Cannibal (film) Buffet
March 10th 2008 12:11
Or, People: It's What's For Dinner
Sometimes you just get in a mood, you know?
Let's start off with not just a great cannibal movie, but a great movie period.
Ravenous (9/10)
is a movie I keep coming back to, but not nearly often enough. When I first saw it, I was absolutely blown away, not just by the film, but by the fact that someone saw fit to get such an original, bloody, insanely good time into a crappy little shopping mall movie theatre. And then it kind of disappeared. I'll never understand why Ravenous isn't more celebrated among horror film fans, and just plain old film fans. It strikes the perfect mix of humor and terror, and watching Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle go toe-to-toe (and jaw-to-jaw) is a clash of the titans that other films promise but fail to deliver (a recent example: American Gangster). Pearce plays a military man who's shipped off to an isolated outpost as a reward/punishment for an act of cowardice which led to his capture of an enemy command. Shortly after he arrives, Carlyle stumbles into the camp with a horrific story that spurs the men of the camp into action. To give away any more of Ravenous would be a disservice to someone who hasn't seen it, and wouldn't properly capture it for someone who has. Leave it at this, it's bloody, funny, scary, and weird. Good weird, right down to the creepy/kooky score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn.
From black comedy to slapstick, Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (7/10)
delivers the gore in buckets and buckets and is just plain silly. I hope that the little shout-out H.G. Lewis got in Juno brings more people around to his sensibilities (though I kind of doubt it will). Blood Feast 2 is basically a remake of Lewis's original, only this time it's Fuad Ramses III preparing the feast, instead of his grandfather. There's definitely an aura of camp for camp's sake this time around, but I didn't really mind, and it still brought a smile to my face. You know you're in goofy-town with female characters named Brandi Alexander, Trixie Treeter, and Laci Hundees, not to mention dialogue like "I don't want you to serve the appetizers, I want you to BE the appetizers." Mwah-ha-ha! Really, it's just good to see the Godfather of Gore doing what he does best. Personally, The Gore Gore Girls (reviewed here) beats it for me, but if you're in the mood for some goofy, gory fun, Blood Feast 2 has your number. I was never a big fan of Southern Culture on the Skids, but their Cramps-y soundtrack to this one sent me running to the internet on a search, only to come up empty-handed. Boo.
On a more serious (and more disgusting) note, Cannibal Holocaust (8?/10)
earns its reputation as one of the most controversial and nasty movies ever made through some truly repulsive scenes of (real) animal butchery and (not-so-real) violence against women. The film has been banned on and off in various countries since it's release, and it's easy to see why. There are plenty of places online to look into the legend of the film and the prosecution of its director, Ruggero Deodato - here I'll just relate my viewing experience. I thought I had seen the film years ago, spurred by its reputation as "extreme" cinema. What I wound up watching, I later learned, was the lesser (in every respect) Cannibal Ferox (aka Make Them Die Slowly). Now that I've seen the real deal, there's really nothing that compares. Cannibal Holocaust practically dares you to watch what comes next, even though it's hard to imagine you'll see anything worse than you just did. But you will. Almost as intriguing is the "found footage" aspect of the film that The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield have more recently used so profitably. In Cannibal Holocaust, a documentary crew disappears after journeying deep into the Amazonian jungle to an area referred to as "The Green Inferno" - home to warring tribes of cannibals. The first portion of the film follows Prof. Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) as he attempts to track down the documentary crew. After much blood has been shed, he eventually locates the film they shot. The next section of Cannibal Holocaust concerns the unveiling of said footage for a television network, and we are witness to the eventual decline of the filmmakers into depravity and the E.C. comics-style retribution of the natives. As a network readies the footage for airtime, the "message" is delivered with all the subtlety of a punch in the mouth - the Prof.'s finale musing "I wonder who the real cannibals are?" pretty much hammers it home. Oh, and Professor? The cannibals are the ones you saw eating people.
Cannibal Holocaust is a tough one to review, or recommend, especially based on the lonnnng, lingering scenes of animal cruelty, though that footage has been removed from some editions. At any rate, proceed with caution.
In the same sick vein is Eaten Alive (5/10)
which has all the negatives of Cannibal Holocaust, but not much in the positive column. Former adult star Robert Kerman is the lead here as well, and this one concerns a young lady (the lovely Janet Agren) whose sister has fallen in with a Jonestown-style cult in New Guinea. The cult's neighbors? You guessed it: cannibals! Plenty of similar violence (and perhaps some lifted scenes ) from other Italian cannibal flicks, including Cannibal Holocaust, but none of the bite. Until the final minutes. Still, it covers familiar ground in a far less interesting fashion than Holocaust did. Eaten Alive was directed by Umberto Lenzi, who also made Cannibal Ferox, and one of the bonus features on the disc is a fairly interesting interview with him concerning this and other cannibal movies. There's also an interview with Kerman, who comes across as genial and grateful for the exposure these films brought him.
Sometimes you just get in a mood, you know?
Let's start off with not just a great cannibal movie, but a great movie period.
Ravenous (9/10)
is a movie I keep coming back to, but not nearly often enough. When I first saw it, I was absolutely blown away, not just by the film, but by the fact that someone saw fit to get such an original, bloody, insanely good time into a crappy little shopping mall movie theatre. And then it kind of disappeared. I'll never understand why Ravenous isn't more celebrated among horror film fans, and just plain old film fans. It strikes the perfect mix of humor and terror, and watching Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle go toe-to-toe (and jaw-to-jaw) is a clash of the titans that other films promise but fail to deliver (a recent example: American Gangster). Pearce plays a military man who's shipped off to an isolated outpost as a reward/punishment for an act of cowardice which led to his capture of an enemy command. Shortly after he arrives, Carlyle stumbles into the camp with a horrific story that spurs the men of the camp into action. To give away any more of Ravenous would be a disservice to someone who hasn't seen it, and wouldn't properly capture it for someone who has. Leave it at this, it's bloody, funny, scary, and weird. Good weird, right down to the creepy/kooky score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn.
On a more serious (and more disgusting) note, Cannibal Holocaust (8?/10)
earns its reputation as one of the most controversial and nasty movies ever made through some truly repulsive scenes of (real) animal butchery and (not-so-real) violence against women. The film has been banned on and off in various countries since it's release, and it's easy to see why. There are plenty of places online to look into the legend of the film and the prosecution of its director, Ruggero Deodato - here I'll just relate my viewing experience. I thought I had seen the film years ago, spurred by its reputation as "extreme" cinema. What I wound up watching, I later learned, was the lesser (in every respect) Cannibal Ferox (aka Make Them Die Slowly). Now that I've seen the real deal, there's really nothing that compares. Cannibal Holocaust practically dares you to watch what comes next, even though it's hard to imagine you'll see anything worse than you just did. But you will. Almost as intriguing is the "found footage" aspect of the film that The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield have more recently used so profitably. In Cannibal Holocaust, a documentary crew disappears after journeying deep into the Amazonian jungle to an area referred to as "The Green Inferno" - home to warring tribes of cannibals. The first portion of the film follows Prof. Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) as he attempts to track down the documentary crew. After much blood has been shed, he eventually locates the film they shot. The next section of Cannibal Holocaust concerns the unveiling of said footage for a television network, and we are witness to the eventual decline of the filmmakers into depravity and the E.C. comics-style retribution of the natives. As a network readies the footage for airtime, the "message" is delivered with all the subtlety of a punch in the mouth - the Prof.'s finale musing "I wonder who the real cannibals are?" pretty much hammers it home. Oh, and Professor? The cannibals are the ones you saw eating people.
Cannibal Holocaust is a tough one to review, or recommend, especially based on the lonnnng, lingering scenes of animal cruelty, though that footage has been removed from some editions. At any rate, proceed with caution.
In the same sick vein is Eaten Alive (5/10)
which has all the negatives of Cannibal Holocaust, but not much in the positive column. Former adult star Robert Kerman is the lead here as well, and this one concerns a young lady (the lovely Janet Agren) whose sister has fallen in with a Jonestown-style cult in New Guinea. The cult's neighbors? You guessed it: cannibals! Plenty of similar violence (and perhaps some lifted scenes ) from other Italian cannibal flicks, including Cannibal Holocaust, but none of the bite. Until the final minutes. Still, it covers familiar ground in a far less interesting fashion than Holocaust did. Eaten Alive was directed by Umberto Lenzi, who also made Cannibal Ferox, and one of the bonus features on the disc is a fairly interesting interview with him concerning this and other cannibal movies. There's also an interview with Kerman, who comes across as genial and grateful for the exposure these films brought him.
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Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
I agree that Cannibal Ferox is very inferior. I've never seen Eaten Alive thought (have seen the Tobe Hooper movie of the same name though)