Cannibal world

Alright I heard something was going around claiming to be Cannibal Holocaust 2 and I found what I was looking for. Bruno Mattei known for many exploitation gems of low quality but high entertainment ( at least for this person) unleashes probably as good a cannibal movie you could put out today. Every trick is pulled out from animal torture, rape, victimization, nudity, exploited locals etc.. .It follows the same type of format as the classic Cannibal Holocaust without the visceral feel of the Deodato classic. This appears to be shot on video and everything seems to have that rushed feel to it, but regardless, I have not seen any modern film try to harken back to the cannibal heyday. Say what you will but this is an enjoyable ride just don't expect the same feeling you may have gotten the first time you saw a film like this. If this is your first shot at the genre you will find it much easier to locate Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Holocaust (with a beautiful new release by grindhouse), or even Jungle Holocaust. They can all be bought at Suncoast and the like. I only found this available as a Japanese import. Enjoy!

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!

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.

Receiving news of the channel's viewership struggles, a team is sent into the jungle to investigate rumors of a cannibal tribe living in the area but as their quest for sensationalized footage leads them into ever more barbaric acts of savagery and cruelty against the natives they soon strike back against the group.

As far as jungle cannibal exploitation genre efforts go, this is a below-average if still watchable entry. For those simply looking for an exercise in the normal routines found in the genre, the film serves this aspect up quite well. The near-constant scenes of the groups' jungle exploits requiring them to run into cannibals devouring a fallen tribe member, barbaric practices including the carving of a fetus from a still-living victim, and various other dismemberments on display. While also featuring the expected animal cruelty which is still shocking but thankfully nowhere near as revolting or graphic as anything that's ever been shown in the genre previously before turning into the expected revolt and butchery by the locals, giving the film a lot to like by diving into genre conventions wholeheartedly. As well, the film also manages to offer up a decidedly intriguing if somewhat underwhelming social commentary on the nature of the media perpetuating the exposure and demand for graphic images. That the group is out in the jungle unrestrained and able to engage in raping, torturing, and outright barbaric acts against the cannibal tribe simply for the sake of ratings propels the film forward with a rather intriguing concept. Since the network executives are shown arguing constantly about whether it's worth keeping them out there preparing the rest of the show knowing full-well what they're doing and only one seems to be appalled at what's going on since the new-age media policies go against their traditional values. This doesn't go as far as what it could've been in terms of pointed critique but the inclusion is enough here, which is all enough to give this one a few decent moments here. That said, there's not much else to be had with this one. The fact that, even if all the action included here is expected in the genre, that none of it is carried off with any semblance of passion or creativity keeps the scenes feeling like lifeless, bland retreads of the same material we've seen in dozens of other entries. Hardly any of this comes off with the intended impact of gross-out scenes of barbaric butchery and sadistic exploitation towards the locals all being recycled verbatim with the scenes being plagiarized completely. With the recycled camera angles, scene setups, and eventual outcomes coming straight from the other films in the genre in roughly the same exact order as well, furthering the idea of this one being a straight rip-off quite easily. The other issue to be had here, which runs pretty plainly throughout the film, is the general cheap look and atmosphere present. The fact that the entire film looks like it was shot on a digital camcorder doesn't help matters, taking a flat, soulless approach to the material here. Appearing with a stylized, soap-opera tone to the proceedings, especially with the interactions presented throughout here as well, the whole film comes off with a camp, cheesy quality that can be really off-putting. As well, the confrontations with the cannibals that delve into hand-to-hand combat look patently fake and choreographed while the graphic gore and bloodshed have the stereotypical bright-red fakeness common for the genre which is what all hold the film down.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, Extreme Graphic Language, Rape, and violence-against-animals.

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