Le Dernier Monde cannibale

JUNGLE HOLOCAUST is a brutal, no-holds-barred early entry in the bizarre cannibal subgenre of the seventies and early eighties. It's shocking, violent, immoral, sleazy and exploitive. In other words, it delivers.

I can't defend this movie from an ethical standpoint. Even the observation that the live animal slaughter (which is fairly minimal here) is committed by people who apparently were members of a real tribe of primitives, as part of their daily routine doesn't change the fact that it was shot for purely sensational purposes. But it is undeniably intense, suspenseful and creepy.

A plane lands in the Amazon wilds while searching for a couple of lost explorers. The people in the plane wander off a little too far and become separated. The movie then follows one of them, who is captured by a tribe of cannibals and kept prisoner for months. He finally manages to escape and kidnaps a young, beautiful female member of the tribe to use as a guide.

The movie has a gritty realism to it that makes it play almost like a documentary. It captures the gradual transformation of the character from a "civilized" man to a grunting "savage" extremely well, although a scene in which he wins over his female companion by raping her is a little over-the-top, to say the least.

The midsection of the movie is almost entirely devoid of dialog, so the atrocious dubbing is confined mostly to the first and last sequences. Overall, it's a very well-made and unsettling thriller, although it would have been far more suspenseful had there not been a disclaimer at the beginning saying the main character survived to tell his story.

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

A four-headed team clumsily ends up stuck in a jungle. Pretty soon, two of them die (rather clumsy again) while savage aborigines are chasing the other two males. The duo depletes one last time when one of them disappears during a wild-river flow …does it have to be said…clumsy! The supposedly last cannibal tribe on earth imprisons the one man left, named Robert. They don't start cooking him just yet, but fool around with him a little, first. He escapes and takes a local girl with him, who serves the role of beautiful hostage. However, the journey through the undiscovered jungle is hard, long and full of surprises.

Ruggero Deodato's general rehearsal before unleashing the notorious `Cannibal Holocaust' upon the world is an explicit horror film, but not as shocking or repulsive as its successor. This film merely serves as an old-fashioned adventure-movie, there were Cannibal Holocaust is a severely shocking ethical portrait. If you ignore all the illogicalness of this film, you'll have yourself a good time. That's a fact. It's a rough and straight-to-the-point horror production with more than enough footage to keep you entertained…although a lot depends on your definition of entertainment, of course. Italian horror standards stand throughout the whole film: gore, sleaze and cruelty! Since so many things are happening during the first 20 minutes of `Jungle Holocaust', the film tends to get tedious after a while…or so you would think! Surprisingly enough, there still are more than enough adrenalin-filled sequences that keep you alert and – and this really is positive in my book – Deodato gives an excellent portrayal of how someone is unintentionally driven into complete madness and a total loss of realism. Jungle Holocaust contains quite a lot of animal cruelty, which can be regarded as offensive by Italian horror-haters. The crocodile-dissection easily equals the vicious tortoise slaughtering in `Cannibal Holocaust'. The cannibals themselves are some of the wickedest I ever saw and they seem to follow some bizarre rituals, too. They show an unusual interest for male nudity and they don't seem to worry too much about controversial handlings such as murdering an infant (pretty disturbing sequence that was). They do bring forward beautiful women, as Me Me Lai is the sexiest native girl I ever saw. Jungle Holocaust is essential viewing for Italian horror/sleaze fans. Not as memorable as `Holocaust' or `Ferox'…but certainly worth your time.

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.

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.