Terreur cannibale

For years, Cannibal Terror was believed by many to be the work of horror/sleaze director Jess Franco, a reasonable assumption since the film bears what seem to be most of the prolific Spaniard's hallmarks, most notably a dreadful script, unconvincing locales, inept direction, terrible acting, and endless meandering shots of nothing much in particular (and I guess, for some, it was also hard to believe that there might be another person out there who could make films quite as bad as Franco).

The real culprit, however, was French director Alain Deruelle, who proves that he can be just as inept as Jess when it comes to delivering jungle horror.

Deruelle's dreadful film follows a trio bumbling kidnappers-two men and one woman-who escape across the border (to where, I have no idea!) with their hostage, the young daughter of a rich businessman. Arriving at a safe house that borders 'cannibal country', the threesome are able to relax for a while, until one of the gang, Mario, decides to rape the wife of their host (after spying on her having a wash in a giant wooden bucket). This kick starts a chain of events that results in the criminals and their hostage being pursued by bloodthirsty natives, with the father of the little girl in hot pursuit.

Taking a leaf out of Franco's Big Book of Cannibal Movie-Making, Deruelle opts to set his adventure in what appears to be a large botanical garden, hires himself some of the least convincing cannibals ever to grace an exploitation film (some have sideburns, many have coiffured hair, a few have beer-bellies, nearly all of them are Caucasion, but none of them look like savages), and throws in some cheapo blood and guts (using what looks like pig carcasses to stand in for human remains) in order to satisfy the gore-hounds.

The result is a mind-numbingly dull piece of Euro-sleaze that now shares top spot with Mondo Cannibale on my Crap Cannibal Movie list.

This is a total mess of a movie. A Spanish/French co-production, this was accredited to Jess Franco for a long time until the real culprit (a Spanish ex-actor by the name of Julio Tabacana) was revealed. However, the fact it shares cast/scenes/plot with Franco's THE CANNIBALS, which was released at a similar time, hints that his veiled hand may have been at work somewhere in the production. Other "Franco-isms" include looping stock sound track (in this case, the same bird call repeated ENDLESSLY) and long shots of characters doing absolutely nothing and wandering endlessly through the jungle.

Getting through this is an ordeal. The "natives" are clearly white in origin (possibly cast members?)- many of them have coiffured hair and beer guts, and the only thing to distinguish their cannibal nature are smatterings of paint on their flabby bodies. In some scenes they clearly can't hide their amusement at the "tribal rituals" they are involved in. Their "cannibal village" is quite obviously not in a jungle, as the lawn is neatly mowed and in some shots you can see a road in the background with vehicles parked on it. Adding insult to injury, the disembowelment scenes are all achieved by shamelessly swapping the victim's torso for that of an actual pig corpse wrapped in clothing. Seriously.

For the cannibal enthusiast only, this is painfully boring and inept. It is an insult to CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST that the films share a genre.

It's safe to say that cannibal films are an acquired taste, but I think it's safe to say that it is one that I have acquired. However, even I am struggling for good things to say about Cannibal Terror. The best cannibal films hail from Italy, so the fact that this one was a French and Spanish co-production may have something to do with its sub-par quality. The plot follows two would-be kidnappers who end up hiding out in a house near the jungle. However, when one of them rapes the home-owner's daughter, the bunch is left to the nearby cannibals. Cannibal Terror was one of the handful of cannibal films banned by the DPP back in the eighties. Indeed, there is some rather nasty gore on display; but it's nowhere near as gory as the best films that this genre has to offer, and the gore is hardly shocking as the whole production is so badly done. Director Alain Deruelle never manages to impose the jungle atmosphere on his audience, and the film feels like merely a rip off of better cannibal films. Needless to say, the plot doesn't really go anywhere and the overall effect is really rather dull. Overall, I can't recommend this film as the only reason for watching is that it was once banned! Avoid.

And this is the result of when you decide to make a cannibal movie in your own backyard. But I am getting ahead of myself here...

Of course I was not familiar with the 1980 French cannibal movie "Terreur Cannibale" (aka "Cannibal Terror") prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2024. And given the fact that it is a horror movie, more specifically a cannibal movie, that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a chance. However, I wasn't exactly harboring the biggest of expectations to the movie, given its age and premise.

I will say that the movie definitely starts out all chipper and cheerful, with that wonderful music, and thus setting what I assume is a false sense of calm, security and complacency within the viewers. But knowing that it is a cannibal-themed movie, of course we know that things are about to change at some point.

The storyline in the movie, as concocted by writers Jesús Franco, Julio Pérez Tabernero and H. L. Rostaine, fell short of entertaining me. It was not a particularly entertaining storyline, and the character gallery was flat and one-dimensional. Truth be told, I didn't care one bit about the characters, and the mediocre acting performances didn't exactly help to cement the characters as memorable.

Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. And while that is usually something I do enjoy when I watch a movie, I just didn't enjoy it in "Terreur Cannibale" as the performances were amateurish, wooden, rigid and devoid of emotion and commitment.

Sure, there were some gory scenes in the movie, but it was hardly sufficient to make up for the rest of movie, which was a terrible disappointment. But visually, then you're not in for anything grand here, should you opt to sit down and watch this movie. And as for the tribal native cannibals, well they didn't even look to be natives, they felt like random extras the film crew had hired off of the street, as they were a ragged band of mixed races, and the white guy with the muttonchops was the icing of the cake, as it was as far from being a jungle native as you could get.

Of course, the cannibal movies of the 1970s and 1980s weren't exactly cinematic masterpieces, but "Terreur Cannibale" was definitely in the lower end of the scale.

I would not recommend that you should waste 93 minutes of your life on watching this movie. Some of us did, so you don't have you; you're quite welcome.

My rating of directors Alain Deruelle, Olivier Mathot and Julio Pérez Tabernero's 1980 movie "Terreur Cannibale" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

I generally like movies that depict anything that is "non mainstream". And I even don't mind gross movies if they are done well.

But this movie is a huge disappointment - no real story, no building up any character or situation, extremely bad acting (a school play does far better), the shots were pathetic, the gross scenes were not necessary (nor were they shocking).

The close up in scenes is really bad, i think i even spotted a 'cannibal' with long stylish locks! Looks like the directors/producers paid no attention to the movie at all !

With this movie, I've decided to stop watching any more "cannibal" genre movie!