aka MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD
Nastiness Rating:
Directed by: Sergio Martino
Written by: Cesare Frugoni/Sergio Martino
Just so you don’t think that Cannibal Holocaust was the first big cannibal movie to come from Italy, the folks who gave us this list threw this one on there. Susan (the ever lovely Ursula Andress, sometimes wearing less clothes than she did in Dr. No) has lost her husband. He has run off to New Guinea to find out about some lost tribe. So she drags her brother along and finds a guide named Edward (Stacy Keach, known by most as Mike Hammer and some as the hare-lipped, racist asshole leader of the kids in American History X). They run around the jungle, find the tribe, find her dead husband and some of their group are randomly killed and eaten.
This movie is not good. Even from a standpoint of thinking that Cannibal Holocaust is good, this is not good. It’s slow, boring and not a whole lot happens that doesn’t include blood. Even then, most of it is animal blood. The natives kill a lizard as a sacrifice and we see the whole thing. A monkey is thrown to a boa constrictor and we see the whole thing. (Yes, it was thrown by a member of the crew. They just had to get that footage.) There’s no real reason for any of this, but there it is in full, living-dead color.
Unfortunately (?), I have gotten a hold of a cut version. The version on my DVD stand (yes, I own the damn thing) is 96 minutes long, while the full movie is a little over 100 minutes. I can see where the cuts were, though. Some of the monkey footage was cut. There was a lot cut from the final scenes with the cannibals eating one of the group and castrating one of their own for trying to rape Ursula, who was thought of as a goddess. (Natch.) But there’s no way that this was as violent and shocking as Cannibal Holocaust.
I guess my main problem with this little subgenre is that the movies are just boring. There are a lot of shots of the characters walking through the jungle. Like, 10 minutes of walking. Fuck that. There should be something going on. Talking, story, character development…something! But there’s nothing. Just walking. And bad music. And cutting of trees. The only thing to break up the monotony is the occasional killing of an innocent animal.
Whatever. Skip this one. It’s not really worth it. If you’re into this brand of “horror,” watch the more famous ones. They’re still crap and pretty boring, but at least they have more gore.
This one does, however, have Honey Ryder. Pick your battles.