Zombie Creeping Flesh - Will's Review

Whenever I find a film borderline incomprehensible, I tend to have a quick read around to make sure that what little I did understand is correct, before coming here and making an ass of myself by describing totally the wrong film.

This week, while it turned out i was right about the plot, it seems there are some bloody good reasons for my confusion.

It seems that, having already been fleashed out by one writer from another writers treatment, the director then decided it needed further changes; but rather than having them written, he just haphazardly filmed stuff that he thought might be useful, then tried to turn it into a cohesive movie in editing, THEN had a second unit film some more sequences (mostly gore shots) and edit them in, AND threw in some documentary footage from a previously released mondo to boot.

SPOILERS FOLLOW



This checkered history probably goes some way to explaining the go-nowhere terrorist sub-plot; following a chemical plant leek at the begging of the movie, a terrorist group pops up demanding the closure of the so-called "Hope-centers" (the chemical plants), only to be massacred 2 minutes later by a team of military types  and never mentioned again.

The aforementioned chemical leak is responsible for a  horde of oddly colored zombies; Mostly purple and brown, although they settle down to a consistent pale blue after about half way through the movie.

Come to think of it; odd skin hues are a bit of a theme; this guy is still alive and well (not even infected):

So, With the Zombie origin explained, We meet due of documentary film makers in the Jungle who, before long, form an uneasy alliance with the military types who took out the terrorists.

Wait a minute... Documentary film makers... Jungle... This is starting to sound like a cannibal movie!

Yup, almost the entire center third of the film has the look and feel of a standard cannibal flick; right down to the mixed moral messages - being preachy about sensationalism one minute, and using prolonged gross-out scenes and exploitative documentary footage the next, we see a tribal funeral. The female journalist at this point demonstrates the only reason (or rather, the only two reasons) shes in the film, as she strips down and dons body paint to gain the trust of one of the tribes.

Thanks to the "borrowed" nature of the footage, the look of the tribe switches from shot to shot, so we get everything from lip-disks, to intricate make-up, to Frank Sidebottom, all in a single 60 second stretch, supposedly featuring the same tribe.

The whole point of the (real)  tribal funeral, is to tell us that the tribe doesn't bury or burn its dead; which handily brings us back to zombie movie territory, just in time for our heroes to reach a (formally) populated area.

More attempts at social commentary are made, as we drop in on a UN meating which has been called to address the Zombie problem currently affecting Africa's tribal populations, and the African delegates are virtually the only attendees.

The whole thing is, as I have mentioned, a confused mess; on top of that the acting is so over the top that I'm not 100% certain that they wern't going for parody!

You know you have problems when your 

zombie extras cant keep a straight face...

The film's one saving grace was the stolen Goblin soundtrack, which lifts tracks from Contaminated and Dawn of the Dead (the latter being literally stolen - the rights were never cleared, and Goblin almost sued)

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Cannibal Terror - Lisa's Review

My first thought on switching this on was, what extremely strange music for the start of a movie about cannibals. A kind of upbeat and chirpy ‘La Bamba’.

What I quickly learned is that this movie is so bad in every possible way that it is laughable.

Gone is the sinister undertones and creepy feel of the last 2 cannibal movies (Holocaust, Ferox), to be replaced with a movie that I struggle to find a good word to say about.

The acting it awful, the dubbing is so out of sync its too distracting to forget about, the authenticity of the tribes people in the jungle is clearly questionable, the plot is beyond weak, the acting is non existent, the soundtrack is amongst one of the most annoying I’ve ever heard!

The basic premis here is 2 fuckwits kidnap a girl for ransom and as they are so incredibly stupid, end up out in the ‘jungle’ (if that’s what you can call a few trees in a field) which is inhabited with cannibals. The cannibals actually looked like they wanted to burst out in laughter in some scenes where they were chowing down on organs. The first eating scene we are treated to went on too long and was just daft.

They obviously wanted to show you the animal carcass they were tearing apart so you could marvel at how clever the special effects were. Although in 1 part, it looked very similar to cooked chicken...

I can’t be bothered wasting my infrequent free time when the baby is sleeping to dissect this movie and write about its storyline in any detail as it just isn’t worth the time.

There is organ eating, there is more rape for titillation, but this movie sets out to be an exploitive cannibal movie and just ends up being dross. The men are irritating and so sexist and banal, its infuriating, its not even funny. In one scene, a braless female actor is advised she could do with having her ‘flippity floppity tits’ fixing, but ‘that costs money’…*le sigh*.

For the record her tits looked perfectly ok to me.

Later we have a naked woman and the wife of the host to these 2 ‘tards (Manuela – I thought that was a mans name) bathe in a big bucket later as a peeping tom spys on her supposedly seductively washing… she is then tied to a tree by aforementioned man as her protests look more like moans of ecstasy. Again titilation scenes and I really can’t be arsed. I generally question the actresses who agree to partake in scenes like this which are obviously played out for kicks. The only thing is, this movie is so damn bad, you can’t get sufficiently pissed off at it. I think the ‘idea’ of what they’re ‘trying’ to do is the only thing you could get irked at. As this scene is progressing, we cut back to Ms flippity floppity tits who is making moves on a guitar playing man who thinks repeated rubbing of her backside and leg is arousing, all while a parrot looks on.

Manuelas husband finds her and a bit pissed off as you can imagine ties the perpetrator to a tree to be left to the cannibals…

Blah blah blah, crap crap crap. Don’t watch this movie, its crap. If you’re a teenage boy and want to look at tits, I’m sure the internet has a lot less dull ways to do that. Avoid!!

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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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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