Italian Cannibal movies

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

This and zombie films and Gialli are such a huge part of the Eurocult fandom and it's also the most controversial for obvious reasons and puts you in a spot sometimes. If you're dealing with someone who's a horror fan and/or just a curious fellow, which Cannibal flick do you start with? Do you warn them about the animal violence? Do you play it off like they shouldn't see them? Or do you act hardcore and go on about the films and also mention that you had a marathon of Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, the Death Scenes series, The Worst of Faces of Death, Faces of Gore part 2, and Traces of Death 3? That much later option is viable to the teenage horror fan.

I was thinking of just making a post listing all of the films and all that, but I think it's a little more interesting to tell of how you first encountered these flicks and post a list in addition.

For me: Cannibal Ferox. The Grindhouse DVD. I was 12 and it was probably my 3rd or 4th DVD as they were expensive, I had little cash, and the market was just starting to really grow. I was introduced to Eurocult through Fulci's Zombie and browsing the net brought me to to so many classic titles. Because I was young I took Ferox pretty seriously, didn't really laugh while watching it, and stunned by the gore (even though I watched the Make Them Die Slowly trailer multiple times online before getting the DVD) and I was hyped to watch Cannibal Holocaust. I didn't get off on animal violence but I thought the film was just a fun pulp gory horror flick. When I watch it today I still see it as a guilty pleasure that plays up it's B grade pulp, and comic book (Creepy and Eerie) style of ott gore and nudity.

Holocaust is was and still is the nadir of not only the Cannibal sub-genre but Exploitation/Horror as a legitimate form of artistic expression and social commentary.

"I wonder who the real cannibals are."

The films:

Man From Deep River
Jungle Holocaust
Mountain of the Cannibal God
Cannibal Holocaust
Eaten Alive
Cannibal Ferox
Anthropophagus (?)
Zombi Holocaust
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals
Cannibal Apocalypse
Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story
The Green Inferno
Cut and Run
Massacre in Dinosaur Valley
Land of Death (Bruno Mattei)
Cannibal World (Bruno Mattei)


Not a cannibal flick but can be mistaken as one: Papya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals.

Non-Italian:

Devil hunter
White Cannibal Queen
Primitives
The Naked Prey

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Had myself a double feature with Green Inferno and Papya. Green Inferno is better than I remember it. It feels like you're watching a documentary for much of it but it's a fun jungle adventure romp lacking sleaze. It doesn't resemble the other Italian flicks very much up until the last 10 minutes. Good flick.

Papya you may mistake as a lost cannibal flick but nope, just another D'amato soft core romp. But a good one. Many attractive ladies and a smooth porno score. No cannibalism, no adventure, no Marc Shannon warty ballsack, all softcore. If you enjoy D'amato's softcore flicks then I'd recommend it.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I remember being pressurised by an ex-girlfriend's friend to lend her my copy of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST during the mid-1990s, which at that time was still banned in the UK. Shocked her half to death, it did. Now the film's available *almost* uncut on Blu-ray over here! I still find that hard to believe.

I'm not a huge fan of the subgenre on the whole, but I prefer the earlier films in the cycle (MAN FROM DEEP RIVER and JUNGLE HOLOCAUST, for example). I always lump Deodato's CUT AND RUN in with these moves (well, it *is* a jungle adventure), and to be honest I reckon that's a better movie than most of the 1980s Italian cannibal films.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Oh yeah, Cut and Run. I never really considered it a Cannibal flick. It's certainly a jungle adventure but it mixes together so many other elements that it's difficult to describe it as 'just' a jungle adventure.

There's moments in Cut and Run that I really like, but it just feels manufactured. It doesn't really feel like a Deodato or even an Italian film aside from the Jonestown footage and Richard Lynch's demise. I'd agree that it's better than the Lenzi flicks because it does have fairly high production values and a few name actors, a few before they were famous, but better than Massacre in Dinosaur Valley? I don't know.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

It was the Grindhouse Ferox disc that popped my Italian cannibal movie cherry as well. I remember paying an arm and a leg for it at Cheapie's in Hamilton, Ontario. I drove there, 45 minutes, from where I lived at the time as they were the only place south of Toronto that had it in stock and I'm pretty sure I paid close to $50 for it - I specifically remember that they had marked it up and put an 'import' sticker on it.

At any rate, it was probably 1999 or 2000 I'd guess? I know I was obviously still in Canada so it had to have been. I watched it and remember feeling a little sick about the animal violence in it. I guess I didn't know or just didn't remember being told that it was in there so it took me by surprise. I was pretty shocked by the gore and the sheer ballsiness of it all. Of course, over the years it seems far less intense but some of the scenes in it still get to me, Cannibal Holocaust too.

It's pretty hard to argue that Cannibal Holocaust isn't the most effective of the lot, but I think Ferox takes the cake for being the most entertaining and the most insane.

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

You never forget your first time and I sure as hell didn't. It was 2000 I believe, was talking about Italian horror films with a buddy and he told me I needed to meet this guy who had a VHS (it was a dupe of the laserdisc) copy of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST - I had mentioned how badly I wanted to see it. So being the go-getter, I got his number and called him up. We chatted film for a while and after I told him I had INFERNO on the old AB VHS, he offered to let me borrow CH in exchange for that. Still vividly remember all the details, it was a Friday night and I had a few bracers to prepare myself - it didn't help much as I was really shocked and disturbed by the animal deaths, even though I knew they were coming. That turtle sequence was above and beyond anything I had seen to that point. Later caught up with FEROX and all the others but nothing matched the visceral impact of CH. I like FEROX quite a bit as an outrageous OTT romp, and JUNGLE HOLOCAUST has a strong story, have a soft spot for EATEN ALIVE too.

I do have to say, whether it's the amount of death I've faced in my own family the last decade or so, or just me getting soft as I get older, I have a really tough time watching the animal deaths these days. It's a rare day that I watch one of these films, I can easily watch one of the Naziploitation flicks over a cannibal one. Hell, I get pretty bummed at some of the brutal horse falls in your average Hollywood westerns nowadays. I'm not in favor of cutting out this stuff but just noting it impacts me.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

I think it might have something to do with age, Andrew. I'm kind of the same way. For a while, nothing could really phase me and I'd devour every mondo movie and I could get ahold of. I never got into the 'death movie' thing outside of the Faces Of Death films and a few other cash-in's, but mondo was definitely my bag for a while, I found them fascinating. While I still do find them really interesting, the real animal (and sometimes human) violence unsettles me more than it did, say, ten years ago where I was more or less impervious to all of this type of stuff. Not that I was ever for it, I think it's completely unnecessary, but nowadays even scenes like those in El Topo and Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, which definitely are not on par with the cannibal movies, wig me out.

[Todd Jordan Smut is good. Find all posts View Profile Close Todd Jordan]

I still have not embraced or braved the sub-genre. Seen a couple like Emerlad Jungle (I think) as a teen and was not into it. I still need to watch the grand daddy of them all, but I haven't.

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

I think it might have something to do with age, Andrew.

Age is part of it, no doubt. I think real world experiences play a part too though. I find myself much less likely to watch even a totally fictional (ie no genuine deaths or animal cruelty) brutal film these days, the nihilistic tone just isn't something I care to consume. Last night I watched IN THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE again, a fun Spanish giallo in the vein of the Umberto Lenzi/Carroll Baker psychosexual gialli, and I was having a good time with it but then Jean Sorel is diving and he spears a harmless little octopus, man it just threw me right out of the experience. He also torments a swan repeatedly. I still enjoyed the film but that was definitely a sobering moment.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Definitely life experiences plays a part in how a film effects you. No question. I remember watching Young Warriors that stars Chuck Norris' son and it's your typical vigilante picture like Death Wish or the Exterminator. And there's a scenes fairly early on where the main character's little sister is raped and killed. A few years ago this wouldn't have done anything to me but now that I have a little sister the scene becomes much more effective.

[Mike Howlett Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mike Howlett]

Not my cuppa, but only for the animal stuff. So for me, knowing if any of them are safe is key. However great it may be, I'll never see CH.

I am a pussy, but an animal loving pussy.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Definitely life experiences plays a part in how a film effects you. No question. I remember watching Young Warriors that stars Chuck Norris' son and it's your typical vigilante picture like Death Wish or the Exterminator. And there's a scenes fairly early on where the main character's little sister is raped and killed. A few years ago this wouldn't have done anything to me but now that I have a little sister the scene becomes much more effective.

I find it *really* hard to watch film in which children are terrorised or harmed/threatened now that I've become a parent. UNTOLD STORY (which I guess is a cannibal film of sorts, albeit not an Italian one) is a very difficult watch for me, for example.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Not my cuppa, but only for the animal stuff. So for me, knowing if any of them are safe is key. However great it may be, I'll never see CH.

I am a pussy, but an animal loving pussy.

Check out Cannibal Apocalypse, Zombi Holocaust, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, and Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals. 100% animal cruelty free. Plus they're all fun schlock on top of that.

Now prepare yourselves, I'm going to blow your fucking minds:

What does Michael Mann's Heat and Cannibal Ferox have in common? They're examples of a director remaking his own film and improving upon it. L.A Takedown is to Heat what Eaten Alive is to Cannibal Ferox. Eaten Alive was a dry run for Cannibal Ferox in that it features a very similar plot, the same music (only a slightly worse NYC theme), Robert Kerman in a major role as opposed to his supporting one probably shot in 2 days for Ferox, and etc.

Eaten Alive never did anything for me, it just seemed so 'meh' in its execution and it doesn't start to get interesting until we get to the Jonestown colony. The high lite being Rassimov as Jones. But the gore isn't up to Ferox's level. It's not nearly as 'brutal' as Ferox. And the music just suits Ferox so much more even though the music was prepared for Eaten Alive first. But it seems that the music was re-worked to better effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t833O1-1Pd4

Tell me this doesn't scream 42nd street in the 80's.

Ferox also benefits -much to his eternal chagrin- from the presence of Giovanni Lombardo Radice whose character elevates the film to a whole other level of sleaze and nihilism. It also benefits from being made from 100% original footage.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I'm not a huge fan of FEROX, but Radice's great to watch in it. I loved the commentary with Radice on the Grindhouse LaserDisc too.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Yeah the commentary for Ferox is definitely one of the best out there along with The Beyond commentary.

Lenzi: (Referring to the pig killing scene) "Robert De Niro would've done it."

Radice: "Robert De Niro would've kicked your ass all the way back to Rome."