User reviews

White Slave starts off looking like it's going to be a really lame pastiche of Cannibal Holocaust, what with an opening montage of the Amazon set to ho-hum music imitating Riz Ortolani's famous score for that other film. And actually it stays lame for a fair while - but then it gets good! Amazon headhunters ambush the boat of some well-to-do white landowners and their daughter, who's back fresh from studying in London. They remove the heads of the parents and drag the daughter back to their village, where gradually (and after much gnashing of teeth by all concerned) she's absorbed into their tribal lifestyle - which never seems to involve any more headhunting for the rest of the film, but don't dwell on that.

The film makes sure to include a little bit from all of the major food groups of this horror subgenre: gore, hazardous jungle treks, badly graded stock footage of wildlife, animals stupidly killing each other for real, tribal warfare, cruel and probably entirely fictitious tribal customs and punishments meted out left, right and centre, and plenty of nudity. Interestingly, there's no cannibalism at all. While the first third of the film really seems to be going through the motions with these things, there's a whole bunch of plot from then onwards and dare I say a good degree of human warmth. Once Catherine is fully ensconced in the tribe, she deals with character rivalries, tribal customs and conflicting loyalties and emotions. There's some honour and romance at stake, plus a minor mystery to be dealt with and revenge to be had. White Slave mobilises from being an extremely by-the-numbers exploitation film to one with an involving story and human qualities you can get into. You still have to put up with one of the silliest court trials in the world (it's used as a framing device), but overall, I found this film to be a pleasant surprise.

Mario Gariazzo's "Amazonia:The Katherine Miles Story"(1986)is an Italian exploitation film set in the Amazon.Supposedly based on a true story it has plenty of gore,but no actual cannibalism.Elvire Audray plays an 18 years old girl abducted by native tribe and she is pretty terrible actress.Fortunately she is naked through most of the film,so fans of sleaze won't be disappointed.The gore is pretty good(there are numerous decapitation scenes,stabbings etc.)and the film has an obligatory animal cruelty scene.So if you're a fan of Italian exploitation cinema or cannibal sub-genre give this one a look-just don't expect another "Cannibal Holocaust"(1979).

Decent story about an eighteen year old student visiting her parents in the Amazon. On a cruise down the river her boat is attacked and her parents are beheaded as she is taken captive by the natives. As she tells the details of her captivity to a court while on trial for murder she provides the tales of strange tribal customs and barbarism. Told mockumentary style (ala Cannibal Holocaust), Slave is a halfway decent attempt to give a little narrative force to the ample nudity and rather tame violence. The photography is nice and the acting is passable but the court scenes are rather laughable because the prosecutor says some seriously stupid things. A good way to pass the time if you are into cannibal flicks or a fan of exploitation.

This Italian film with once again more alternative titles than actual dialogue is a mid-80's exploitation attempt by enthusiast director Mario Gariazzo, who obviously was deeply impressed by the work of his fellow Italian filmmakers Rugero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi. It's a supposedly true story (yeah…sure) about an 18-year-old girl who visits her parents' plantation in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Shortly after her arrival, her parents are brutally murdered and beheaded during a boat ride. The poor cutie is taken prisoner by a savage and primitive tribe. During two years, she's has to take part in traditional and barbaric rites of this tribe. She's sold to the richest man in town (price = one goat and a chicken), has to work and, eventually, she escapes with the head warrior she has fallen in love with.

Now, 'Amazonia' isn't a bad little flick but it tries to be so much bigger than it actually is. The entire production seems to shout out: 'Look, we're as good as Cannibal Holocaust!!!' The opening sequences, in which the beautiful jungle is shown guided by a great score, is an exact copy of Deodato's film and throughout the whole film, the same documentary style is used. The film could have done without these pretentious aspects. At his best, Amazonia is like a fairly reasonable crossover between Cannibal Holocaust and Umberto Lenzi's 'Deep River Savages' (in which an Englishman spends years among a primitive tribe in New-Guinea). It's not nearly as memorable as the majority of Italian sleaze classics and that's merely due to the atrocious acting of Elvire Audrey. There's some great gore and terrific authentic sleaze to enjoy, though.

A young woman seeks vengeance and finds love when her parents are killed in the Amazon and she is taken prisoner by an indigenous tribe of headhunters.

The "cannibal genre", if there is such a thing, is pretty strange. It seems to have only lasted a few years and only in Italian cinema. Two films are widely known ("Cannibal Ferox" and "Cannibal Holocaust") while the imitators are forgotten and hard to find. This is one of those, following some of the same themes -- animal violence, and the idea that white man is more dangerous than the native.

Nobody of note seems to have been involved in this. Director Mario Gariazzo is obscure, maybe known for "Bloody Hands of the Law" with Klaus Kinski, but i doubt it. The DP is Silvano Ippoliti, who had been active since 1949. But aside from a film with Tinto Brass, "Caligula", has anyone seen much of his work?

WHITE SLAVE has some decent elements and originality going for it. The story is about a girl who's lost in the jungle after her boat is attacked and her parents are killed. She ends up becoming part of a tribe because she has no choice and can't escape. One of the tribesman takes her as his wife, and he ends up being a pretty decent guy, as savage tribesman go...But she's having no parts of it because she believes it's his fault for the death of her parents. As she learns the tribal language, and her "husband" learns English, the lines of communication open up, and the death of her parents may not be what they seem... Definitely not as memorable as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or even CANNIBAL FEROX - but the twist in the story is a welcome change to an otherwise rather straight-forward genre. Not nearly heavy enough on the red stuff for most "gorehounds" tastes, but still worth a look. 7/10

I normally love watching cheap, bad films. But the acting in this one was one of the worst I have ever seen. Killer Klowns from Outer Space was Shakespeare's Hamlet compared to this film. I saw this as Cannibal Holocaust 2, and it was nothing compared to the original. Worst - It contains NO cannibalism! The plot is thin as a film could have. There is a "twist" at the end that is no surprise. Gore scenes are more fake than the older original. This is just a sad, sad attempt. Yes, some of the scenery is beautiful to see, but I got VERY tired of seeing the lead actress in the nude. (THAT'S just sad!) I don't spend time writing reviews of movies, but I HAD to for this one - it was that bad.

I have just watched this for the first time, I started watching thinking oh no, another Cannibal Holocaust wannabe, with it's VERY similar music and opening titles.

Fortunatly the whole central section of the movie is totally different, apart from the obvious facts of being set in the Amazon.

It's actually quite a well written (for the genre) tale of a girl who is dragged into the Amazon and lives with a tried there.

There is a lot of nudity but for the more part it doesn't feel gratuitous but rather just what you would expect.

There is some blood and some sexual situations but mostly not 'too' exploitationary.

On the whole this is a film I think I'd like to watch again, although it's not without it's faults which include the dubbing and some VERY gratuitous animal stock footage.

There are some interesting twists and turns in the movie too which makes a change, and no HUGE leaps of logic plot-wise. It also makes a far better point about western man being the real cannibals, far better than Cannibal Holocaust.

6/10

Despite it's shortcomings this film remains watch able because there's never a dull moment. A young woman and her parents are apparently attacked by Indians in the Amazon, the parents are butchered but their daughter (Elvire Audray) is taken alive as a trophy. This initial attack is sudden, unexpected and gorily shocking even in the censored version of the film. The rest of the film concentrates on the girl's ordeal in the Amazon Jungle where she suffers attempted rape and is ritually deflowered after it is discovered that she is still a virgin. She eventually falls in love with the head hunter who saved her from death when she finds out the truth behind her parents murder. This leads to an act of revenge and the story is framed by the girl's appearance in court on a double murder charge. The location photography is often stunning but the script is weak and the acting is barely competent throughout although the leading man (Alvaro Gonzales) has an imposing physical presence. A very fake crocodile attack and a fight during which one of the participants is suffocated with a handful of grass provide some unintentionally hilarious moments. The laughter ceases though when real scenes of animals preying on each other are served up as entertainment.

Although not technically a cannibal movie (the main tribe are 'head-hunters'; cannibals feature very briefly but no cannibalism is shown), Amazonia shares enough similarities with the infamous gut-munching gore classics of the 70s and 80s to be considered part of the genre.

Catherine Miles (Elvire Audray) is a beautiful 18-year old taken captive by a group of savages after her parents are killed on a river trip. Sold to a member of the tribe for the sum of 'a goose, a water-dog and a turtle', Catherine endures terrible suffering until she is helped by Umukai, a warrior who treats her with a bit of respect. After many months spurning Umukai, believing that he was the one who killed her mum and dad, she discovers that others were in fact responsible. Falling in love with her friendly native hunk, she convinces him to help her take revenge on those really responsible.

Amazonia is pretty close in theme to The Man From Deep River, Umberto Lenzi's classic from 1972, but doesn't quite match that one in terms of quality. However, with a fair amount of cheesy gore (several be-headings, blow-darts in the face, some bloody bullet wounds) and loads of female nudity (courtesy of Audray and the native women, some of whom are pretty foxy), fans of this kind of thing should find just about enough to enjoy in this flick to make it worth a watch.

not a bad example of the italian cannibal genre. has many of the standard exploitation requirements, naked girls and violence, though lacks in the actual human consumption department as this tribe consists of head hunters not cannibals. still plenty of gore and a nice musical score . The voice over narration can get annoyingly obvious( as in it states what is happening on screen, or the characters reaction to what they are seeing)but this is a minor flaw

overall, quite entertaining.

Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story aka Cannibal Holocaust 2: The Catherine Miles Story aka White Slave is a cheesy and sleazy dirty trip into the wonderland of Italian movies a la Cannibal Holocaust: naked women, blood thirsty cannibals, some violence, the jungle, a rather cheap production - so all necessary spices for the right kind of audience are here, all others, run as fast as you can ;)

This is basically another one of those cannibal/jungle movies. It's true this movie is nothing but gore and nudity, but that's all you should be expecting from this kind of movie.

A young girls parents are killed and decapitated (in a fairly gory scene) and she is taken prisoner by a group of headhunters. They strip her and trade her as a slave, so she spends the rest of the movie running through the jungle naked. Unlike a lot of these kinds of movies it actually does have a plot and it's supposedly 'based on a true story'. Definately worth a rental.

If you use words like "atrocious banal" then you probably will not like this movie.

I am surprised at the low score given to the movie, and can't really understand the cause. has it been due to it being against the racial stereotype ?

My score would be about 7.5* despite not having a fairy tale ending. But being true life (supposed to be), it couldn't have one.

The movie, as the story goes, somehow brings more positives in the uncivilised pagans than in the civilised sect. They had their set of laws- some of them might seem brutal, in fact too brutal, but they religiously follow those laws, and even the criminals submit to them without much ado (e.g. in case of the adulterous couple, or even the hero's attitude towards the heroine in the end). Of course I wonder with that level of punishment, why did they dare.

There is an abundance of nudity, especially topless - but somehow it didn't succeed if it was meant to titillate. For that the credit goes to the lead actress. I don't know deliberately or per chance the lead heroine wasn't over-endowed and that killed that chance, and one could watch the movie without concentrating on the biological aspects. And once that is settled, I simply don't see anything which could be negative enough to have this score.

Since it is the autobiography of the girl, i assume the events are almost real, there would be naturally some changes, which she would make while narrating. But if she did, the story didn't really become unbelievable.

Of course not being aware of the culture, I shouldn't comment, but to my knowledge, head hunters take the heads of their victims. In this case the two, the heroines parents, were already dead when the protagonist and his team arrived. In that case the trophies were not justified. And of course the big bonus point is the depiction of the forest. Several websites call it as cannibal - but the tribe wasn't one - in fact they were at war against the cannibal tribe.

One of the most obscure in the "Cannibal/Jungle Adventure" genre, but certainly not for being a poor film. In fact this thing is surprisingly gorgeous, and at times romantic as well as thoughtful. The young, blonde and beautiful Catherine had been leaving England every summer since she was a little girl, spending her holidays with her adventurous parents, deep in the heart of the Amazon Jungle. On Catherine's 18th birthday her parents are savagely murdered, seemingly by an uncivilized indigenous tribe, who keep Catherine and let her live among them. A Head Hunter Warrior named. Umukai is fascinated by the girl's white skin and white hair, and wants her for his own. And even though he treats her with caring and respect, a deep hatred rages in the gut of Catherine, for this man that "butchered" her parents.

This movie is most impressive both in it's gorgeous photography, and in it's excellent writing. The story of this girl's adventure, told in flashback, is absolutely riveting. "White Slave" could have easily qualified as one of the many 'Emanuelle' films, with it's enslavement of a beautiful, naked female in the jungle. But "White Slave" aims for something higher, and succeeds. This is a very well-made jungle adventure film, part of a normally awful genre. But even with the graphic violence, it never goes too far as to be distracting to the story or cheap looking. Even the on screen animal deaths are so much less offensive, as not one creature dies by the hand of Man, but rather in battle with other species, in their own natural habitat. For instance a young leopard attacks, and devours a monkey. Although it is sad to watch, it's also utterly fascinating to behold, and this element is often seen in documentary films about Nature. :White Slave" is filmed in the Wild, untapped Amazon and should be seen as an unusually high quality "Grindhouse" feature. It possesses a strange kind of quality to it; for example, Catherine is pretty much topless throughout her ordeal, but the way it is filmed, the camera avoiding any leering breast shots, but rather films her naturally, the viewer forgets she is nude after 10 minutes. Highly recommended, but not really for the gorehounds, as they might get distracted by the serious drama at hand, while waiting for those grisly beheadings.. The new bluray print is gorgeous and is highly recommended.

Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story (1985)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Eighteen-year-old Catherine Miles (Elvire Audray) is on a trip in the Amazon with her parents when they are attacked by a tribe of jungle people. The parents are murdered and their heads cut off but Catherine is saved by a member of the tribe who appears to have a thing for her. Catherine is then taken back to their village where she witnesses all sorts of horrors.

There's no question that Italy was the home of the cannibal movie and many think that it reached its height with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. This film here came towards the end of the genre and was also known as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST 2 as well as several other titles. For some reason this movie doesn't get much attention from fans when they discuss the genre but I personally thought it was a fairly entertaining movie, although it certainly doesn't rank among the best.

What I enjoyed the most was Audray herself. The horrible English dubbing makes it hard to really judge her performance but I thought she was extremely cute in the part and I also thought she was rather believable in the role. This was especially true as the character becomes more like those holding her hostage. The supporting players are decent at best but there's certainly nothing horrible here.

The film also benefits from a very good score by Franco Campanino, which clearly wants to be like the one in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. There's also the violence and gore, which is pretty fun, although there's no question that the effects aren't as good as what we saw in films from earlier in the decade. There are a couple decapitations, several other body parts cut off and plenty of blood throughout. Fans of gore will certainly get a kick out of some of the violence here and especially a couple head shots.

AMAZONIA: THE CATHERINE MILES STORY starts off with the lead character going to trial for murder and throughout the film we get some narration of her testifying in court. I personally thought this set-up was rather lame and it actually hurt the film a bit. With that said, I thought the movie was fairly entertaining for what it was and it was worth watching for fans of the genre.

A film of Italian exploitation cinema that tries to capitalize on contemporary cannibal trend. It is clear the movie takes inspiration from Cannibal Holocaust (1980). From the start there are shots of that green inferno, almost daring us to enter, the synth score reminiscent of Riz Ortolani's, and gore bathing the screen and testing your stomach.

The theme of being lost in the heart of the Amazonian jungle surrounded by cannibals is tempting, if only to experience what would otherwise be dangerous through the safety behind a screen. The story follows 18 years old Catherine Miles Armstrong, played by Elvire Audray, on a trip through the jungle with her family when, unexpectedly, they are attacked and she is taken to live with natives. Schiave bianche is a movie that screams the 80s in its style, the often zoom-ins, the synth music, etc. It is a movie full of scenes of wild animals chasing and haunting one another, furthering the indomitable nature of the jungle itself. It is easy to sympathize with young Catherine because of her situation away from everything she knows, away from the civilized world. There is an aim to portray different rituals and customs of the tribe of natives that strike as particular to everyone from the outside. Mario Gariazzo's feature offers a high supply of nudity, for which Elvire Audray is mainly responsible, as she is often seen bare-breasted. A decision that contributes to the wilderness the film wants to convey in being far away from the known and what is socially normative, and also to accustom, as the movie unfolds, to the idea of Catherine being one of them, even if it is not by her own volition.

Besides the clear inspiration and what it takes from other sources, it has merits as the story advances since it departs from the expected narrative to shape into something else. All of these reasons make Schiave bianche - Violenza in Amazzonia worth watching.

Compared to other titles from it's subgenre (except to my current knowledge "The Man from the Deep River") " White Slave" actually has a somewhat interesting story to tell. Usual exploitation is offset by a story of our heroine which is accompanied by some nice music and footage of nature. There is usual violence and nudity, though they somehow aren't in the focus in my opinion. If you are looking for cannibals, they are almost completely absent from the movie, so don't go watch the movie because of them. All in all, "White Slave" is a mediocre old movie worth a watch if you can find something good in this kind of stuff. It won't change your life or anything, but it's far from the worst this subgenre can offer. Just don't expect any horror because you won't find it here. It's an romantic adventure drama with some graphic content. 6/10!