Ultime grida dalla savana

SAVAGE MAN SAVAGE BEAST is yet another mondo death porn film from the "golden age" of such films. Once again, a narrator drones on as animals are killed in various ways in various parts of the world.

A monkey is crushed by a python. Aborigines hunt kangaroos with spears and boomerangs. Natives kill elephants and water buffalo. A British foxhunt is shown. Indeed, animals of all kinds are slaughtered by land, sea, and air.

Tribal rituals such as "Earth impregnation" and cannibalism are also examined.

The naked hippies are a hoot with their free-loving animal husbandry and drug-addled protest. We're treated to these fuzzy folks as they breastfeed lambs and give a whole new meaning to "outside restroom".

"Documentaries" like this hold a strange fascination for a certain audience. Pretty much for the same reason that we've historically gawked at accidents or carnival freak shows.

If you enjoy shock films from yesteryear, then you'll probably love this one...

Savage Man...Savage Beast (1975)

** (out of 4)

Italian Mondo movie has all that you'd expect from a film like this. This "documentary" shows everything from cannibals to animal killings to hippies cleaning themselves at an outdoor event. If you're an animal lover then it goes without saying that you should skip this film because all sorts of animals are show being killed and slaughtered. Some of these are animal on animal attacks but there's a lot of footage of men hunting down the animals and killing them. The most outrageous scene comes from an African tribe who believe they must have sex with the ground in order to get the grass to grow. Seeing twenty some men drilling holes in the ground and then having sex with it is something I really didn't need to see. This film isn't a well made movie but it's remains slightly interesting just by seeing these different cultures.

Guys let's not get carried away here! There are no human death scenes in this, or any Faces of Death for that matter. It's all staged, and all psychological.

They show you a dead body in a morgue,or real animals getting brutally killed. Then show you a guy getting shot by executioners (not in this film,in one of the Faces of Death and I'm just using as an example only),a guy hit by a train, or a guy mauled by lions. Because you saw the real dead body you think every thing else is real. People see these films usually very young, and grow up believing they are real. They are not. There is no debate as others here have stated.

However if you have never seen one of these film, think very long and hard about how much you really do. Even though the human deaths are fake these films are still very unsettling, and you can not unwatch it. It will be with you for the rest of your life, and you will be affected by them.

Mostly lame Mondo about man's relationship with nature and animals, might have been more shocking in the 1970s, but now it seems like various outtakes leftover from a few National Geographic specials.

Tribesmen on the hunt in footage showing real animal death juxtaposed with hippie shenanigans was both repulsive and silly. Tourist being mauled by lions in Angola was fake, but at least it was better staged than the similar scene in Faces Of Death.

A curious vignette allegedly in Burundi mentions a tribe called Niamey , and a pair of brothers named Kano and Naro Kabila- which is odd, because Niamey is in Niger, and Kabila has roots in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not Burundi.

The narrator in Faces Of Death was silly and largely false, but at least he was more charismatic and amusing than the dry, flat, monotone narrator heard here.

These are the adventures of Edward Mannix. Whether he be a South American hunter with a fake Spanish accent or various other ethnic groups with equally fake accents, they're all just voice actor Edward Mannix and not "real" interviews with "real" people.

This is like a Mutual of Omaha video gone horribly wrong. This film consists of fake footage mixed in with a little bit of real footage. What makes it so amusing is the cartoonish dubbing and sound FX added in. Seriously, every time a weapon is thrown it's like a 'Woody Woodpecker' cartoon.

Much of the fake footage doesn't even have anything to do with hunting or animal attacks. Such as naked hippies, a group of Frenchmen defecating in the woods, and dozens of Africans humping the soil, literally! It's explained how this is a tribal ritual as they believe their sperm will fertilize the soil. With this many black men humping it's like watching a Sarah Vandella porno without Sarah Vandella. It might be a little more convincing that this is an actual ritual and not just done for pure exploitation if all the tribesmen weren't voiced by Edward Mannix!

There's also plenty of fake footage of Africans masturbating into a river. This is done with extreme close ups and in slow motion directed like a porno complete with close up shots of their cxx faces.

The funniest scenes by far are the fake animal attacks. The best being the lion mauling of a tourist. The lions actually take his 8mm camera away as a prize. As with all mondo films this "real" footage consists of multiple camera angles, and close ups of the victim's distraught family. It's side splitting how fake it is.

Some morons such as the writer of the IMDb summary actually defend it as "real." There are not enough drugs on earth to make one believe this footage is "real." No one could actually believe such a thing.

Next it's mercenaries waging a war against native tribes. Their fake costumes consist of glued on thick eyebrows and mustaches that look like Groucho Marx masks without the glasses. Once again, they're all just Edward Mannix shouting in Spanish. Comically Mannix just shouts the same two words over and over, "andale" and "arriba." So apparently Mannix only studied Spanish from Speedy Gonzales cartoons?

In conclusion, I've never been a fan of mondo cane films but this one has some great laughs. If you enjoy silly exploitation films this is worth a watch.