Cannibal Holocaust - Lisa's Review

This is one I wanted to get over with as soon as possible after the contents of Cannibal Ferox and the knowledge that this contained similar scenes. In fact, I found this movie much more disturbing, disgusting and really wanted to switch it off after half an hour. The fact I wouldn’t have completed the challenge stopped me, coupled with the fact it would be kind of wet to switch off a movie because I found it hard to watch when I’m watching a list of all the banned movies. What’s to be expected really…

There is a warning as the movie starts about the graphic nature of its scenes and the fact we can only be glad this sort of thing is no longer tolerated… how true.

This movie, like Cannibal Ferox is set in the Amazon rainforest among the indigenous tribes people and centers on the concept of cannibalism, although that is the least disturbing part of the movie. We cut between New York

and the amazon as a search party are sent out led by Harold Monroe, an anthropologist sent to find out what happened to a documentary crew who went to film the tribes people but have been missing for 2 months.

Like Ferox there is unforgivable animal cruelty and 7 actual real animal slaughters. I was just absolutely disgusted and for only the 2^nd time since I started watching movies from this list, I agreed with the banning of this movie.

It should never have seen the light of day and the fact there is a market for people who enjoy this kind of thing is staggering.

After 1 animal slaughter and a disgusting sexual torture and death scene for a woman who had apparently been unfaithful carried out by her husband, we see the second group gaining the trust of the tribes people by saving them from a rival tribe.

They witness some horrible atrocities, tortures of women in the tribe and rapes.

Eventually they come across the video footage of the lost documentary crew and start to discover what happened to them. This is where our story switches from our second recovery team to our original documentary crew. At the start of the footage that is found, there looks to be real documentary footage of executions and horrible shootings. I’m not sure where its from but it definitely didn’t look like movie footage to me. Apparently the director staged some of the scenes for effect.

I’m starting to get more and more peeved at this film the further we go into it.

We then move on to the group starting their trek through the jungle and another downright graphically disgusting and nasty death of a turtle. I thought I coped quite well with Ferox but it had absolutely nothing on this. Ok so I’m angry now. The makers of this documentary just seem set on shock and disgust at any costs. The turtle is killed for food as they have been trekking for 6 days, so they dissect and eat it. As they move further on, one of the group is bitten by a snake and has to have his leg amputated by way of a large machete. Well deserved I say!

It doesn’t save him and he dies anyway… well at least he experienced some of what the turtle did before he was dispatched!

After getting out of water just in time for a crocodile and anaconda not to catch them (damn) they come across some tribes people killing monkeys (for real) in the most grotesque of ways (I’m sickened) . They shoot one (native) in the leg to slow him down so they can follow him to the village. Once they reach the village, they shoot a little pig (yup for real)…. I actually want to get my hands on the makers of this and carry out some torture of my own!!! They round the tribes people into a hut and proceed to set it alight to stage a scene for the documentary.

Nice people then…

They just continue to disrespect them by pissing in their streams, killing and wasting animals they use for food, filming in a nonchalant manner an old womans last moments when she has slunk off to die, which is something the tribes people do. I found the next scene confusing. The tribes women string up a young pregnant woman, remove her unborn baby and bury it in the mud. The documentary team say they have to eliminate weakness from their tribe? Not getting this at all.

They then proceed to bash the womans head in with rocks.

We keep cutting back to New York where a member of the second rescue team has obviously made it back with the footage and the TV execs are viewing it and want to air it. He keeps trying to persuade them not to such is the graphic nature of what is on the reels.

Undeterred they want to go ahead.

Back to the amazon and our documentary makers capture a very young tribes girl and they all proceed to rape her one at a time. The woman in the group - Faye doesn’t seem keen on wat they are doing, but doesn’t seem to do an awful lot to stop it apart from whine and whinge. Her main problem seems to be when her boyfriend joins in. Their friend and camera man hold her down while her boyfriend ‘has his turn’. All the while the tribes people are in hiding watching whats going on. Again disgusted and one of those scenes which went on longer than it needed to and seemed to be played for male titillation rather than the vile act it is. They impale her on a wooden pole (thankfully not shown) and the camera man has to remind his friend to take the smile off his face and look disgusted at what natives are capable of, as they’re getting the blame in the footage. A powerful message here of what man in general is capable of I think.

Just goes to show, we’re all the same when supposed civility is stripped away. How they did the pole effect here deserves some credit as it was remarkably realistic.

We’re approaching the end… I’m breathing a sigh of relief. One of the team – Jack is hit by a spear and they decide to shoot him to see what the natives do. What would we do with friends like this?? What follows is probably the best and most realistic make-up work and effects Ive ever seen. I can see why it was thought to be a snuff movie as the barbaric disecting of the body by brutal force and the way the carcass behaved looked unbelievably realistic. The severed head looked real and the organs were obviously real animal organs. Very realistic, very well done and very disturbing.

Next Faye, the lady in our group is captured and is brutally raped (which again goes on for far too long. She is finally beaten and beheaded. All the while her ‘friend’ is filming all of this. He meets a nasty end as well though as the camera drops to reveal him lying on the ground covered in blood getting the same bludgeoning as Faye just got. Come-uppance? I think so…

So the TV execs have seen all the footage, they finally agree it isn’t for public consumption and ask for it all the be burnt.

The final question posed is.. I wonder who the real cannibal is?

My thoughts? Well I think I made it pretty clear what I thought about most of this movie. I hated it. Would never watch it again. Thought it contained unnecessary suffering, the animal bits were unforgivable and the rape scenes were played too much for titillation, one of my pet peeves. It seemed to do anything to shock rather than concentrate on producing a good movie. Whats a shame is that the effects and gore were fantastic and probably the best I've seen. They rival anything out there today, but for sitting through the rest of it… simply not worth it. Best avoided unless you’re sick in the head.

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WEEK 15 - Cannibal Terror

Alternate Titles : Terreur Cannibale, Terror Canibal

Year: 1981
Reviews / Author Comments due: 03/09/11

DPP Status: Removed from list September 1985

BBFC Status: Passed uncut 2003

IMDB: Terreur Cannibale

Wikipedia: Cannibal Terror

DVD: Region-free import.

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The Cannibal Man - Will's Review

Well, that was an incredibly gay movie; not 'Gay' in a derogatory 'South Park' way, but in a 'That movie was blatantly about homosexuality' way.

What it wasn't about though, was cannibalism; more specifically, it wasnt about a (much less the) Cannibal Man - while the killers victims are turned into meat (or, more specifically, soup), we never see anyone eat it, and our main character actively avoids eating it...
The film opens, very abruptly, with a slaughterhouse scene, in which some cows (already dead, or at least stunned) are hung and bled - the red stuff flows in rivers here, but its obviously footage of a genuine slaughter house so, although you may find this offensive, if you eat meat (I do) I suggest you STFU - this is not the 'animal snuff' of the last few weeks - this is life! I am an animal lover, but I'm also a carnivore, I would consider myself a hypocrite if I turned away.

Anyway the point of this scene (apart from some cheap shock value) is to introduce us to our main character, Marcos, who works at the slaughter house (which we find out later is actually a soup factory) and, it seams, is the kind of guy who will casually munch on his sandwich while watching cows be drained... lovely!

His causality around cow blood aside, Marcos seems like an okay guy; he has a girlfriend (although her parents don't know it), is well liked in the local cafe (especially by Rosa, who makes it quite clear that she fancies the pants off him) and lives with his brother, who is currently out of town on business (He's a lorry driver)

His home is a vertual slum shack on a patch of sand inhabeted mostly by football playing children and stray dogs - dispite it's ramshackle appearance, it's quite nice on the inside, although obviously the home of bachelors; the wall behind the sofa is decorated by with pin-ups!

So far, so "What is he on about 'that was a gay movie'" ah, but you haven't met Nester yet! - Nester is a rather wealthy, tight trousered gentleman, who lives in the posh apartment block overlooking Marcos' shack - more specifically, overlooking the roof-light of Marcos' shack. The first time we meet him he is watching Marcos with binoculars,while it is implied (but only implied mind) that Marcos is reclining on the sofa, knocking one out over the aforementioned pin-ups!

After Marcos gets into a row with a Taxi driver (the driver doesn't approve of Marcos and his lady getting amorous in the back of his cab) he ends up accidentally killing the driver while the driver is hitting Marcos' girlfriend.  The sensible thing to do at this point would be to go to the police, but Marcos is afraid that his financial position will work against him (no good lawyer = no justice) and so he decides not to.

His life then spirals out of control as more and more people find out about the murders, and he in turn dispatches each one.

In the middle of all of this Nester is incessantly flirting with him at every available opportunity - although he genuinely doesn't seem to notice, thinking that Nester just wants to be his buddy - even when he gets invited to a late night pool at a private club, where Nester pushes him in playfully, then plays splashy-splashy games, buys him a drink, and showers with him!

The gayness is never explicitly stated aloud though, and I can't help but wonder if (despite the swimming scene) it was intended to slip under the radar in a less aware time (in much the same way that Victorian England, seemingly with one mind, managed not to notice the rampant homoeroticism in Oscar Wild's "The Picture of Dorian Grey").

The "cannibalism" (Such as it is) comes in when Marco's finally finds a way to get rid of the bodies (cheap ass perfume and room deodoriser can only cover so much) - he takes them (one carrier bag full at a time) to work, and drops them into the grinder - plastic bag and all (and presumably, teeth, bones hair and all). Luckily for him, the bits of plastic don't even seem to be noticed (much less affect sales) so, by simply avoiding soup from his company, he remains The Not-Cannibal Man!

It's a quirky, slow-paced, character piece as much as anything, and the blossoming "friendship" between Marcos and Nester as as influential to the movie's off-kilter (but not odd) ending as any of the murders - it's a crying shame that the voice performers involved in the English dub (epecially the lead) were such terrible actors, as it was an interesting, and otherwise good, little movie. I would reccomend this one, but not to gore hounds - slaughterhouse footage aside, the image on the DVD cover is the goriest shot in the film.

Body Count: 6
Boob Count: 1 pair
Animal Body Count: 5*
Most Memorable Death: The one on the DVD box (fuck you, art department)

*real cows, drained when stunned or possibly already dead, but if the native-on-a-stick from Cannibal Holocaust counted as a human death, despite the actual killing not being seen, then these count too...

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Cannibal Ferox - Lisa's Review

This movie is also titled 'Make them die slowly' which is a bit disturbing in itself. Its one Darren urged me not to watch as certain images would stay with me. considered it, but I like to at least 'try' to watch everything. If its too much, then the stop button is there to be pushed.

The movie starts with a young man who has just been released from a detox hospital after 5 weeks. He is looking for ‘Mike’… unfortunately so are a couple of unsavoury characters Mike has swindled out of £100,000 (we later find out they are from the Brooklyn mob). They fear this young man will tip Mike off that they are looking for him, so they dispense with him by way of a bullet through the chest. The police arrive and state everything which is obvious before we cut to 2 young women (Gloria & Pat)and a young cad – Rudi about to travel to……. to explore the concept of Cannibalism which has been reported as having occurred in this particular place - Patagwaya.

Gloria does not believe cannibalism exists,so she is setting out to prove incidents of cannibalism reported in a magazine have never happened. If she manages this, she’ll have an excellent dissertation for her degree. I have to ask what blonde Pat the obvious eye candy of the movie is doing travelling here with her fear of basically every living creature you can mention… but then again, perhaps I have answered my own question there.

They travel to their destination on a boat where they are given a Mongoose to 'protect' them from snakes as it has a lesser spirit and the snake will go for it rather than them... sadly we get to see this in all too much detail in the movie as a fucking massive Anaconda very slowly and painfully kills the animal. I pressed the Fwd button here as I felt way too much emphasis was placed on the suffering of the animal and its face. It wasn't required and didn't add to the story in any way at all. I thought this was footage taken from a documentary but reading Wills review, it looks like it wasn't and the Mongoose was tethered. Not impressed!!!!

After this, 2 new characters appear limping through the bushes - Mike Logan and Joe. Mike seems to be a bit of a tit who ‘doesn’t drink’ but has Cocaine around his neck that he likes to snort. He offers it around like sweeties and Pat has a taste. They tell tales of the cannibals they are running from and their 2 friends who have met a grisly end. One of them was tied to a stake and had his genitals cut off and eaten…. Wonder why that wasn’t in the movie?

Invariably Pat and Mike get it together, setting us up for some nudity late

In the morning, Gloria seems to have disappeared. We are ‘treated’ to another clip of a Leopard catching and eating a cute little monkey. His is the very reason I can’t watch nature documentaries (just in case). Pathetic I know as its life, but I just hate to see anything like this.

So far I’m finding this movie hard going…. Why these scenes are included when they have nothing to do with the story, I have no idea... Well I do, but its disappointing that there is a market for this kind of thing.

Next they come across a group of natives painted up in some sort of white paint. There are 2 horribly mutilated bodies, one of which is tied to a stake, so I assumed this was the unfortunate friends of Mike and Joe. The make-up here is very good and it does make you wrinkle your nose in disgust. Gloria is in a cage with a pig / hog which Mike kills to rescue her, he seems to enjoy it a little too much and tortures it.

Thankfully this is not shown… I’m a good one to be watching horrors when I can’t take animal cruelty, even implied or is this death real as well? I dread to think?

Joe has a fainting episode and they take him into a hut as he’s unwell. Mike agrees to stay with them (oh joy!) and insists on referring to them all as twats. He enjoys getting to know and share his drugs with Pat. After sharing some Cocaine and touching talk about back home in New York, they see 2 natives playing with a turtle.

They think it will be fun to scare them… unfortunately things get carried away when one shouts for help and he ends up shooting and killing a young girl.

Cue Rudi to the rescue when he hears the shot, him and Mike have a bit of a tussle but are interrupted by Gloria telling them Joe has taken a turn for the worse. Mike, the font of all knowledge suspects blood poisoning. Joe is now delirious. In a rare moment of clarity he tells them that Mike has been lying to them. He tells them about how they came across and befriended a young native they refer to as ‘Portugese’ as he knows a few words of the language, they get him to guide them to a river to pan for emeralds. He shows them 3 Emeralds he has as proof that there were there to be had. They fully intend to do him and his native friend over and steal whatever they have. They kidnap Portugese and his buddy and torture them.. which included tying him to a stake and cutting his genitals off… Hmmm, so not cannibals and their friend after all.

There is also a rather crap eyeball gouging scene.

Unfortunatey here there is also a scene of the natives cutting the legs off the live turtle leaving bleeding squirming stumps… not nice and again real.

The human stuff in here is fine to deal with, but I’m not enjoying the animal stuff AT ALL.

Mike & Pat leave and take all the equipment, maps, camera and money with them abandoning a dying Joe along with all round good eggs Rudi & Gloria.

We head back to New York next and a tour guide (Greta) showing some tourists around. She is approached by a Lieutentant Rizo and brought in for questioning. It turns out she is living with our bad boy Mike Logan. She met him in a bar and has taken him in as a lodger (lover?). Turns out this is the Mike that everyone was looking for at the start of the movie. Greta claims she has been away for 5 weeks so hasn’t seen him, but they put a tail on her round the clock anyway.

So now we know who Mike is (I’m sure the more astute of you will have tied these together already – I hadn’t), we go back out to Rudi and Gloria. Joe has just died so they agree to follow the river upstream to get out. As they exit their hut, they are greeted with a rotten papaya which apparently denotes a curse on them. After they’ve left the hut (but are still able to see whats going on), the natives go in and carry Joe out. They stick a rather thick stick into his abdomen and pull him apart and his innards out. They then proceed to eat his organs. Rather gross and obviously real animal organs used here so excellent effect again. Our next scene shows Rudi and Gloria running screaming from the scene. You don’t say!!! Unfortunately they are surrounded and captured by the natives. Guess who has also been captured!! Our man Mike and Pat. He is tied to a stake as the rest are held captive in cages and his genitals are hacked off and eaten in front of him… hehehehehe, can’t say I didn’t find that satisfying. Meanwhile Pat is screaming her ass off from inside her cage due to the trauma of a leech on her wrist.

We cut back to New York again (why do we keep doing this?) and the 2 heavies from the start of the movie have caught up with Greta and are trying to find out where the elusive Mike is. She gets beaten about a bit before the police show up and they clear off. She tells them where he is (why she didn’t earlier, who knows). The action heads back to Mike having his wounds cauterised and everyone heading upstream in canoes with the white-painted natives. Gloris tells how she dropped her necklace, credit card and sunglasses hoping someone will find them and come to their rescue. Someone does… the locals who are left behind. On getting out of the boat Rudi manages to make a break for it with a little crap distraction from Gloria, several locals with very large spears give chaseunfortunately he cuts his leg in the undergrowth and choses a piranha infested lake as a hiding pace. His screams alert everyone to his presence and as he screams for help, it arrives in the form of a poisonous dart to the chest. Bye Bye Rudolph.

In the new location the girls and Mike have been taken to, Mike is lowered into a pit and the 2 girls are encased in a mud hut. Gloria come to the conclusion, they are responsible for the cannibalism, not the natives. Their violence towards them is the reason they have turned to cannibalism. A organ (I think it’s a heart) is lowered into the hut for them to eat. Obviously they decline and instead start to sing??? An attempt to bring some humanity to the proceedings I think. The camera pans around the various unmoved faces of the tribe.

The police meanwhile are catching up with Mike completely oblivious as to what they will find. They find out he passed through Bogata so they are on his trail in a plane with Great in tow… why they need her who knows?

We are treated to another horrid animal death of a baby crocodile being slit throat to tail next. They certainly like the animal killings in this movie. Someone Mike has managed to escape and thwarts the attempts of a sympathetic native trying to free the girls with a rope. He cuts the rope and leaves his friends in the hut while he makes his escape, killing anyone who gets in his way. We now want to see the bastard eaten alive!!! As he hacks his way through undergrowth, the plane passes overhead and he yells to be saved, but it doesn’t see him. His yelling however alerts the natives to his presence and he is soon surrounded as the plane flies overhead again and again looking for him. He is laid down on a fallen tree and his hand chopped off quite realistically as well I thought.

We’re back at camp again and Mike is tethered again. Gloria is slapped but left clothed and tied by the arms to a frame, for some reason Pat is stripped to the waist and has very large hooks put through her breasts and is strung up. The plane continues to fly around overhead and this time they see something and land nearby. The first thing they see is an abandoned car. Some natives who just happen to be around give him Mikes engraved watch, which Greta says she gave to him. When enquiring as to what happened, they are told all the white folks have been eaten by crocodiles when their canoe overturned. Meanwhile Pat dies, assumably from blood loss and what follows is one of the best deaths I think I’ve ever seen and well deserved. Mike is laid on his knees and a table with a hole just big enough for the top of his head is put on top of him. His head is then quickly sliced off somewhat like cutting the top off a boiled egg and they eat his brains – lovely! A native decides under darkness to release Gloria, but as he helps her escape, a bamboo spiked trap is triggered and impales him in numerous places, leaving Gloria in the jungle alone. A boat with some poachers passes by and hears her screaming so they stop to investigate.

They see her naked, covered in mud and with sores all over her face crawling on the ground.

They obviously rescue her as the next scene is 3 months later back in New York at The University where she is being awarded a doctors degree in anthropology. She has written a book called ‘Cannibalism – End of a myth’. So she has obviously decided not to go into any detail about anything that happened as she blames the western world for everything that went on.

Her friends are regarded as killed when their canoe capsized and they were eaten by crocs.

So the movie ends…. As much as I found the animal bits in this movie too much for me personally and I was unable to watch most of them in any detail – nor did I want to, the movie itself was very good. Suspenseful, well acted, good make-up, grotesque story and even more terrifying – believable. I would thoroughly recommend this to any fans of proper horror who genuinely want to be disturbed.

This is the first movie where I understand placement on the infamous list, as the animal scenes are very shocking and the head ‘capping’ was probably very ground breaking when this movie was made.

Although you can tell this is an older movie from the quality of the camera used, the makeup certainly doesn’t let it down.

A genuinely disturbing horror with a good story and satisfying ending.

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Cannibal Apocalypse - Lisa's Review

So starts the first of many cannibal movies. I can’t say I’ve ever watched many before so this will be a completely new experience for me.

The credits tell me this movie is from 1980. I don’t know what would have made me feel the year was earlier, but I was surprised at the year. I could tell even from the credits that this was going to be a movie granted a larger budget than most of our offerings so far, so that bode well.

We start the movie in Vietnam amidst many American helicopters ad soldiers destroying Vietnamese villages oddly by way of blowtorch making sure all underground caves were rid of hiding inhabitants. In one of these caves however are 2 american soldiers, so our first worry is that they will be burnt to death by their comrades, we are quickly shown though that these 2 soldiers are not the run of the mill guys they appear. While we worry about this we go back to battle and a cute alsation dog approaches a soldier with something that couldn’t be anything other than a explosive device around his neck… you would think a soldier would know better than to try to remove it and ask what it is… really!! The dog invariably explodes killing itself and the soldier flying into to the air, the wooden toy dog somersaulting here is worth noting. Another couple of amusing observations were a psychic soldier who is blown off his feet by an explosion, before it actually explodes and a slim Vietnamese lady wearing a very thick and cumbersome burns suit as she runs through the shot on flames and jumps into our 2 soldiers (who we later learn are called Bukowski and Thompson) cave. This is where we discover, not all is well with these guys. After a weird opportunity for a boob shot from this burns victim, they both tuck in and start eating their barbecued meal.

Enter our star Norman Hopper who makes to save his subordinates (he is their commander officer) but he is duly bitten on the arm by Thompson. Here we cut to Norman in bed with his wife having a nightmare. We are left wondering whether or not what we have just witnessed is a dream.. in that he was bitten. A trip downstairs to take some pills and his salivating reaction to a dripping bloody cut of meat in the fridge sort of puts us in mind that it was no nightmare.

Another character which deserves a mention is Dr Mendez who obviously has some history with Normans wife Mary and can’t help but constantly refer to the the fact, including telling her she should have married him when she confides in him about her fears about Norman and his dreams. He pops up periodically to irritate you and be sickeningy sweet towards Mary.

We continue getting ‘hints’ about the fact Norman is a cannibal when his reaction to the teenage next door neighbour who hits on him is to take a bite of her… which she strangely seems to enjoy, odd girl. Next when Bukowski (or Charlie to his friends) is released from the dubiously named ‘Hospital for Nervous Disorders’ he makes a call to Norman and seems to confirm that it is not all in his mind and he was indeed bitten in Vietnam. He hangs up on Charlie and turns down his offer of meeting for a beer.

A bit put out by the rebuffal Charlie takes himself to the cinema and ends up sitting behind the most amorous couple I think any cinema has ever seen. They’re really going for it with scenes that most people keep for a bedroom and in the ladies lustful abandon (where the head is always thrown back with neck full on view) Charlie seizes his moment and bites a big chunk out of her neck, lol. I found this oddly funny! He is of course chased by all the cinema patrons and ends up holed up in a supermarket after having blown away some guy called Carlos who was chasing him(which pisses a lot of people off) and a security guard. The police arrive and we meet Captain McCoy who was my favourite character in this movie. Some of his lines are fantastic… including “He’ll be singing out of his arsehole when I get my hands on him”. I loved him. Reminded me a lot of Leslie Neilson actually… anyways, back to the story… Norman catches wind that Charlie has gone a bit stir crazy and is in the supermarket so he goes down and offers to help the police bring him in.

Long story short, he goes in, Charlie gets arrested eventually and is returned to the hospital where he and Thompson get together to bite a young nurse and infect her. All hell breaks loose from this point… people are bitten and infected, people are eaten (nothing overly messy though), a professor has his tongue bitten out and is bludgeoned to death with one of those nice little crystal stone thingys by his much younger, more attractive girlfriend nurse. She then frees Thompson and Bukowski who have been tied to a bed for their earlier demeanors, Norman appears as the hero of the half hour and kills someone trying to call for help from the hospital.

In the midst of all this, a point worth noting is that when a victim is being taken to the hospital in an ambulance, just before she dies, she scratches our Dr Mendez on the back of the neck. Hmmm that’s bound to come back at some stage….

We move on to the next part of the story as our 4 cannibals set off from the hospital armed with big guns… (it is here that I wondered why don’t cannibals eat one another?). I felt the movie went downhill from here as the earlier friends of Carlos who was despatched by Bukowski try to seek their revenge and don’t get very far. The police also join in the chase including our lovely Captain McCoy. We end up underground in a sewer system with everyone taking pot shots at one another. The nurse meets her end when she refuses to go into rat infested water (but she’ll bludgeon people to death and eat people???) and gets shot by the police who are trailing them. It sort of stopped being a horror movie about cannibals at this stage and became any boring old police chase movie, although the shots Wakowski takes through the middle which blow a perfect and very large hole straight through him were worth noting

Thompson is seen off next with a flame thrower (would’ve been easier had they done it out in Vietnam), so Norman trawls on wounded by a stray shot while trying to help Bukowski earlier. He finally manages to exit the sewer by scaling a wall (no mean feat with a shot in your leg). He makes his way home and after a boring supposedly tense search, his wife enters a room in the house to find him fully dressed in his army uniform pointing a gun at her. She obviously runs away and just as we think Norman is possibly going to take his own life with the gun, enter Dr Mendez!!! Ahhh we remember earlier he was scratched on the back of the neck by a victim just before she died. He sinks his knashers into Mary as Norman watches and we end the movie with Norman dying on the floor from blood loss and Mary asking him to kill her with his gun.

We cut back outside, a gunshot is heard and the chief and ambulance pull up outside and collect the bodies with the immortal words “Tell him this fucking nightmare is over”…. We get tinkly creepy music and we see the next door teenage girl (who Norman bit earlier in the movie) looking out the window watching it all with a bandaged finger. The End!

This movie was ok, but I enjoyed the first half much more than the second half. It changed into something it wasn’t in the last half and there wasn’t enough horror and gore. The movie seemed to forget it was about cannibals and I ended up feeling quite bored. In saying that, it wasn’t too bad and probably I would put it 3^rd on my list so far of the movies I’ve watched.

I’m still waiting for something shocking and disturbing please!!!

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The Burning - Lisa's Review

Before I start reviewing the movie in a completely different font to norma,l, I have to point out how ‘The Burning’ looks exactly like ‘The Buming’ in arial….. we won’t be using that then. On my enforced break from the internet, I’m trying to keep up with the movie reviews, so readers (if there are any) should get a few all at once from me.

So…. The Burning. This is one of the more modern nasties, even though it’s an 80’s movie. For its time it was ok, not bad. If you’re a fan of ‘Friday the 13^th’ movies, then you’ll most probably enjoy this one as the similarities can’t be avoided. I for one have never been a big fan of the ‘slasher V teenagers’ movies so I found it a bit dull and monotonous, but I think that’s just a question of my taste rather than a slur on the movie itself. In all it was pretty well put together, the acting wasn’t too bad and the premis was pretty straightforward and left no stray storylines.

The setting is Camp Blackfoot where the scene is set with a group of teenagers who play a very nasty trick on the caretaker Cropsy (who we find out later is a nasty piece of work who loves to scare and bully the kids on camp), The trick is only meant to scare him (it involves lighting candles inside a shiny skull covered in wormy things – looked quite nice without the worms if you ask me…). The trick backfires though and Cropsy is set alight in his bunk. A la Freddie Kruger, he is burnt beyond all recognition into some kind of freak and vows to have his revenge before flinging himself in the camp lake.

We now jump forward 5 years. Cropsy has recovered enough to be released from St Catherines hospital as there is nothing else they can do for him. He’s had all the psychiatric and physical help they can give him. We are treated to an idea as to his mental state by his reaction to a over zealous porter, who insists a new trainee doctor take a look at his burns in a scene reminiscent of ‘The Elephant Man’… “Look at the poor freak”. You would feel sorry for him, was he not a sadistic sod, the porter guy deserved what he got though, irritating bastard, although we didn’t get to see what he got.

The first murder we are treated to comes at the expense of a rather unattractive skanky, smoking (YICK!) prostitute who is so disturbed by the sight of Cropsy when lightening flashes and she catches sight of him, that she screams and demands he leaves. You would think she would have seen worse than a few burns really……she is treated to impaling on a pair of shears (Cropsy signature kill tool) .

So the idea is there. Sick, scarred killer released seeking revenge. Where do we go?? A teenagers camp of course, where else? We are treated to some untethered bouncing bosoms beneath a very tight top (completely unsuitable for playing rounders / baseball) and teeny tiny knickers on a girl with a backside like a teenage boy. Typical horny young men and coy but willing young ladies. Nothing much has changed even today with these stereotypes.

During the game, a ball goes stray into the woods where Cropsy is hiding in wait. A boyish young lady with a crap Purdy haircut named Tiger narrowly escapes death by shears when she finds the elusive ball just in time and clears off. So we sit back and wait for the teens to be picked off one at a time. While we wait we’re introduced to the various ‘victims’ - Alfred; a nerdy peeping tom who likes to follow his friends to spy on them naked in the shower or getting it on in the woods. Of course we know this is setting us up for him seeing a little more than he bargained for later on.

We also meet Glazer, a brain-dead jock with more in the way of muscle than brain, who has the hots for Sally, who to be honest did my head in. She is I suppose what men would call a tease and needs a good slap for her coy, tongue in cheek behaviour and constant rebuffals of Glazer, who I ended up feeling sorry for.

A scene I found quite amusing was when the guys were trying to impress the ladies at a lake by diving in. Alfred can’t swim, so Glazer thinks it would be amusing to push him in as he’s not amused that he has been spying on girls in the shower… cue much guppy-fish behaviour and coughing and spluttering. When he’s lifted onto the jetty by a friend and he’s moving around and coughing… the immortal lines “Are you alright? Are you breathing?” are uttered…. Exactly who is going to answer the “Are you breathing” part if he isn’t is anyones guess.

Eddie, I suppose what we would call a wide boy in the UK. Boaster, ladies man, bit of a bad boy, who quite honestly doesn’t have a clue about women.

Karen, a shy, virginal, seemingly innocent young lady who seemed surprised that getting naked and going swimming with Eddie would make him want to do more than kiss. This culminates in her storming off into the woods naked, as her clothes have been strewn over various branches by that scamp Cropsy. She meets a nice demise by way of shears to the throat. Quite satisfying really, if she’d stayed and enjoyed herself, it wouldn’t have happened.

So, the older kids go on a 3 day canoe trip to Devils Creek (these names say it all really) we get the Cropsy story around a campfire and there is much merriment, attempted scares and usual behaviour you get in these movies. Its at this time we find out what a piece of work Cropsy was before the accident, so you understand why the boys did what they did back then.

After the disappearance of Karen in the woods, the kids are wondering whats happened to her and all fingers are pointing at Eddie. All the canoes are gone so it is assumed Karen left for the main camp as she was so pissed off at Eddie and accidentally released all of the canoes. A raft is duly fashioned and some of the kids head for main camp to retrieve the canoes. Enroute a solitary empty canoe is seen floating on the river. You can guess the next part… of course Cropsy is hiding in the canoe so when they row over to retrieve the canoe, every last one of them is dispensed with rather rapidly. I quite liked the no messing approach to the deaths here. No unnecessary suspense or faffing about. Hacked fingers, severed arm, sliced forehead, slit throat – muchos mess.

We leave the unfortunate youngsters on the raft and head back to Sally finally giving in to Glazer for what turns out to be a definite quickie. In a rare thoughtful moment, she decides to stay with him afterwards and he heads back to camp to get some matches to build her a fire. Cue Alfred being awoken and coming for a nosey. Well… girl naked in the wood, nosey parker… again I don’t think the next scene requires much forsight. Sally is already dead by the time Glazer returns, sadly we don’t get to find out how she met her end. Glazer ends up joining her in death and Alfred runs back to camp to raise the alarm. Camp Leader Todd to the rescue,!! although it’s a case of Cry Wolf as Alfred isn’t the most reliable witness. He soon finds out however that there is a madman on the loose as he gets whacked around the side of the noggin with the shears… why Cropsy didn’t kill him there and then I don’t know. Cropsy gives chase to Alfred…. So it looks like we have our 2 heroes as time tells me the movie is nearing its end.

Some incidentals happen in that the raft drifts back to camp with all the bodies on board. A girl swims out upon spotting the striken raft…. The age of chivalry is obviously dead … and discovers the gory scene by way of the severed arm falling out of the raft and a corpse bobbing up like a gruesome bobbing apple. Someone is sent for help… blah blah blah.

The final scene approaches. Alfred has been caught by Cropsy who has pinned him to a wooden door by his shears… again why the sympathy who knows? Todd finds Alfred and of course Cropsy appears and the final fight with the villain ensues. We have the revelation in this final scene that Camp Leader Todd was one of the original group who set fire to Cropsy (quelle surprise!) and he lights a flame thrower to seek his revenge. Enter Alfred in a final moment of brilliance where he stabs Cropsy through the back with his shears (so he got free himself??…). As Alfred and Todd leave, Cropsy does that thing only villains do where he rises again (where’s a bazooka or a grenade launcher when you need one?). Todd biffs him over the head in quite possibly the best possible kill in the movie (ironic its not from the movies murderer) and then he meets his end by way of the flame thrower… quite unfortunate really.

I empathised a bit with him as the kids were so damn annoying, so I just didn’t care who was dispensed with through out the movie. As a movie, its definitely watchable by the masses, ok, just not to my taste. Why it ended up on the list is anyones guess as it is the sort of thing my parents would have allowed me to watch when I was about 10 (well my mum would have fast forwarded any naughty bits, lol).

If I were recommending any movies from the list so far for anyone to watch, this is 1 of only 2 I would suggest (the other being The Beyond), lets hope we continue into some more watchable titles.

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WEEK 14: The Cannibal Man

Alternate Titles : The Apartment on the 13th Floor, La Semana del Asesino, Week of the Killer

Year: 1978

Reviews / Author Comments due: 27/08/2011

DPP Status: Successfully Prosecuted

BBFC Status: Passed with 3 seconds of cuts in 1993

IMDB: The Cannibal Man

Wikipedia: The Cannibal Man

DVD: US Import

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Cannibal Holocaust - Will's Review

NOTE: This post is tagged "Will Recommends", Please be aware that this recommendation applied ONLY to the Directors "new" cut, and NOT the uncut version viewed for this review.

Sigh, Animal cruelty again...


To be fair, I knew in advance this time, and (but for the nature of this project) I would never have dreamed of watching the uncut version. Luckily for those of you not taking stupid self-imposed challenges, director Ruggero Deodato has a new edit of the film coming out which excises the cruelty, and I would recommend it as a rental, because the film itself is actually quite good!

Last weeks movie did hit a lot of the same beats (chunks of it were bluntest lifts from this earlier, better, movie); there's a castration, a turtle murder, cuts between the Amazon and new York, even lines like "We are the real cannibals"... Certainly, the makers of this would have every reason to scream "Ripp off" at the makers of Cannibal ferox!


This time, our New York scenes are much less intrusive, and do feel like part of the same movie - The setup is that a NY film crew have headed off into the amazon to film a documentary, and are now missing, presumed dead. A rescue party is launched, sponsored by the "Pan American Broadcast Company" and "New York University" and headed up my Professor Harold Monroe, an Anthropologist from said university. They do not find the missing crew (or rather, they do, but in the form of a grizzly shrine on human remains) but they do find their film canisters, which the native believe to be cursed and are all too happy to get rid of!


Upon the canisters' return to NY, the movie switches between a found-footage type film, and scenes where the TV company are trying to convince the Professor to host a multi-part documentary based around the footage.


We quickly learn that the lead Journalist / Director from the original film crew was a total scumbag, who would set up real tragedies, just to film them. The Movie attempts to criticise Mondo film making, and to make a political point about how uncaring and disgusting the media is, a point which is lost in the hypocrisy as we see a real pig getting kicked around and shot FOR REAL, just for this movie, and Deodato even finds an excuse to use some genine execution squad footage from Nigeria!

The acts we see the film makers commit against the tribes they encounter get worse as the film goes on, and it isn't long before we're siding with the 'savages' and looking forward to them getting their comeuppance, at one point, the three male members of the crew take turns alternately holding down a native girl, raping her, and filming the assault. Obviously, the female crew member objects to this; they cant use the footage, it's a waste of film! - the bitch only really gives a shit when her boyfriend takes his turn as the rapist!

The really interesting part about this movie though, is the trouble it caused here in the real world - Deodato paid the 4 leads to go into hiding for a set time after the film's release - he had to bring them out of hiding early in order to prove to the Italian courts that he had not made a snuff movie! Indeed, the effects hold up remarkably well even now (most especially the movie's iconic impaling) and it's easy to see how the use of stock footage and real animal deaths would cause someone to wonder.

Deodato has claimed in recent years that the use of animals was "a mistake" - the implication is that he regrets it, I suspect though, that he regrets the trouble it has caused him!


As I say, check out the new edit, and just be thankful that movies are not made this way any more...

Body Count: 26.5 (including many from a virtually unrelated army sub-plot and 4 real deaths from stick footage - .5 for a foetus)
Boob Count: 24 pairs (mostly from tribeswomen and girls)
Animal Body Count: 5 - all real (a 6th was killed in footage that landed on the cutting room floor)
Most Memorable Death: Native on a stick

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WEEK 13: Cannibal Holocaust

Alternate Titles : Cannibal Massaker, Holocausto Cannibal, Nackt und Zerfeischt

Year: 1980

Reviews / Author Comments due: 20/08/2011

DPP Status: Successfully Prosecuted

BBFC Status: New edit (read: pre-cut version) passed without further cuts in 2011

IMDB: Cannibal Holocaust 

Wikipedia: Cannibal Holocaust 

DVD: Region free uncut import.

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Cannibal Ferox - Will's Review

One Thing I was dreading as we reached the cannibal films was the real animal cruelty which I had heared occurred in some of them. Quite rightly, such scenes are still not allowed by the BBFC but I had set out to see the films that were banned - which means getting hold of uncut imports and seeing even atrocities like this in full.

Some of the scenes I had here were in Cannibal Holocaust are present here too - including a scene where a Live Turtle is dismembered and eaten. I do not know if the 'tribes people' in this movie were real tribes people, or just south american actors, unfortunately I believe the latter. I had managed to live with the idea of the turtle and monkey deaths in Cannibal Holocaust as follows:

The tribesmen in Cannibal Holocaust are real - These people kill animals in that way and eat them all the time, the turtle and monkeys in Cannibal Holocaust were eaten by the tribes that killed them, although they may have been directed to kill and eat then, on cue, it is something that would have happened anyway and, while I do not agree with their methods, nothing really died only for our supposed enjoyment.

With this movie however, I don't feel that's the case; and even if it is, the mongoose that was tethered to a stake and fed to an anaconda was certainly staged purely for our 'viewing pleasure' - snakes eat mammals, I get that, and I'm fine with it - but should that mammal really be tethered and offered up just for entertainment? I say "No".

Even if you're okay with all the animals which were killed and eaten in a manor aproximating the natural order of things, there's the fact that the mongoose was firs swung out of a moving Jeep by his lead, and the boar which is stabbed quite cruelly by a western actor (actually a stage hand - the actor refused) in a staged 'defending the group' scene.

But enough of that, assuming you get a cut version, what of the movie itself?


First of all, you won't actually miss anything; the animal killings do not add to the story, and were clearly added in a "look at us, hardcore! snuff'n'shit!!!!" way.

The film opens with a reasonably neat 'trick'; all the way through the opening credits' cheesy disco music, we follow a man through the streets of New York City. Normally this would be our main character, but no sooner does he arrive at his destination (the apartment of his dealer, Mike) he is killed by mobsters who are also looking for Mike (he owes them money) and the action cuts to the Amazon jungle.

To me, the action should never have cut back to New York, as the scenes of the police and mob looking for Mike are the weakest in the film, and the NY prologue would have been well served as an interesting mislead, and as a demonstration that the mob mean business, to illustrate why Mike ran.

Anyway, over in the Amazon, we meet Gloria, who has come away with her brother, Rudy, and thier promiscuous (and non-too picky) friend Pat, to find evidence to support her theory that "Organised cannibalism in human society does not exist, and that historically it has never existed" in order to write her Phd thesis.

Eventually our hero's stumble across 2 dead natives, impaled on what appear to be bamboo booby traps, and 2 westerners; one is Mike, the dealer mentioned in the NY opening, the other is his sidekick Joe, who is badly wounded.

Mike tells how he and Joe were buying coke (not the soda) when they decided to go prospecting for sapphires, having received info that the river in rich in them; he tells of a Portuguese guide that they employed. Mikes story continues that he, Joe and the Portuguese dude were captured by natives, who locked the 2 Americans in a semi-submerged cage with leaches, and tied the Portuguese to a stake, torturing him and removing, then eating, his genitals! It seems the 2 villagers in the man-trap had helped Joe and mike escape, and been killed just seconds before out trio arrived.

Of course, it turns out that Mike's story isn't entirely true, and it's not long before he shows his true colours, killing a native girl for shits and giggles, and taking a little too much joy in killing a boar that was attacking Pat. He also charmingly re-christens Gloria "Twat", and referring to her that way, throughout the rest of the movie.

The natives, of course, turn on our five... white folk ("hero" didn't work, "westerners" would include the Amazonians... the only other thing out key 5 have in common is their skin colour...) and (inbetween animal killings) you'll get to see some fairly decent gore, as people are graphics castrated, gutted, have thier skulls popped open like boiled eggs and, in the movies most iconic image) hung up by hooks through their breasts.


Which really is what the movie has going for it - gorehounds who are okay with the animal snuff (shame on you) or those who get the cut (by over 6 mins!) BBFC approved version will lap up the nasty, and for the most part well done, human-on-human violence.

Unfortunatly, I saw the uncut version, and as such, have already spent more time on this vile abomination that I'm happy to.


Body Count: 10
Animal Body count: 8 (a shocking 7 of which are real)
Boob count: 8 pairs (mostly toppless mud-covered natives, including one or two that are possibly under-age)
Most Memorable Death: The Turtle...

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WEEK 12: Cannibal Ferox

Alternate Titles : Cannibal Feroz, Make them Die Slowly, Let them Die Slowly, Woman from Deep River, Die Rache der Kannibalen

Year: 1981

Reviews / Author Comments due: 13/8/2011

DPP Status: Successfully Prosecuted

BBFC Status: Passed with cuts in 1992 - note that although on 6s of cuts are listed, the version received by the BBFC had already been extensively cut by the distributors.

IMDB: Cannibal Ferox

Wikipedia: Cannibal Ferox

DVD: Uncut US import

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Cannibal Apocalypse - Will's Review

Well, over on the Facebook group I said that this weeks movie was the "First in six weeks of Cannibal movies", and it almost isn't... Don't get me wrong, it centres around people who eat other people; but when I think  "Cannibal Movie" I think of tribespeople in the middle of nowhere in grass skirts, chowing down of hapless westerners (like the dude on the cover of "Cannibal Holocaust" ) - The 'Canibals' on this movie are New-Yorkers, infected with a virus that causes the desire to eat human flesh.

Which brings us to the second thing that makes the movie hard to classify; "infected with a virus that causes the desire to eat human flesh" sound like a zombie movie, but the infected here retain thier personalities in there entirety, save for said people-munchies, so I suppose its a 'non-zombie cannibal virus outbreak movie', which has to be a pretty small sub-genre (if you can think of another example, or a better genre title, let me know in the comments!1).
Classification problems out of the way, what of the movie itself? meh, not bad, not great either. One thing that bugged the hell out of me was the inconstancies in the time it took the virus to take hold. Our "patent zeros" (or is that "patents zero"?) are Nam vets Sgts. Bukowski and Hoffman who, when we meat them, have been trapped down a hole by the Vietcong. When Cpt. Norman Hopper (John Saxon, Nancy's Dad from A Nightmare On Elm Street) they are already fully under the influence - as witnessed when one of Hopper's men sets a Vietnamese woman on fire and throw her chard, but living, body within reach of the pit, but one of them bites Norman and it's FIVE YEARS before the urge starts to strike him, for the rest of the cast who get bitten (and survive) the cannibalistic seems to kick in anything from instantly, to a few hours after the bite.

As I indicated above, the bulk of the movie takes place 5 years after the POWs were rescued from the pit, starting on the day one of them is released from psychiatric care, seemingly the little woman-eating episode was put down to emotional damage, and the virus remains unknown.

Upon release Bukowski decides the first thing a traumatised war-vet should do upon release from a psychiatric institution is go to see a war move - but it isn't the action on screen that sets him off - it's the flesh of the ludicrously amorous couple in the seat in front of him, it's not long before he's breaking his buddy Hoffman out of the institute, and their old captain is joining them as they capture, infect and carve up everyone from nurses to gang members in a badly explained plan to get back to Vietnam and finish the job(?).

The Gore is quite good, especially in a scene where a victim is carved into manageable chunks with some kind of power tool borrowed from a garage, but I recommend you see the UK cut version - you won't miss any of the fake gore, but you will miss the unforgivable (unfaked) shot where a live rat is hit with a flame-thrower and runs burning to water.

A very average time-killer, the most interesting thing about it is that during the Video Nasty raids, hapless police seized copies of "Apocalypse Now" believing it to be this movie; but Quinten Tarrentino is a fan, so what do I know?



Body Count: 29 (many in war scenes)
Animal Body Count: 2
Boob Count: 2 pairs



1 - See how I acted like we actually have any readers there?!

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