To start it off right, this film is one of the most vile and utter pieces of Italian trash to ever climb from the cesspool of Italian cinema. Thecannibal genre is a mixed array of cinematic happenings that deal with a variety of different 'types' of cannibals - Cannibal Ferox just so happens to deal with the 'jungle cannibal'.
For instance, there's your back-woods cannibal types that are depicted in such films as Cannibal Campout, Lunch Meat, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There's your 'Brings back strange disease from the war' cannibals as depicted in Cannibal Apocalypse - Another Italian sleazefest made by the Italians and co-starring Cannibal Feroxstar Giovanni Lombardo Radice and John Saxxon of all people. There's your Hannibal Lecter types - This type of cannibal is usually based on evidence from real police files. An usually articulate man with supreme taste, and an appetite for the grand. There's also your homosexual cannibals such as Jeffrey Dahmer - who ingests human flesh because they're lonely. I see no correlation between this well formed depravity and loneliness, but I'm sure there's some Freudian pseudo explanation that says there is.
Now, we refer back to the most popular form of 'the cannibal' - Your primitive jungle dwelling cannibal . Throughout the seventies and early 80's, there were two main players in the Jungle' cannibal genre that pretty much opened up a whole new can of worms, but also closed the lid some years later. Umberto Lenzi and Ruggero Deodato - Those two names should be synonymous with extreme violence, cinematic rapes, latex gut munching, but most sadistically, live animals being killed for 'shock value'.Both men claim that they never filmed any killing of live animals - and that the producers shot those scenes after their job as director was finished.Whatever the case may be, the slaughtering (or set-up of the harm or killing) of live animals for the purpose of shocking someone in a film is going too far if you ask me.
Cannibal Holocaust is probably most notorious in regards to scenes of torture and cinematic violence. But a lot of people disagree, saying they were most disturbed by Cannibal Ferox.
Ferox starts off in that typical Italian fashion. We have an Anthropology student who denies the fact that cannibalism ever existed. She's convinced that mad tales of flesh eating are just that - mad babbling folklore created by the civilized man to give the jungle a stark legacy.
Our story revolves around three NY college students who set out to the jungles of Columbia to disprove any talk of cannibalism or the practices thereof. Gloria (played by Lorainne De Salle of House on the Edge of the Park), Rudy, Gloria's brother (played by Brian Redford), and Patricia (Zera Kerowa of New York Ripper fame) get everything set and enters the outskirts of the jungle via off-road vehicle. Right away, things get off on the wrong foot as the jeep gets stuck and they're forced to foot their way through the wilds of Rio.
A few minutes later, the crew run into two small time New York drug dealers who just so happen to be lofting around the jungle floor when they're attacked by natives. Mike Logan (Giovanni Lombardo Radice -House on the Edge of the Park, Cannibal Apocalypse, The Gates of Hell, The Church) and his injured friend Joe, run into the crew and ask them for help.
Of course, the crew obliges. Little by little they learn of Mike's lust for cocaine and that there's more to he and Joe that meets the eye. It's soon learned why Mike and Joe are running from the natives. It seems as if Mike has a knack for violence - especially when fueled up on cocaine. The rape and murder of a native Indio girl by white outsiders doesn't go over to well with the villagers and it's a race through the jungle to find a way out. Not only this, but Mike is also responsible for torturing a Portuguese tribesman to death in search of emeralds. Mike's quiet the nice guy isn't he?
What follows are scenes of gratuitous violence accompanied by a sense of sexual depravity and drug induced paranoia. One by one, the crew are dispatched in some god-awful ways. To be honest, the gore sequences in the film aren't harsher than most gore films of its ilk. Where Cannibal Ferox steps foot into depravity (besides the torture and hinted rape) is the set up of actual on-screen animal killings which range from a gutted crocodile and turtle, to the feeding of a bound anteater to a very large python. If this isn't enough, we have a live pig which is gutted in bloody fashion by the cinematic hands of Mike Logan. As stated by Giovanni Lombardo Radice, a stagehand was given the job to actually slaughter the animal. He also states that during this scene, he tries to avenge the poor pig by pressing hard on a ceramic bowl that was to catch the blood - nearly severing the stagehand's wrist.
Cannibal Ferox is labeled one of the nastiest films of all time - and rightly so. An on-screen castration- Hooks through a woman's breasts - Hand severing - Decapitations - The rape and murder of innocent villagers - This film shouldn't be watched by anyone who is offended by such atrocious on-screen events. By this, I mean people who actually, eat, sleep and breathe.
It seems as the Italian cannibal genre grew older, the demonic imagination of filmmakers involved in the genre escalated to monstrous heights. Earlier films like Umbero Lenzi's Eaten Alive! (which uses the same music for Cannibal Ferox) also depicts scenes of animal cruelty and gang rapes, but the film as a whole isn't nearly as brutal as Cannibal Ferox. Jungle Holocaust, an earlier cannibal entry by Rugerro Deodato, is actually more of an adventure film than just a bunch of shock sequences strewn together. Personally, the adventure theme should have been the main attraction to these types of films. The jungle setting makes way for some good action sequences.
Going back to the topic of discussion, Giovanni Lombardo Radice stated to me in an interview that he regretted ever starring inCannibal Ferox. He says that it has haunted him for twenty-five years. Being remembered as Mike Logan is a huge disappointment for Giovanni. To tell you the truth, I can't blame the guy for feeling this way. But, didn't he read the script beforehand?
To sum it up, Cannibal Ferox is a film that should be viewed at least once just to see that everything you've heard has been true. Very few films live up to their legend status, but this is one of those exceptions. I have no idea how anyone could possibly enjoy the movie. To tell you the truth, I think that anyone who even considers such a film 'fun entertainment' should be checked for mental incapabilities.
*This film boasts at being banned in 31 countries - not only on the movies cover, but also in the Guinness Book of World Records. I think Umberto Lenzi should be banned and maimed - and gutted like the animals in his films. I have no idea what the international rules were/are for the killing of animals for the sake of entertainment, but I'm sure there was hot water to follow. It's hard to imagine such a film being made today. PETA would have a field day.
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