Cannibal Ferox (1981)
Directed by Umberto Lenzi
The lost art of the cannibal film was revived a few years back with The Green Inferno. Which I actually reviewed before, so check that shit out ;). Anyhoo, two films were the torch bearers for the genre: Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox. I also reviewed Cannibal Holocaust before, so damn I guess I like cannibal movies? Meh lets see…
I swear the plot for all of these movies are really just the same. This one is about a group of people that go to the Amazon jungle to help one of them write their dissertation on cannibalism and if it is factual or not. They drive a Jeep into the jungle and blow the engine. The three people run into two other people that are also seemingly lost. The two guys tell them about how they were captured by a tribe and their friend was slaughtered and eaten. They soon find out one of the guys is a dick and a liar. He actually killed some of the villagers in a cocaine rage so their hatred towards him is totally justified. Now our original group fights to survive the cannibalistic tribe before they are devoured.
While the story may be typical the acting is actually pretty good and I was surprised with this. Each character plays their roles pretty well. We have Gloria the college student, Rudy her brother and their friend Pat, she’s kind of a flake. The other two guys are John the injured guy and Mike whom is the dick head. The tribesmen are actually pretty decent actors as well for having such little dialogue. I’m not even sure if they are actors or not, who knows? Well I’m sure someone does but with a screaming baby and an annoying ass dog running around I’m lucky I’m even getting a review done to begin with let alone researching for hours.
The special effects are gruesome, which was a staple for the genre. We see multiple machete slashes, castrations, disembowelments, and a girl hung up by her tits. The blood and gore are plentiful and truly disturbing. The castration scene alone is cringe worthy and a tribesman actually eats the guy’s dick, which is nuts! While this is gruesome I still think Cannibal Holocaust is more extreme. The scene with the sea turtle is bad enough to beat this. There is a scene with a small mammal they have as a pet getting killed by an anaconda, and it is disturbing as well but nothing will top Holocaust’s turtle scene, ugh. Along with the crazy effects there is so much suspense when they are being chased and the thought of being cornered by a tribe of cannibals is gut wrenching to say the least.
There really isn’t much else to say about Cannibal Ferox, the plot is super simple, the story moves quickly and the effects are memorable. I would probably watch this before I’d watch Green Inferno or Cannibal Holocaust again, just because it is so well acted and the gore scenes are as disturbing. It is hard to grade something like this because it is exploitation at its finest. I guess if I had to grade it I would give this a B-. It is full of solid acting and memorable scenes but I wouldn’t really go out of my way to watch this numerous times. One thing I’ll leave you with is that the poster shows to chicks with big boobs, and neither woman in the movie has anything bigger than a small C cup lol, but man market those titties and the people will flock.
