Mondo cannibale

Leave it to Bruno Mattei to hit the cannibal subgenre 20 years after its highpoint. This entry, filmed as CANNIBAL WORLD, shows that he still has that special touch to make xerox cinema as this is almost a scene by scene remake of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. Reporter Grace Forsyte heads into the Amazon jungle with Bob Manson and their crew to capture images of cannibalism for the TVN Network. Naturally, the civilized people end up being the savages as they burn down a village and kill natives to stage entertaining television. Intercut with the jungle adventures are the arguments of two TV execs, one who loves the ratings bonanza footage and the other who loathes it. In case you forgot the point, the dissenting executive turns directly to the camera and asks, "I wonder who the real cannibals are." Bruno hits all of the CH main points from the "stop smirking" bit to the rape scene. Unfortunately, he also felt it necessary to include a real animal killing as well. Also on the downside, the characters are never consistent in their views. One minute Bob is chastising Grace for being exploitive and the next he is going hog wild in the staging of a burning village. The same thing happens with Grace. Ah, whatever. The movie is gory and has nudity. Plus, Mattei shows he still has a knack for making the funniest dubbed dialogue. Filmed on location in the Phillipines.

A "modern" remake of Cannibal Holocaust on a $5 budget. This is one of Bruno's more watchable features. Sure, its awful. Its cheap and sleazy and poorly dubbed. But I will be honest: this is a better Cannibal film than the disappointing big budgeted Hollywood shot Green Inferno. This is even more watchable than Make Them Die Slowly. Its pure garbage but it delivers on the gore. Bruno has many unwatchable pieces of celluloid trash but this one is up there w his very best. If you want something "good" in the traditional sense... steer clear. If you want good old shoe-string-gory-cheap-ass-trash then this is as good as it gets as far as a jungle cannibal gut-muncher goes. Its laughable as far as production values go but the gore is plentiful and you WILL be entertained!

Mondo Cannibal (2004)

1/2 (out of 4)

A once famous reporter (Helena Wagner) finds herself fired from her show because of sinking ratings so she decides to hire former hotshot host (Claudio Morales) to go into the Amazon with her to search for cannibals. The plan is to send the footage back to the studio as they shoot and when it becomes a hit and ratings go up, they decide to add more blood and guts.

MONDO CANNIBAL was one of two cannibal films that director Bruno Mattei made during this comeback before his death in 2007. This film has been released under countless titles including CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST 2 but it's certainly not a sequel. If you're familiar with Mattei then you know there really wasn't an original bone in his body because he often just ripped off other movies scene for scene or in some cases he just takes actual footage from other movies and tries to pass it off as his own. This here is pretty much a remake of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST but it's certainly one of the worst the genre has ever seen.

This here was an ultra low-budget movie but that doesn't excuse how awful it actually is. Even at just 95-minutes the film seems to last longer than ROOTS because there's just so much dead weight. The story itself is quite stupid and whatever political message Mattei tries to get across is just pointless. The biggest problem is that the film is dead boring from the opening credits until the very end. I'm really not sure what Mattei was going for but to say this film is completely worthless couldn't be too harsh. The acting is pretty poor, although it's hard to tell too much about it considering how awful the dubbing is. Even worse are some mistakes by the filmmakers including a title card early on that's meant to say "months" but instead says "mouths."

The only thing that keeps MONDO CANNIBAL from getting a BOMB rating is the fact that it's quite gory and features practical effects and not CGI. I will applaud Mattei for adding this but it's too bad he didn't live long enough to do a commentary or give an interview about the film. I'd love to know what he was thinking while making this thing and even after all the controversy from those Italian cannibal pictures that feature real animal

Released and promoted in some countries as "Cannibal Holocaust 2: The Beginning", this really isn't a sequel (or prequel) to Ruggero Deodato's legendary exploitation-classic, but more like a shameless and unscrupulous imitation with absolutely no new ideas or innovating concepts to add to the original . The screenplay is almost an exact copy of CH, with a group of power-horny TV people supposedly descending into the Amazon jungle to shoot a documentary about the lives of the last remaining genuine cannibal tribes. The crew, led by the reputedly unrelenting anchorwoman Grace Forsythe, very well knows they'll only get high viewer ratings when they serve their audiences copious amounts of action, bloodshed and repulsive images, and realize their show will be canceled and their careers will be finished if the jungle adventure doesn't turn out to be a success. So when the natives behave a little too tame and peaceful, Grace & C° see it as their own normal duty to burn down villages, kill defenseless villagers, poach innocent animals and rape the local virgins themselves, all for for the sake of sensational TV-making. Also, in good old-fashioned Cannibal Holocaust style, there's one remotely human TV-executive among the bunch who condemns the sick footage and even turns straight to the camera to raise the classic debate "I wonder who the real cannibals are?". Needless to say the beastly film crew eventually gets what they deserve, when they encounter the feared community of the Invisibles; a very primitive and downright savage tribe of which the members clearly aren't interested in a TV-career. It's rather difficult to judge Bruno Mattei's "Cannibal World". It's a thoroughly unoriginal, repetitive film and it nearly doesn't feature the same raw & shocking atmosphere of its Italian ancestors of the early 80's. Being entirely shot with modern video techniques, "Cannibal World" looks too clean and obviously fake whereas the old cannibal films literally dropped you in the middle of the jungle along with the characters. On the other hand, I can't help feeling more or less obliged to appreciate this film, just because it attempts to bring back the relentless heyday of Italian exploitation cinema! After all, you got to have some respect for writer/director Bruno Mattei! The man has passed the age of 70 and yet he's the last of the old guard of Italian horror directors who still has the courage to travel towards the Philipinian jungles and shoot a film with inexperienced actors and limited financial means. That alone deserves the respect of every person who ever showed interest in Italian horror cinema. Moreover, "Cannibal World" is literally stuffed with nasty gimmicks, gory massacres and super-sleazy footage. Fans of explicit disembowelment certainly won't be disappointed, as we extendedly get to see the intestines of nearly every character who walks through the screen. The unknown Helena Wagner is rather terrific as the grade-A bitch Grace and the unearthly beautiful Cindy Jelic Matic provides the slower parts of the film with essential nudity. All together, I personally think us vintage exploitation-fans owe Bruno Mattei a big and sincere "Thank You".

I found the DVD at a flea market, i immediately bought it after i saw that it was a film from Bruno Mattei (well, he used the pseudonym Vincent Dawn, but i noticed that). Homewhever, i knew that this was going to be a movie in the same vein as Cannibal Holocaust.....but i didn't expected that it was going to be some kind of remake, even some of the dialogs where the same as Cannibal Holocaust ("The only thing that can scare me ? the marriage !" or something like that). Shot on digital, probably the worst digital that i saw, it looks like a Mexican soap opera. The plot is "slightly" different from Cannibal Holocaust (for some reasons it reminds me of "Cut and Run" also): Grace Forsyte lost some of her audience for her TV show, for get some audience back, she hires the war reporter Bob Manson. The Crew goes to the amazon in search of the cannibals, many situations will resemble Cannibal Holocaust, but unlike Cannibal Holocaust, there is no "real" animal cruelty. At least there are gore scenes and nudity for make this movie watchable (in my taste).