La Montagne du dieu cannibale

I can't figure out why these late 1970s, Italian cannibal adventures intrigue me so much. I always get disgusted when they kill animals for the sake of a stupid movie, and yet time and time again, I'm drawn to movies like SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD, which, in this case, I saw under its uncut European version, MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD. I had thought that with big names like Ursulla Andres and Stacey Keach involved, this one would be at least a little cleaner than CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, the most notorious of the genre.

As another of those "movies we love to hate", I recommend this one if it's easily accessible. Fans of Andres will enjoy seeing her naked, of course. As a jungle adventure, it succeeds and the occasional gore makes it that much more intense. Scenes of humans bleeding are faked, but as is often the case, the scenes of animals (i.e. a monitor lizard) bleeding are way too authentic. I don't advise eating spagheti while watching this story of some lady seeking her missing husband in a dense jungle, and stumbling upon "The Puka", a group of cannibals (one of which is a dwarf; added for comic relief).

Exploitative Cannibal movie is filled with some genuine fright , horror and doom. A woman named Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) and her brother Arthur (Antonio Marsina) get off a plane in Papua New Guinea, looking for her missing husband . As they fly to New Guinea to look for a lost expedition, they team up with Dr. Edward Foster (Stacy Keach) to find her husband which has vanished in the great jungle . Subsequently , they reveal the horrible truth behind his disappearance . Then they're trapped by a barbaric , evil tribe of cannibals are not left to the imagination and subjected to further torture and humiliation . When the price of lust is death..! Filmed in the savage and unexplored jungle .Their cult was death...their lust was blood !.

¨Slave of the Cannibal God¨ turns out to be a really gory film with full of nudism , cruel indigenous cannibalistic tribes , lots of gratuitous animal cruelty, resulting in one the most savage and brutal tales in modern history along with Ultimo Mondo Cannibale (1977) also titled Jungle Holocaust or The last Survivor and of course the classic¨Holocaust Cannibal¨ by Ruggero Deodato , the latter deemed to be the most controversial movie of all-time and the mother of all cannibal films. A sinister and disturbing flick that goes on growing more and more and developing little by little until the predictable finale. A typical cannibal film that went on a sub-genre about a familiar theme in the Seventies , the cannibalism , a script full of shocks , scary happenings and screams in which is disembowelled internal organs , pulling out guts , and while the native warriors eating loathing in front of the prisoners who watch the whole thing . It's an average semi-documentary flick by adding several animal scenes with much stock-footage , including excitement enough , filled with sleaziness and non-sense of style . Despite exploitation style , short budget and poor dubbing , this is more interesting film that its schlock-horror and subject matter might suggest. ¨La montagna del dio cannibale¨(1978) is really a brutal yarn with full of graphic killings , iguana getting eviscerated , body dismemberment, sexual violence , disfigured people , grisly murders by means of slashing , ripping to death , killings in cold blood executed by ominous cannibals, loathsome and lots of blood and gore . A mysoginist movie with plenty of nudism , sadistic frames , explicit scenes of violence and extremely violent style and no for squeamish . ¨La montagna del dio cannibale¨ displays passable special effects , with special mention for the really disturbing scenes of chopping, beheading , stomach ripped out , actual animal slaughters and other cannibalistic frames .

It contains a creepy and eerie musical score by Guido De Angelis, Maurizio De Angelis . Along with an atmospheric and colorful cinematography by Giancarlo Ferrando , shot on location in Royal Botanical Gardens, Sri Lanka, Peradeniya, Kandy District, Central Province, Sri Lanka, Rainforest , Malaysia and Centro Safa Palatino, Piazza dei Santi Giovanni Rome, Lazio, Italy. This was one of the most grueling films ever made , being original but regularly made by Sergio Martino which remains his most successful horror film . Prolific filmmaker Sergio Martino usually uses pseudonym as Martin Dolman . Talented and versatile writer/director Sergio Martino has made a vast array of often solid and entertaining films in all kind of genres as horror , Giallo , comedy , Western , and science fiction in a career that spans over 40 years . He was especially expert on Western as proved in ¨Mannaja¨ and this ¨Arizona returns¨ , Giallo such as ¨The case of scorpion's tail ¨ , ¨Torso¨ ,¨the scorpion with two tails¨ , ¨The strange vice of Mrs Ward¨ , Cannibal movies such as "Mountain of the Cannibal God", Italian crime thrillers as "Violent Professionals" and ¨Sci-Fi as ¨Destroyer¨ , "2019: After the Fall of New York" . Rating: 5/10 , acceptable and passable , this is a so-so horror flick in which the camera stalks in adequate style throughout a story with decent visual skills . This is a bewildering and violent story , only for Cannibal sub-genre followers .

Of all the infamous Italian cannibal movies of the seventies and early eighties, this is the most tedious. They all include pointless depicting of animals killing animals - and people killing animals.

Of course, they also include people killing people, but whereas this, of course, is fake, the animal killings are for real. Not that nature's not cruel, but what's the point in including suffering monkeys, iguanas, snakes and turtles in the movies?

Most of the time, these scenes seem staged, and in this movie, it's very clear a monkey was thrown before a hungry boa, and there was probably even a rope tied to it, while throwing! At 23:31 into the uncut DVD, you can see that a very clear and sharp, green branch is added onto the film in the left of the frame afterwards, in order to cover something up.

If it isn't a rope, it's probably the arm of the one throwing the poor monkey to its certain death. The following scene, where the producers show close-ups of the monkey's face, in all its anguish, is almost unbearable, and adds, of course, nothing to the story, except a bitter aftertaste.

The music (by de Angelis & de Angelis) is beautiful, and watching the then 41-year-old Ursula Andress in the nude, all tied up, are this movie's highlights.

"Mountain of the Cannibal God" may disappoint those looking for a hardcore cannibal flick, but if you're willing to accept it as a jungle adventure with occasional doses of gore it works better. The production is colorful and polished; this movie really looks great on DVD. Sergio Martino does a solid job with the direction; apart from "Predator", I don't think I've seen a film with a better sense of place during its jungle scenes. The plot has a good build-up, and even attempts a couple of twists. Ursula Andress handles her physically demanding role well (no wonder the cannibals mistake her for a goddess; that's what Ursula is. And did anyone else find one of the cannibal girls that were painting her up quite hot?). Stacy Keach is a solid lead and has the best (and best-delivered) line in the film: "You never forget the taste of human flesh!". By the way, I watched a 97-minute version which was quite gory, but had some "extreme" scenes that others have mentioned (bestiality) missing. (**1/2)

Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) and her brother, Arthur (Antonio Marsina), travel to the jungles of New Guinea to search for a lost expedition, which included Susan's husband. They enlist the help of Edward Foster (Stacey Keach), an anthropologist, who has visited the area before and is certain that Susan's husband went to the supposedly cursed area known as Ra Ra Mea, on the island of Roka.

Sergio Martino's addition to the Italian cannibal sub-genre is a far more tame and forgettable movie than ‘Cannibal Holocaust' (1979) or ‘Cannibal Ferox' (1981). While featuring the numerous indignities that seemingly became mandatory amongst the sub-genre (such as castration, rape and real animal slaughter), ‘Mountain of the Cannibal God' is much less brutal and therefore less compelling. The plotline was dreadfully arranged which meant that all the supposed plot-twists were noticeable long before they even happened. Rather than be shocked or appalled by the depictions on-screen, it becomes far easier for the viewer to laugh at what is going on; a reaction that no good exploitation flick should produce. Having said that, the first thirty-five minutes or so were fairly entertaining and set the movie up nicely. The movie benefited from some surprising and effective moments, as well as many well-executed (but basic) effects. Unfortunately, scripting and pacing problems meant that ‘Mountain of the Cannibal God' started to become fairly dull shortly afterwards; something that no degree of `shock treatment' was able to fix.

The performances from the cast in ‘Mountain of the Cannibal God' are possibly the best of the Italian cannibal sub-genre. Veterans Stacey Keach and Ursula Andress (ex-Bond girl) were certainly the crème de la crème of the cast as they both offered dramatic and convincing performances. Ursula managed to portray the sexiness of her character (despite being over 40 at the time) very well which certainly allowed the movie to gain in some respects from the multiple nude scenes in which she was involved. However, nudity as we know does not make a good movie. Claudio Cassinelli also gave a pleasing performance in his role as jungle-wise Manolo. The only bad performance was that of Antonio Marsina who came across as monotonous and unmotivated. His performance was less than aided by the terrible scripting for his character. Although the character of Arthur was obviously meant to come across as an annoyance, he became too annoying and thus made all scenes in which he was involved almost too painful to watch. One could be forgiven for wishing that Arthur had been killed at the beginning of the movie.

For all the movies faults there were some pleasantly entertaining scenes scattered about and although the viewer may be put off by the constant dragging, the later scenes can be somewhat of an enjoyable experience. The more basic effects were usually of a good standard but some of the advanced effects later in the movie fell very short and were thoroughly unconvincing. Fans of exploitation flicks should be partially impressed with ‘Mountain of the Cannibal God' but will be very unfulfilled if they expect another ‘Cannibal Holocaust' or ‘Cannibal Ferox'. This movie is worth watching once, but I doubt many would deem it worthy of multiple viewings. My rating for ‘Mountain of the Cannibal God' – 5.5/10.