Mundo Canibal

This, Umberto Lenzi´s first cannibal movie, is by far the best of the three he made. Not as gory as Eaten Alive or Cannibal Ferox (well, is any movie really as gory?), but with a better plot and acting. Ivan Rassimov, who is awful in Eaten Alive, is really not bad in this one. Actually, cannibals are really not that important to the plot. This appears to be more of a "Man called Horse" rip-off, Rassimov is captured by some tribe somewhere in Asia and has to go through some harrowing tests to be accepted, later he encounters some cannibals. I don´t recall seeing a better directed Lenzi film, although if you´ve seen a few of his films you´ll know this ain´t no masterpiece. I read in an interview that this is his favorite of the three cannibal flicks he made. Unfortunately there is a bit much real life animal cruelty, which will upset some. Nice score, though.

Deep River Savages represents Umberto Lenzi's first steps in the notorious field of cannibalism and jungle adventure movies. This infamous director will gross out entire audiences during the early 80's, with vicious cult flicks like `Cannibal Ferox'; `Eaten Alive by the Cannibals' and `Nightmare City'. This film is more like a pioneer and Lenzi carefully explores the primitive jungle communities and their traditional rites. Deep River Savages isn't half as gross as the title and DVD-cover leads you to believe and it basically is a social portrait mixed with an authentic love-story! …Believe it or not! Actually…the best way to describe this film is: Dances with Wolves…with cannibals! The plots of both movies are pretty much alike, the only differences are the setting and the fact Kevin Costner's film is praised all over the world while nobody has ever heard of Deep River Savages. John – an Englishman – is traveling across Eastern Asia when he gets mixed up in a bar-fight. He accidentally kills a man and flees on one of the many unknown rivers. He ends up as a prisoner in primitive tribe, somewhere deep in the jungle. The aboriginals actually form a rather joyful community! They spend their days watching animal-fights (roosters and snakes versus martens) and swimming naked. Our ‘civilized' friend is tortured at first and he attempts to escape. But, pretty soon he falls in love with the local beauty (Me Me Lai – who looks even better here than she did in Deodato's Jungle Holocaust) and marries her. John feels at home there now and he even helps the tribe in fighting the sadistic enemy-tribe from the across the river.

The film contains very few action sequences and is overall pretty boring. I don't blame Lenzi for this, though. Even though I prefer his later splatter films, you have to keep in mind this movie was made in 1972! Deep River Savages also looks very cheap, amateurish and the cinematography isn't anywhere near as stunning as in other cannibal films. The whole movie depends on Me Me Lai's beautiful naked body and the short (but action-packed) climax. Nonetheless, it stays recommended to Italian horror-admirers who're interested in the roots of `Savage Cinema'.

This was the first of the 6 major Italian Cannibal flicks of the 70's, (and early 80's). And it isn't that bad at all. It has a quite good story, and the acting is suprisingly good. The love story is a little far-fetched, but the film itself is quite enjoyable, except, once again for the real animal deaths.

Not as good as either of Deodato's, but certainly better than Eaten Alive, Cannibal Apocalypse, or Trap Them and Kill Them.

Ivan Rassimov plays American photographer John Bradley, on vacation in Thailand. He and his guide end up deep in the jungle, where he is abducted by a primitive tribe. They put him into a variety of tortures and trials, until finally accepting him as one of their own. He finds adjusting to this new life to be surprisingly agreeable, especially when he becomes smitten with Maraya (Me Me Lai), the lovely daughter of the tribes' leader.

Considered to the vanguard film in that jungle / cannibal genre popularized by the Italians, this is definitely a trail blazer, but people who've already seen more famous entries in the genre may be caught off guard with this one. It's more of a straight drama (heavily influenced by Elliot Silversteins' Western "A Man Called Horse") with touches of horror than a body munching / body count / exploitation feature. In reality, despite the presence of a hostile cannibal tribe in the film, only one person ever gets turned into a feast.

"Sacrifice!", a.k.a. "The Man from the Deep River", isn't without its gory pleasures, however. It benefits from excellent location shooting and utterly convincing local color. It's wonderfully shot, and scored, and is overall quite appealing and engaging. It's not to all tastes, though, because it includes some brief moments of animal cruelty that will turn off some members of the audience. This, of course, has only become one of the elements that recurs throughout many an Italian jungle adventure.

Rassimov is good as the hero. The intoxicatingly gorgeous Me Me Lai, who went on to appear in "Jungle Holocaust" and "Eaten Alive!" as well, is very easy to watch. (Viewers should be quite content with the amount of female nudity that is present.) The other performances are quite effective.

This is as good a story of both the beauty and savagery of nature as one could see.

Eight out of 10.

Though this made it onto the Video Nasties list when it was released and classified as a horror film I must admit to finding little horror in it at all. It is more of a drama, with gore, about a photographer in the Thailand jungle who is captured and subsequently brought into the tribe where he has to marry the chief's daughter to stay alive.

It also isn't a bad movie...

The major trouble with the film is that it's all staged, which means the scene's of animal cruelty are real. With other films of this ilk, most of the cruelty scene's were filmed by a third party for documentary reasons, though added to the movies for entertainment; you can usually notice the difference in film quality. So the cockfight and the snake vs mongoose are real, though I'm unsure at to the decapitation of the monkey skull so they eat the brains, as there is a cut which may indicate they changed out for special effects - one can always hope.

However, at the heart of the film is the change in John Bradley's (Ivan Rassimov) character from being a captive to a reluctant member of the tribe to a fully fledged tribe member, thrown into the mix is the love story between himself and Maraya (Me Me Lai).

It's not a fantastic film though Umberto Lenzi directs nicely, though I think the steady pace is a little too slow at times. It is beautifully filmed and I like that Lenzi filmed it in vivid colour and resisted making it more grimy and gritty. However, this beauty has a downside some of the sets are too clean and structured, not what you would expect to find in the middle of a jungle. The actors aren't too bad either and do a respectful job of bringing the tribe to life and showing their traditions and day to day living habits.

I really wouldn't recommend anybody to watch the film as it falls between the gaps trying to please everybody. For example, for an adventure, it's too slow so if you like adventure films you may not like this. The love story, which is more suited to this pace, at times could have made a decent "chick-flick" in its own right, though I don't think lovers of this style of film would enjoy the torture and cruelty aspects of the adventure.