DREAD X: DEATHCEMBER’s Steve De Roover’s Top 10 Sleazy Cannibal Flicks
Jonathan Barkan
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Everyone, at one point or another in their lives, has asked themselves a very important, very disturbing question: “If given the opportunity, would I actually try eating human flesh?”
For some, the answer is easy. Like a lightning flash, it’s either, “Hell yeah! Bring the meat!” or “Hell no! That’s absolutely disgusting!” For others, it becomes a bit of a game. “But, like, what are the circumstances? Am I stranded on an island with someone else who just died? Do I have a way to cook it?” The conversation descends into a game of rules and what-ifs, hypotheses that take away all fun of the question.
We each have our favorite horror subgenre. For some, it’s slashers. For others, it’s possession films. For Deathcember director Steve De Roover, it’s cannibal flicks. And today, he’s here to tell us all about several cannibal films that are sleazy, gory, and downright offensive.
As he explains:
“I love cannibal flicks! The in-your-face gore, the “everything goes” atmosphere, the T&A, the jungle adventure and, of course, the absolute dread. While I adore Cannibal Holocaust, I wanted to compile a list of some of the most sleazy entries, the ones that just went above and beyond to offend viewers every step of the way, and also the ones that tried to mix it up a bit when the subgenre was over its peak. I also stayed away from the classier first efforts, the real crappy ones, and mainstream stuff like Green Inferno. While I enjoy and own most of them on the list, they intrigue me above all else as a trashy time capsule, to a time when political correctness was not the norm.”
You can check out his list of highly recommend cannibal titles below. Just make sure to have dinner plans set in stone after because you never know what cravings you might get!
Deathcember was picked up for world sales by our partners over at Epic Pictures Group. More information can be found here.
“Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals” (1977)
Directed by the master of sleaze Joe D’Amato, is the one that has it all and the one why I submitted this Top 10-list in the first place. It has lot’s of sexy time, as you can expect from a Black Emanuelle outing, but it has ferocious cannibals as well to mix things up. And let’s never forget the smoking monkey! The story is ridiculous and involves our dear Emanuelle (played by the mesmerizing Dutch exploitation queen Laura Gemser) who plays a serious New York reporter, who is going undercover in a mental facility looking for the next scoop (and some horizontal tango in between). This leads Emanuelle to the Amazon jungle in search of a long-lost cannibalistic tribe. Things go horribly wrong, of course, but not for the viewer because this 6th “Emanuelle Nera” film (the 5th with Gemser as the character) is balls-to-the-wall-exploitation fun. Besides lots of sleazy nakedness (and who gets tired of a nude Gemser, right?), D’Amato goes quite dark here and there, filling this baby up to the brim with nasty kills and cannibalistic mayhem.
This film was one of the earlier outings in the spaghetti cannibal movie craze, with Man From Deep River released 5 years prior and Jungle Holocaust also released in 1977, and you can sense that D’Amato didn’t want to fall behind and ups the ante in the gore-department. This gives the film actually some edge, you don’t have in a lot of the Black Emanuelle films. Coupled with Gemser, who is most def not a damsel-in-distress, but a strong woman in charge, and the brilliant catchy score by Nico Fidenco, makes Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals the one that you need to see.
“Cannibal Ferox” (1981)
Almost a decade after the start of the cannibal subgenre with his own Man From Deep River, director Umberto Lenzi goes for broke with a film so sleazy, violent and quite fucked up, it was – as legend goes – banned in more than 31 countries. This claim is kinda bogus as you might have guessed, but Cannibal Ferox did make a lot of naughty lists none-the-less. And maybe rightfully so. It seemed that Lenzi wanted to show the world – and, of course, his cannibal competitor Ruggero Deodato, who for a lot of cannibal fans perfected the genre with Cannibal Holocaust in 1980 – that he still was the one and only master of the subgenre. So, Ferox is a non-stop parade of all kinds of political incorrect things like real-life animal torture (Boooo!), sleazy and degrading sex scenes and unseen violence (think breast-impalings and cutting off male genitalia!). Add to this a cast of highly unsympathetic characters and you might think, “What the hell is this one doing on the second place then?”. Well, you can call Cannibal Ferox a lot of bad things, but you can’t say that Lenzi’s smorgasbord of sex and violence isn’t a nauseatingly effective horror film. It’s the perfect antidote against the political correctness that plagues a lot of the film industry today.
“Massacre in Dinosaur Valley” (1985)
Also known in some countries under the legendary alternate title Naked and Savage: Cannibal Ferox II, is a ridiculously fun cannibal flick directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini, known from the “La Poliziotta”-sequels with Edwige Fenech. By 1985, the cannibal subgenre was way past its prime, so Tarantini toned down some of the extreme violence associated with the subgenre – no animal torture in this one! – and added more action and comedy to the frame, without skimping on the boobs and bush, of course. A change that works from start to finish.
Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is, as you can guess, schlocky and sometimes quite tacky, with cult actor Michael Sopkiw (Blastfighter, 2019: After the Fall from New York) as the lovable Indiana Jones knock-off. He can’t act his way out of a paper bag (just as the rest of the cast), but that all adds to the trashy fun of it. Tarantini handles himself well with a few humble atmospheric scenes and keeps the action going, with swashbuckling flair and a few bad-ass quotable lines. While everything is more light-hearted, Massacre of course still features some nasty gory cannibal scenes, to keep everybody happy.
“Eaten Alive” (1980)
Released in the wake of the monster hit Cannibal Holocaust, Umberto Lenzi’s crazy film gets categorized a lot under the cash-ins of Deodato’s horror classic. Eaten Alive was actually shot before Cannibal Holocaust and is quite an interesting piece of Italian cannibal cinema in itself. Lenzi again doesn’t shy away from the usual ingredients like vicious rape, shameless racism, violence against animals and a copious amount of T&A, he does try to shake things up from his previous cannibalistic endeavors.
While the original theatrical poster promised more naked damsels in distress in the Amazon and the usual forgotten tribe, Eaten Alive is actually a weird ‘James Bond in the jungle’-like adventure, involving a weird sect, something of an evil mastermind and gold painted naked ladies. The dialogue is ridiculous and the acting as wooden as a door, but because of the steady direction of Lenzi, a few familiar B-film faces, some out-of-this-world story beats, and some awesome practical gore FX, Eaten Alive moves fast from start to finish and is never once boring.
“Diamonds of Kilimandjaro” (1983)
A bit of a guilty pleasure of mine from the very first moment I discovered this pulpy gem, and weirdly enough only the second time that the master of sleaze: Jesus Franco, pops up in this list. Diamonds is as shameless as they come and tells the story of the stunning (and, apparently, underage during filming!) Katja Bienert, who survives a plane crash in the jungle and gets taken under the wing of a tribe of cannibals. This means a lot of prancing around nude in the Amazon by Bienert. That Franco was never sued by the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs is a mystery! Enter some unscrupulous adventurers up to no good and you can guess that shits hits the fan real quick and gets bloody. Or at least sleazy.
This film is rather tame in the blood and guts category in comparison with other flicks on this bloody list, but incredibly entertaining none-the-less. The script is tone-deaf and the direction typically Franco (read: boring), but the goofy director goes all-out with political incorrect situations and throws naked flesh at the camera every couple of minutes. And let Bienert be a true diamond (ha!).
“Mountain of The Cannibal God” (a.k.a. Slave of The Cannibal God or Prisoner of the Cannibal God)
A 1978 cannibal movie, directed by the great Sergio Martino, starring Ursula Andress many years separated from her Dr. No fame. However, that doesn’t mean that this is a shoddy flick. Mountain of the Cannibal God has, as you can expect from Martino, some decent production values, and with Stacy Keach an actual name actor in the cast. It’s a well-produced almost mainstream action-adventure that happens to feature enough of the red stuff, rape, castrations, decapitations, impalings, racist portrayals of indigenous people, bestiality, and other animal cruelty to make the love-child of Lenzi and D’Amato very proud. The funny thing is that Mountain is actually less extreme as other movies in the cannibal pantheon…
“White Slave” (1985)
Or as it was released in most of the world Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story, this got released the same year as the more fun Massacre in Dinosaur Valley and was one of the last kicks of the subgenre. It tried to pass itself off as a more classy, based on a true story, jungle adventure, but couldn’t hide the fact that the main selling point is Elvire Audray who is running around the whole flick tits out. Beside tons of nipple action, the film doesn’t shy away from bloody violence, ridiculous dialogue, the almost obligatory animal cruelty and some of the worst acting on this list. Seeing Audray ‘act’ is worth the effort to search this film out alone.
“Devil Hunter” (1980)
I prefer the sleazy German title: Jungfrau Unter Kannibalen. This is another…eh… “masterpiece” by schlockmeister exploitation filmmaker Jess Franco (Female Vampire, Vampyros Lesbos). While a screenplay was deemed not necessary, it seems that Devil Hunter only got made to show Playboy Playmate Ursula Buchfellner naked in as many jungle situations as possible and thus expecting to cash in on the cannibal hype. There is also an unforgettable big, scary dude with googly eyes who goes on a bloody killing spree. Not a very good film of course, but as with a car crash, it’s almost impossible to look away!
“Papaya, Love Goddess of the Cannibals” (1978)
Two years prior to Orgasmo Nero, exploitation-maestro Joe D’Amato made the first of his Caribbean set horror-softcore hybrids, with this sleazy cannibalistic fuckfest. In the lead, D’Amato cast Roger Vadim’s discovery Sirpa Lane (La Jeune Fille Assissinée, La Bête), who is without a doubt a sight for sore eyes. And you get to see a lot of her, as well as other beautiful people.
The horror elements are a bit tacked on again to ride along on the wave of earlier cannibal successes. You do get some bloody mayhem here and there (with a nasty castration as a highlight), but in the end, this is a sleazy sexploitation flick. So the meat-action is more of the pumping kind, and less of the ‘eating intestines’-type. But Joe D’Amato does know how to shoot erotic scenes on a beach, and let’s not forget the silly ritual dance which never fails to bring a big grin on my face.
Less fun, and what seemed to be a familiar staple in the cannibal subgenre is the real-life killing of animals, and sadly Papaya also includes some nasty sequences like that. But luckily they invented a fast forward button for overly sadistic shenanigans like that.
“Orgasmo Nero” (1980)
Directed by Joe D’Amato (who else), this is a weird film, very true to its original marquee title. Because besides being sold as a straightforward horror film in the cannibal subgenre, it mostly features interracial sex scenes, and to be honest not a lot more. But delivering what the title promises is also something I guess. While it starts with quite a gruesome cannibalistic scene, it slides quite fast to what I can only describe as a regular skin-flick, but instead shot on a beautiful Caribbean island and with none other than famed Peplum actor Richard Harrison in the lead. It gets boring quite fast, but none-the-less intriguing to see as a time-capsule to crazier times when directors actually could do whatever the fuck they wanted.
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