Schiave bianche - Violenza in Amazzonia

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.

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.

not a bad example of the italian cannibal genre. has many of the standard exploitation requirements, naked girls and violence, though lacks in the actual human consumption department as this tribe consists of head hunters not cannibals. still plenty of gore and a nice musical score . The voice over narration can get annoyingly obvious( as in it states what is happening on screen, or the characters reaction to what they are seeing)but this is a minor flaw

overall, quite entertaining.

I have just watched this for the first time, I started watching thinking oh no, another Cannibal Holocaust wannabe, with it's VERY similar music and opening titles.

Fortunatly the whole central section of the movie is totally different, apart from the obvious facts of being set in the Amazon.

It's actually quite a well written (for the genre) tale of a girl who is dragged into the Amazon and lives with a tried there.

There is a lot of nudity but for the more part it doesn't feel gratuitous but rather just what you would expect.

There is some blood and some sexual situations but mostly not 'too' exploitationary.

On the whole this is a film I think I'd like to watch again, although it's not without it's faults which include the dubbing and some VERY gratuitous animal stock footage.

There are some interesting twists and turns in the movie too which makes a change, and no HUGE leaps of logic plot-wise. It also makes a far better point about western man being the real cannibals, far better than Cannibal Holocaust.

6/10