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1981 - France / Spain Directed By: Alain Deruelle (as "A.W. Steeve") Starring: Silvia Solar, Burt Altman, Pamela Stanford, Gerard Lemaire, Olivier Mathot, Stan Hamilton, Antoine Fontaine, Antonio Mayans and Michel Laury.
Aka
Terreur Cannibale
Current Availability
Available fully uncut on a Region Free US DVD from Severin Films. Severin's release reportedly features a superb quality anamorphic widescreen print of the film and also includes a deleted scene (involving extra nudity), the theatrical trailer and an easter egg in the shape of an interview with Spanish trash movie legend Jess Franco who it turns out did have some behind the scenes involvement with the film after all. There was also a UK R2 DVD release issued on the Hard Gore label back in 2003. This release boasted a decent quality, uncut widescreen print of the film, but was a bare bones affair. The UK Hard Gore release is now OOP.
Recommended?
On its intended level as a jungle cannibal shocker Cannibal Terror is a useless film which falls flat. However, as an unintentional comedy it is highly entertaining and as such warrants an easy recommendation to European trash cinema fans. Whilst ineptly made in pretty much every department and rather slow paced a combination of comically unconvincing cannibal extra's, wooden performances, seriously dodgy dubbing and a ridiculously inappropriate yet catchy soundtrack keep the laughs coming thick and fast. As a bonus Cannibal Terror also features a liberal amount of grisly (if obviously fake) gut-munching scenes to keep gore hounds entertained. What's not to love?
Review (Contains Spoilers)
During the early years of the eighties the Italian horror film industry was experiencing a lucrative period of commercial prosperity. At this time the unexpected worldwide success of Lucio Fulci's Italian living dead classic Zombie Flesh Eaters (aka - Zombi 2) (1979) - itself inspired commercially by George A. Romero's seminal Dawn Of The Dead (1978) - had spawned a quick fire succession of gory Italian zombie pictures the majority of which turned a profit at the international box office and found favour with horror fans. The zombie cycle was accompanied by a series of Italian jungle cannibal pictures, amongst them classics such as Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox (1981) which not only pushed the envelope in terms of graphic scenes of mutilation and sadism but also made a packet for their producers.
The commercial success of the Italian zombie and cannibal cycles was duly noted by the French based exploitation distributors Eurociné who attempted to get in on the financially lucrative action by unleashing a number of their own low budget zombie pictures and cannibalistic jungle yarns. Eurociné promptly proceeded to produce a number of awful shockers, the majority of which were directed with obvious disinterest by the famously prolific Spanish exploitation specialist Jesus Franco. His mind clearly elsewhere Franco hastily tossed out two weak, sloppily made cannibal pictures in the shape of The Cannibals (aka - Mondo Cannibale) and The Devil Hunter in the same year, both of which starred the charisma devoid Italian horror star Al Cliver. Meanwhile Eurociné also lurched into zombie territory with Zombie Lake (1981), a woefully poor picture helmed by Frenchman Jean Rollin (substituting for a busy Franco) who failed to bring to the proceedings any of the directorial flair witnessed in his revered series of seventies erotic vampire films. Eurociné later delivered more budget and inspiration drained zombie thrills with Oasis Of The Zombies (1981) which saw Jess Franco returning to handle directorial duties.
At best these generic additions to the Euro Trash cannon play out like heavily diluted imitations of the stronger and technically superior Italian pictures they were so obviously setting out to emulate. However, as lacking as this quartet from messrs Franco and Rollin may be, in terms of sheer ineptitude they could not hold a torch to Eurociné's legendarily atrocious 1981 effort Cannibal Terror, which made it a hat-trick of cannibal shockers for the company. A French funded production shot in Spain, Cannibal Terror was directed by French sexploitation specialist Alain Deruelle (not by either Jess Franco or the films co-writer Julio Perez Tabernero as is often erroneously stated) and has since become infamous amongst aficionado's of trashy European horror and exploitation movies due to its combination of amateurish production values, awful dubbing and comically unconvincing cannibal extra's. Meanwhile here in the UK Cannibal Terror would gain infamy of a different kind when its uncut pre certification video release on the Modern Films label was one of the initial titles included on the Department of Public Prosecutions' famous "Video Nasty" list. This was more likely down to Modern Films' lurid choice of cover art and the DPP's tendency to pounce on any film with "cannibal" in its title rather than its actual content and sure enough Cannibal Terror was dropped from the "Video Nasty" list in 1985.
Cannibal Terror> begins with petty crooks Mario and Roberto, along with their attractive yet scheming female accomplice Nina, hatching a dastardly plot to kidnap Florence, the beloved infant daughter of a wealthy businessman and his wife. Against the odds the three crooks succeed in pulling off the kidnapping (after a fashion) and flee with their child captive in an attempt to make it to an awaiting safe house located deep in cannibal infested jungle.
The three desperate kidnappers make good progress with the help of their new female accomplice Mickey, but when their jeep breaks down she wanders off into the jungle and is - unbeknown to the others - captured, killed and devoured by the native cannibal tribe. Nevertheless, Mario, Roberto and Nina succeed in making it to the safe house where their kidnap ploy quickly begins to go awry, starting when Mario abuses their host Antonio's hospitality by raping his attractive wife Manuella. In revenge Antonio lures Mario out into the jungle and leaves him tied to a tree, making him an easy meal for the cannibals.
Having outlived their welcome at the safe house and with Florence's determined, vengeful parents in hot pursuit, accompanied by an armed rescue team, Roberto and Nina flee into the jungle with Florence in tow. However, lost and out of their depth the desperate kidnappers and their young captive soon fall into the lands of the lurking cannibals.
Cannibal Terror clearly sets out with the aim of aping or at the very least emulating the success of then recent and commercially prosperous Italian cannibal pictures such as Cannibal Holocaust. However, it instead ends up securely ensconced in the same bad movie territory occupied by earlier cannibal clunkers such as Joe D'Amato's grisly but laughable Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals (aka - Trap Them And Kill Them and Eurociné's own earlier Jess Franco abomination The Cannibals. Improbably however, Cannibal Terror manages to surpass both of those films in terms of its sheer dreadfulness. Indeed, under the seemingly clueless direction of Alain Deruelle, Cannibal Terror plays out like a limp, unintentional parody of the much heavier going Italian cannibal shockers which had both preceded and inspired it.
It is no exaggeration to say that Deruelle seems to have trouble stringing a single tight, tense or competently executed scene together and as a result Cannibal Terror quickly assumes a leaden pace as scenes of its protagonists trudging their way through the jungle seem to drag on for what seems like an eternity and a day. This is only compounded by a combination of wooden performances from the cast (largely made up of regular Eurociné stock players from the period) and lousy English dubbing. Everyone in this film seems to sport the same blank, rarely altering expression whilst their mouth's flap open and shut completely out of synch with their dialogue. As a result the behaviour and (non) reactions of the films central protagonist to the events taking place around them often appear irrational, inexplicable and downright bizarre, accidentally lending Cannibal Terror an almost surreal quality at times. For example when their female guide wanders off into the jungle and gets devoured by cannibals the kidnappers seem totally unperturbed by her sudden, inexplicable disappearance and later in the film when two of them find themselves captured by the cannibals instead of being terrified they just seem exasperated and perhaps a little bored. Meanwhile the irritatingly cute little girl they are holding captive must rank as the most carefree and nonchalant kidnap victim in exploitation history. Even when her captors are being dismembered and eaten before her eyes she seems totally unaffected by her ordeal. Then again perhaps it is for the best that she rarely opens her mouth as her voice is clearly overdubbed by a grown woman making an irritating and frankly laughable attempt to imitate the infantile whine of a small child.
However, it is when the ubiquitous cannibal tribe finally makes its presence felt that the real funny stuff kicks in. Improbably Deruelle and his cohorts have managed to muster up what must easily the most comically unconvincing tribe of jungle savages in cinema history. Little to no attempt is made to cover up the fact that the cannibals are all played by mostly flabby and out of shape white extra's daubed with gaudy, multi colour face paint. Some of them even sport dated sideburns and Elvis-style hairdo's and are clearly struggling to suppress either amusement of acute embarrassment and they jig around to the beating of bongo drums with all the coordination of a distressed jellyfish. Viewers can also be forgiven for questioning just what use the brightly coloured face paint sported by the cannibals would be, as it would certainly appear to be pretty useless in terms of camouflage, unless the tribe happen to be secretly plotting an impromptu raid on Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
This embarrassing knack for low budget improvisation also extends itself to other aspects of this particular production, most notably in terms of its shooting locations. Whereas Deruelle's Italian peers such as Ruggero Deodato, Umberto Lenzi and Sergio Martino all shot their respective cannibal shockers in exotic, jungle heavy exotic overseas locations, by contrast Cannibal Terror was quite clearly shot in its entirety in suburban area's of Spain. This fact becomes readily apparent in several scenes where, if the viewer pays enough attention, they will hilariously be able to make out cars passing by in the background. This is despite the fact that we are allegedly witnessing events taking deep in the heart of the dense and unforgiving, cannibal infested jungle. This laughable lack of anything even vaguely resembling authenticity is only amplified by Jean-Jacques Lemètre's absurdly jaunty and completely out of place yet insanely catchy score (think a mixture of funk, Euro-pop and ice cream van jingle) which enhances the total lack of narrative tension and unintentionally comedic tone. However, I must admit that I did find myself still humming the main score several hours after the film ended! Elsewhere the already lengthy, dragging jungle scenes seem to drag just that little bit more thanks to them being accompanied by the same brief snippet of chirping, repeated constantly on a maddening loop. Believe me this is enough to have even the most tolerant and forgiving viewer scrambling for the mute button on their DVD remote.
In fairness Cannibal Terror, despite all its other shortcoming, can at least claim to be a fairly visceral and grisly effort, which doesn't skimp on the unflinching scenes of cannibalism which exploitation fans have come to expect of a film belonging to this particular sub genre. However, the gore scenes, as with everything else in the film, are cheaply executed and rely on the commonly used and pretty obvious trick of getting the cannibal extras the pull apart a pig carcass filled with bloody innards and offal. Whilst the scenes of cannibalism shown are fairly extended and graphic, the fakery involved in their execution is quite readily apparent and any nauseating effect they may possess is largely negated by the cannibal extra's inability to take what they are doing seriously. Rather than devour the handfuls of blood-soaked innards they instead jiggle it about in their hands a lot for the camera to get lots of lingering close-ups, whilst occasionally raising the gory mess up to their mouth's in order to take a tentative bite.
In addition, given Alain Deruelle's background in sexploitation, Cannibal Terror is actually fairly light on the sleaze front. However, the film does find time for a vaguely kinky, tacked on rape scene which whilst not especially graphic in its execution is still pretty unpleasant and doesn't really advance the narrative, aside from providing a convenient, revenge based excuse for the perpetrator to be left trussed up as an easy meal for the cannibals. Otherwise the nudity is limited to a scene of regular Eurociné babe Pamela Stanford naked in the bath tub, which despite preceding her aforementioned rape ordeal still resembles something out of a sleazy European sex comedy.
To date the vast majority of genre buffs and horror friendly critics who have taken the time to review Cannibal Terror have been only too keen to paint it as a badly made and completely unwatchable abomination of a film. By the mocking tone of this review one may assume I share in this opinion when in actual fact nothing could really be much further than the truth. Yes, Cannibal Terror is uniformly awful in pretty much every possible way, but for trash movie fans able to tolerate the at times rather leaden pacing Alain Deruelle's ineptly assembled jungle stinker plays out as an absolute laugh riot. What other cannibal picture features out of shape, sideburn-sporting, shamelessly mugging white men doing an Irish Jig around a clearing whilst proffering bits of blood-oozing raw offal for the camera? Or for that matter what other cannibal picture tries to pass itself off as set in the depths of the jungle whilst cars whiz past in the background? So while those seeking genuine cannibal thrills are well advised to stick with the gruelling efforts of messrs Deodato and Lenzi, for exploitation nuts and gore hounds with a funny bone Cannibal Terror is a so bad its good delight. Good luck trying to get that main theme tune out of your head!
Also Try... Cannibal Holocaust / Cannibal Ferox / Mountain Of The Cannibal God / Jungle Holocaust / Deep River Savages / Eaten Alive! (1980, Umberto Lenzi) / The Cannibals / Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals / The Devil Hunter / Massacre In Dinosaur Valley / Zombie Holocaust / Amazaonia: The Catherine Miles Story.
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