Review of Cannibal Ferox (1981) by Sebastian R — 19 Aug 2007

A group of anthropology students trek in to Amazonia to disprove reported incidents of cannibalism said to be rife in the local jungles and end up bumping into greedy diamond grabbing drug dealers who have tortured and bumped off a number of the indigenous inhabitants who have failed to deliver the goods. Not splitting any hairs, the local Amazonian Indians exact a bloody revenge, torturing and cannibalising both the drug dealers and the students.

Italian director Umberto Lenzi was the founder of the Italian horror sub genre of cannibal films that ran throughout the seventies and early eighties. His first film Man From Deep River (1972) was more of a jungle adventure akin to a Tarzan movie albeit with the inclusion of crudely realised, bogus human tortures and, disturbingly, a catalogue of real animal killings. These two attributes would become staple components of the subsequent forays into cannibal country and it is for these collective reasons that this obscure horror sub genre remains the most heavily censored of celluloid atrocities currently available in the UK.

Cannibal Ferox is the third man eating film helmed by Lenzi and denotes an angry director reclaiming his claret soaked turf in the way he only knows how: by clumsily upping the on screen visceral excesses with a childish glee. Ruggero Deadato had directed Cannibal Holocaust (1979) - the seminal and hugely influential (see also Blair Witch Project) man eating mockumentry that proved to be a world wide hit (no doubt through word of mouth infamy alone).

So successful was Deadato?s seriously nasty swipe at the questionable morality and ethics of journalists, that in Japan, Cannibal Holocaust knocked Star Wars from the number one spot of the cinema charts for thirteen straight weeks. Apparently incensed that someone else should be gleaning such a tidy sum of money from the genre he began, Lenzi reacted by doubling up on the prosthetic sadism in Ferox. Under the conservative baiting moniker of Make Them Die Slowly, ad campaigns in America promised/threatened ?24 scenes of explicit violence!!, Banned in 31 countries!!? and sick bags were issued to prospective punters in the local Grindhouse theatres.

Despite these (largely unfounded) poster claims, Lenzi?s film, regardless of which name it goes by, is a strange and uneasy viewing experience that juxtaposes un-intentional hilarity(disco soundtrack/hilarious dubbing/oddly twee script) with some well orchestrated, doom laden and very gruesome set pieces(disembowelling/penis removal and subsequent ingestion of said organ/breast engorging). Lenzi blatantly swipes the similar underlying moral questioning of colonialism from Cannibal Holocaust whilst simultaneously( and quite literally) hacking out the heart and intellectual undercurrent that was so prominent in Deadato?s? film.

The result is a movie that dispatches with the contentious philosophical meanderings in favour of Scooby Doo style ?revelatory? narrative devices and incredibly mean spirited, gory torture porn. As ham fisted as it is influencial (Hostel, Saw et al doff your grubby gore clotted caps) and eerily effective, Cannibal Ferox is guilty pleasure gutter-celluloid at its best/worst.