O Último Mundo dos Canibais

Ruggero Deodato's name is forever linked with the cannibal movie genre mostly because of his infamous 'Cannibal Holocaust', a movie which I've yet to see uncut. 'The Last Cannibal World' (aka 'Jungle Holocaust') was his first cannibal movie, and isn't as well known or talked about. If you don't take it too seriously, and don't object too much to the gratuitous animal slaughter, it's sleazy, trashy entertainment. Deodato by the way didn't start this movie cycle, Umberto Lenzi did, but Lenzi later recycled some Deodato footage, and cast Ivan Rassimov and Me Me Lai in his 'Eaten Alive'. Anyway, Massimo Foschi plays an American, Robert Walker. The plane he and his colleague Rolf (Rassimov) are traveling on crashes and they get separated in the jungle. I forget where the setting was supposed to be. It doesn't really matter as these cannibal movies are fantasies with no basis in reality. They usually film them in the Philippines and get the locals to wear dirty wigs and ham it up, which is alright by me if it's alright with them. It's a living, right? Walker gets caught by a primitive cannibal tribe, who tie him up, rip his clothes off and play with his penis. Maybe they are impressed, I don't know, but instead of eating him they imprison him. He witness all kinds freaky stuff while caged, but eventually escapes and takes Pulan, a beautiful local girl, as a hostage (Me Me Lai, also in Lenzi's 'Man From Deep River', made before this, and his 'Eaten Alive', made after). Their relationship is difficult to fathom and depends a lot on which cut of this movie you see. Walker is eventually reunited with his old pal Rolf and then decides to kick some cannibal butt. Really the plot is slim, and who cares? This is just an excuse to see lots of gross stuff and Me Me Lai's breasts. If I was forced to defend this type of movie I really couldn't, but hey, I enjoyed it while it lasted. My favourite cannibal movie is still Sergio Martino's unfairly dismissed 'Mountain Of The Cannibal God', starring Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach, which was released the year after this. It isn't as hardcore as the Lenzi and Deodato movies but it's lots of fun.

I saw this one again after not seeing it for 6-7 years and I must say it`s still my number one outdoors\jungle movie. It plays out like a mix of Indiana Jones type adveture, the intrapment of "deliverance", the real violence of "Faces of death 1-4" and the make-up effects of Lucio Fulci`s films.

ITALY AND REALITY The Italians are experts in making movies without rules. I mean in Hollywood for instance thy obey different rules because they are afraid movies will not sell, or they need an R- rating. All this ruins the art in movies. If you are setting out like Deodato is in this movie to make a movie about cannibals, you need scenes of people getting eaten or killed in different ways, and of course an explenation to why. This movie contains both.

ANIMAL CRUELTY I did not enjoy the animal cruelty, but who did. Ruggero Deodato disliked these parts too. They were filmed after the movie was made by the producer and a little crew. They threw small animals like bats on to python`s and filmed the fight and then finished it of by placing terrible sound effect`s over the "action" to give it an even stranger feel.

EMOTIONAL Apart from the animal crulety though, I love the film. It is very well made. The film manages to be cruel and savage in scenes and then suddenly go over to scenes that almost made me cry. It packs lot`s of emotion and depth. And as mentioned before, is very bold in portraying the violence as harsh as in real-life. Im talking about the special-effects not the animal cruelty off course.

TRUE EVENTS The movie is based upon true event`s and this notion really add to the terror and emotional termoil I felt watching it again after so many years. I have had it on video uncut for several years, and finally I found it on DVD from Shreak-show uncut with interviews and trailers.

WHO IS IT FOR? Well it is definitly not for anyone. I see from reviews on IMDB that many people watch this movie and want it to be a Hollywood-movie or something. Almost all the complaints by critics and users are about silly things we are used to from Hollywood. This is a low-budget movie shot in the jungle of Malaysia in harsch conditions. This is what made it authentic. Some people have seen so many fake-to-reality Hollywood-films they would not know reality if it bit their behinds. I am not a fan of cannibal-movies made in Hollywood, as they tend not to be about cannibal\native-life and more about the characters who are mostly american and pretty dull. So then. If you are a big Hollywood fan and don`t like realistic and real violence right up in your face don`t see it. But if you are bored\annoyed about Hollywood always showing you some kind of romantic escapade instead of telling the story(titanic-syndrome)and can stumack the violence -see it.

Score: 10 out of 10

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 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.

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.