eaten alive in some scenes that later appeared in Umberto Lenzi's EATEN ALIVE (1980).

In a memorable scene, Foschi cuts open the native guy he has killed and starts to eat his innards, just to let the other cannibals watching know he means business. Himself and Rassimov make it to the plane although Rassimov dies while the plane takes off.

The Shriek DVD includes revealing interviews with Foschi, Rassimov and Deodato, plus film posters and trailers. Rassimov comments that it was far easier to work for Deodato than it was for Lenzi while Foschi and Deodato both say that it was the producers who inserted the 'crocodile getting killed' scene and not Deodato. I think that's a load of bullsh#t, myself and I don't believe one word of it.

Still, it get's a 6 out of 10 for holding my interest and for not being as sh*tty as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST.

I guess when you've run out of Westerns, Gialli and Eurocrime films to make you've got to start looking elsewhere for inspiration. Last Cannibal World isn't the first even Italian cannibal film (that being Deep River Savages) and it's not Ruggero Deodato's first jungle film either - that's Gungala, a film with a far less sinister atmosphere than this vileness. What this film did was kick off another genre exploiting free-for-all of cannibal movie clones which isn't what you'd call the best period of Italian cinema.

Some guy actor called Massimo Foschi, who will be spending the majority of this film naked, plays an oil prospector called Robert Foster. Robert in a private plane with jungle expert Ivan Rassimov and two people who will shortly become cannibal fodder because they are not white. Robert's concerned that they can't get in radio contact with the makeshift airfield an advance party of engineers has set up, and things get worse when they tried land and a wheel is knocked off the plane by the long disused radio. That's no good.

The pilot reckons he can get the plane up and running in short order, but then Robert ruins everything by running into the jungle looking for his missing engineers and gets lost. Eventually Ivan Rassimov finds him and they head back to the plane, finding the murdered corpses of the engineers on the way back. Now Robert is in a hurry to leave the place, but the pilot tells him it's too late and they'll have to fly out first thing in the morning. We the audience are then clued in that someone is out there in the dark (via a nice jump scare), but when the female companion of Robert has to go outside to pee, she's captured by the natives waiting outside and things go tits up right away.

Robert shows that he's probably inherited his oil company because he seems to operate without any foresight or intuition. The pilot gets a spike ball to the guts, Robert loses Ivan on some river rapids after they get lost again, then Robert thinks it's a good idea to eat some strange mushrooms before tripping out, getting caught by natives, getting stripped to the nuts and getting his tummy banana tugged on by some backwards cannibals.

They also think he's a bird and dangle him off the ceiling of the cave their in before trying to eat his watch and throwing him in a cave with some birds while periodically throwing slops at him or peeing on him. Robert also gets to meet Me Me Lai, who mistakes the universal hand signal for 'I need food' for 'give me a handy'. Me Me stands out a mile not only because she's the only cannibal with all her teeth, she also seems to have a very good plastic surgeon judging by those fake boobs!

We spend rather a long time watching the natives being primitive and eating snakes/crocodiles, stock footage of animals eating other animals, and the natives being savage by having a rival native's arm eaten by ants before eventually escapes with Me Me and the romance/lengthy chase sequence begins! Turns out the most romantic thing you can do with a native is punch her directly in the face.

If you remove the animal cruelty from this one (and luckily my copy is missing the croc eating scene, but keeps the gore intact), you have a decent jungle adventure which thinks it's being clever in showing one civilised man's descent into savagery as the only way he can survive his ordeal in the jungle, although it's all just an excuse for gore and violence. The animal stuff is kept to a minimum thankfully, but that would be remedied in Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, a truly nauseating exercise without any redeeming features.

The goriest part of this film is reserved for Me Me, who is rewarded for leaving the tribe by being served up with a bat confit, grub ganache, native drool foam, bamboo tuille and a crocodile jus. This won the tribe Masterchef: Cannibals in 1977.

Jungle Holocaust opens with some beautiful shots of a small aircraft flying over a seemingly endless jungle. The four people on the plane are going to the middle of said jungle to check up on a mining crew one of them sent out there. When they get there the camp is of course empty, and all that they find of the inhabitants is a heavily decomposed head. They end up having to stay the night in the plane because the pilot, understandably, will not fly over the jungle in the dark. At this point their situation goes from bad to worse as they have to deal with getting separated, a tribe of natives who just happen to be cannibals, being lost, and being far out of their element.

The movie centers around Robert Harper (Mossimo Foschi) and his ordeals with the cannibals and the jungle in his struggle to get home. The character development is a highlight as the events take their toll on Robert's psyche. He becomes more savage, animal like, and at times it seems, insane. Actor Mossimo Foschi does a very good job portraying all of this, by the way. Actress Me Me Lai is never clothed, a plus in my book, and performs well, though her obviously fake breasts do detract from the believability as she is supposed to be playing a native.

There isn't much gore but some of what there is can get a bit strong. Some will find a scene with a crocodile particularly hard to watch.

Overall Jungle Holocaust is one of the best of the Italian Cannibal genre and is oddly uplifting for this kind of film. Highly recommended.

A plane full of annoying oil hunters crash their plane deep in a jungle and almost immediately the non-Caucasian members of the expedition are caught and devoured by a band of revolting cannibal natives, leaving the smart, sensible survivalist Ralph stranded with the weenie, whiny, panicky dolt Robert, who gets them completely lost within minutes. They manage to construct a remarkably sturdy raft that is almost instantly crashed into some rocks. The duo is separated and Robert eats some mushrooms that make him vomit, and then he is captured by the always-naked, mostly male cannibal tribe. They tie him up, rip off his clothes, and tug at his genitals. There is more male frontal nudity in this than at a pool party at James Whale's house.

There is, of course, one beautiful female native with no body hair and breast implants who falls for Robert- although not until after he ties her up, leads her around on a leash like a dog, and beats the snot out of her. This is a pretty detestable movie.

The print I watched was called "Last Cannibal World" and it seemed to have all the good bits (the gore and sex, that is) cut out. The tons of cruelty-to-animals (not as much fun as cruelty-to-humans) and the offensive male-female relationship result in a non-extraordinary cannibal movie devoid of any likability. I was never bored, though, and there are lots of scenes of that pathetic blockhead Robert getting humiliated. He's peed on, gets rotten vegetables thrown on him, and it tied up and swung around on a rope because they think he's a bird. And, according to some text at the beginning of the flick, it's all true!