Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
1980 - Spain / West Germany / France Directed By: Jesus Franco (aka - "Clifford Brown") Starring: Ursula Fellner, Al Cliver, Robert Foster, Antonio de Cabo, Burt Altman, Gisela Hahn, Victoria Adams and Werner Pochath.
Aka
Sexo Canibal
The Man Hunter
Mandingo Manhunter
Current Availability
Available on the budget priced US R1 Terror Tales Volume 4: From The Hood double bill alongside Manuel Cano's bizarre 1973 Spanish effort Voodoo Black Exorcist. Unfortunately this is a worthless full screen presentation, mastered from a Japanese print with optical fogging of nudity and clumsily blacked out subtitles. There is also a German DVD which unfortunately features no English soundtrack or subtitle options. The old UK pre cert VHS tape on the Cinehollywood label (banned during the Video Nasty uproar) is uncut but is now considered one of the very rarest of all pre cert horror tapes and usually sells for around the £250 mark amongst die hard collectors. Personally I say seek out a dodgy DVD-R bootleg, don't waste £250 on this rubbish.
Recommended?
Now I've seen some crap in my time, but this! Franco hits absolute rock bottom here, delivering an atrociously bad jungle yarn that even the most die hard Franco aficionado may struggle to sit through in a single viewing. Recommended only as a cure for insomnia or as a unique form of audio/visual torture.
Review
For a generation of British horror and exploitation enthusiasts the age of pre certification video represented the halcyon days for the trash cinema enthusiast. The early eighties were indeed a golden period for fans of such fare as the then unregulated British video market swiftly became saturated with a vast array of low budget horror titles all vying for the attentions of the gore hungry viewer. As you’ll no doubt be aware this, as with all good things, had to come to an end and once the British tabloid press whipped up a gargantuan moral panic the Department Of Public Prosecutions wasted little time in outlawing 74 horror titles (only 39 of which were ever officially banned) which soon achieved collective and individual infamy as the so-called “Video Nasties”. By 1984 parliament reacted to the escalating public concern by passing the draconian Video Recordings Act and with that those golden days of pre certification horror tapes ended almost as swiftly as they had begun.
Naturally the 74 titles that formed the Video Nasty list almost instantaneously became hugely coveted by collectors and enthusiasts. After the passing of the Video Recordings Act saw all pre certification videos vanish almost overnight from the shelves of most UK retailers the hunt for the infamous 74 intensified as collectors eager to own the full set searched frantically for these increasingly scarce tapes . While one positive effect of the otherwise ridiculous Video Nasty scare was that it drew attention towards fine efforts from the likes of Sam Raimi, Lucio Fulci and Abel Ferrara, by contrast it can equally be said that the Nasty hysteria also had the unfortunate effect of lending borderline legendary status to completely dreadful exploitation cheapies that were notable only for having been banned. One terrific example is Spanish trash cinema legend Jesus Franco’s remarkably unremarkable 1980 effort The Devil Hunter. An obvious attempt to jump aboard the brief craze for grisly jungle cannibal adventures, The Devil Hunter would no doubt have slipped by without notice had it not been banned in the UK. Ironically the banned pre certificate release of The Devil Hunter on the Cinehollywood label would in time become one of the rarest of all the “Nasties” and is easily one of the most highly prized by more knowledgeable collectors. Even now in 2007 original Cinehollywood UK pre cert VHS tapes of The Devil Hunter tend to change hands amongst more ardent collectors for prices in the region of £200-£250!
The Devil Hunter begins with glamorous American actress Laura Crawford (Fellner) arriving at a luxury hotel in the tropics. The object of her visit is to scout locations for her next upcoming film project. Things go awry when Crawford is abducted from her hotel room (whilst naked in the bath) by a desperate band of kidnappers who then flee with their captive into the heart of the jungle. Unbeknownst to them the jungle plays host to a native tribe who live in perpetual fear of a gigantic, bug-eyed man beast with a taste for human flesh and blood. Unaware of the grisly fate that awaits them, the felons pass the time by terrorising and sexually molesting the bound and terrified actress.
With the kidnappers demanding $6,000,000 for Laura’s safe return, her film studio turn to intrepid hired gun Peter Weston (Cliver) for assistance in rescuing her from their criminal clutches. Weston is left in no doubt that it is in his best interests to bring back both Laura and the studio’s $6,000,000 by any means necessary, in which case he will also get a cool 10% cut of the ransom in addition to the fee he is already receiving for undertaking the rescue mission. Once in the jungle Weston has little trouble in wrestling Laura from the clutches of her increasingly panicked and disorganised captors. However, that is merely the beginning of Weston and Laura’s troubles as they find themselves stranded in the middle of the jungle with both the vengeful kidnappers and hostile natives on their heels while the terrifying man beast stalks its way through the vegetation looking to fulfil its appetite for human flesh.
Along with Franco’s own slightly earlier effort The Cannibals (aka – Mondo Cannibale) (1980) and Alain Duruelle’s woeful Cannibal Terror (1981), this contemptibly inept film resembles a poor relation of Deodato and Lenzi’s altogether more visceral and accomplished jungle yarns. While generally regarded as part of the short-lived cannibal cycle, gut-crunching in actuality plays little part in The Devil Hunter. Instead Julian Esteban’s screenplay trudges through a thoroughly tedious and inane kidnap plot, punctuated by scenes of the protagonists being lumbered after by a hulking, bug-eyed negro who is intent on inflicting some really unconvincing acts of prosthetic mutilation on his would be victims. Meanwhile lousy dialogue including such memorable lines as “this vegetation is giving me the creeps” offers confirmation of the sort of low grade junk Franco has in store for us.
Frankly The Devil Hunter is beyond inept even by Franco’s worst standards. The jerky, unstable camera work is so disorientating it would have made even Andy Milligan blush and the films editing is so abrupt and jarring that I can only assume the final edit was cut on a butcher’s chopping block. Franco’s editing of the soundtrack is every inch as atrocious as the maddening sound of bongo drums drives the viewer to distraction and we are treated to a series of comically mismatched sound effects. The dubbing in the English language print is some of the worst ever, the dialogue appearing to be at least three seconds out sync with the actors lip movements and matters are not helped on that front by the cast who all appear to be bemused, mystified or completely nonplussed with what they are doing. The horrifically bearded Al Cliver (aka – Pier Luigi Conti) turns up to save the day clad in scruffy khaki and proves once again why he is one of the worst leading men to ever grace European exploitation, displaying all the charm, screen presence and charisma of stale bread. Meanwhile comely German blonde Ursula Fellner lends comparably wooden support and in an unintentionally comic touch the roles of the savage native cannibal tribe are played by crew members, many of whom happen to be white and are clearly embarrassed at the spectacle Franco is forcing them to make of themselves as they wave spears around whilst doing a bongo serenaded jig around a badly painted polystyrene totem pole.
In fairness Franco at least delivers on the exploitation and sleaze fronts. Leading lady Ursula Fellner is first seen in an extremely tight fitting swimsuit and proceeds to spend the rest of the film clad in either next to nothing or completely naked altogether. Franco also places a sleazy and at times somewhat uncomfortable emphasis on the sight of both Fellner and other nubile ladies chained up, naked, distressed and helpless with the camera leering at length over their perspiration coated bosoms and pubic regions. In a nasty touch Franco even throws in a visually discreet but nonetheless grubby rape scene as Crawford’s swarthy kidnappers while away their time by terrorising and ultimately violating their captive. As such it is not hard to see why The Devil Hunter get caught up in the Video Nasty purge and given the British Board Of Film Classification’s strict policies as regards to the depiction of rape and thew sexualisation of female victims it is questionable as to whether The Devil Hunter would be passed uncut were it ever to be resubmitted for a British DVD release.
By contrast the films gore quotient is generous, but totally unconvincing and singularly inept in its execution as skulls are bloodily staved in and innards are torn out. Matters are not helped by the films comically inadequate excuse for a “monster”. Sadly there is nothing even remotely intimidating about a gangly, grimacing black man who appears to have hard boiled eggs lodged in his eye sockets. However, in fairness Franco does achieve on semi-effective coup by conveying the man beasts advance through blurry, slow motion monster POV footage replete with the sound of distorted heavy breathing and animalistic groans. However, Franco being Franco completely overdoes it by replays this same sequence over and over again until it swiftly ceases being effective and instead becomes a repetitive, badly filmed irritant. Rock bottom is finally reached (quite literally) when Franco has Cliver crawling across the rocky ground whilst tilting the camera on its side in a howlingly crap attempt to foster the illusion that he is scaling a sheer cliff face. At the top of the cliff things get even worse as our bearded dullard hero engages the marauding, egg eyed fiend in a stupendously dreadful karate showdown cum wrestling match which mercifully brings The Devil Hunter to a fittingly worthless conclusion.
For all its lame gore, copious nudity and grimy sleaze the only real obscene thing about The Devil Hunter is the inordinate sums of money its UK VHS release would be changing hands for on E-Bay over two decades after it was originally banished from the nations video shops. Now as I am a rather avid collector myself I have little room to talk, but to be quite honest I would sooner advocate piling £250 up and setting fire to it than I would wasting it on a crusty twenty some odd year old VHS tape of this turd. The Devil Hunter is a film so irredeemably bad that it should frame even Franco. However, far from being ashamed Franco in a rather hilarious postscript would have the temerity to later proclaim The Devil Hunter to be the unaccredited inspiration for the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster Predator. Quite how he arrived at this conclusion is anybodies guess. However, setting Franco’s barmy delusions aside, there is nothing even slightly amusing about The Devil Hunter. With its awful editing, inadequate direction and interminable narrative this risible excuse for a film is Jess Franco at his absolutely abysmal worst, the result being a readily exploitative yet insufferable slice of jungle chicanery that even the staunchest of Franco apologists is likely to struggle to watch in a single sitting. For die hard bad movie aficionado’s with a pronounced masochistic streak only!
Also Try… Cannibal Terror / The Cannibals / Mountain Of The Cannibal God / Massacre In Dinosaur Valley / Cannibal Holocaust / Cannibal Ferox / Porno Holocaust / Robowar.
Please place any comments or queries about this film / review on the message board below. Please note that the newest comment is always displayed first so if you wish to read the comments in order start from the bottom and work your way up. Thanks.
