Prisoner of the Cannibal Gods - Will's Review

It's hard to believe that this one is older than most of the other cannibal movies on the list (I believe only Deep River Savages is older) because it seems to borrow elements from most of them; in reality it seems that the similarities are either coincidental, or the other movies each 'borrowed' their favorite parts from this one, stoping short of lifting the plot wholesale.

Either way, I could pretty much write an outline for one of these things in my sleep by now...

Up front we are told that our leading lady's husband went missing while out exploring the jungle, after failing to get help from the local authorities, she recruits someone who already knows the jungle and, with 2 of her and her husband's friends, they go of to find him.

The encounter a primitive, but friendly tribe, who are subsequently attacked by a war-like, cannibalistic tribe, who happen to be based in the area that our hero's need to search.

Along the way we see many scenes of animal cruelty and killing (both real and simulates) and plenty of stock footage of animal-on-animal violence.

Our characters are predictably captured and held, and they manage to work in a rape and a castration.

Seem familiar? Yeah, thought so.

To be fair, there are touches I haven't seen elsewhere - one thing I did like was that as the film progressed we discover that not all of outlets leading characters are necessarily what they seem to be, and some may have their own  motives for heading into the jungle.

The obligatory ritual is different here too - it involves our heroin being tied up and anointed, and then ignored while the tribe go into a sexual frenzy - a frenzy show to us in three separate acts (totally seperate, there is nothing an any of the shots to suggest that the rest of the tribe are even present, although they are supposedly all in the same cave); a couple have sex, a tribes woman (very graphically) masturbates, and a guy fucks a pig (the pig is far more interested in eating a nearby plant and seems happy to ignore the idiot pulling his tail and dry-humping him).

In the end though, we've seen it all before, and far too much of the film is spent walking around and cutting to animals killing each other; distressed monkey aside (I really did hate to see that - even though it was just nature doing what nature does*) it's mostly a very dull movie.


*UPDATE - It has been indicated that even this was staged

BODY COUNT: 11
BOOB COUNT: 4 Pairs
ANIMAL BODY COUNT: 16 - mostly real.
MOST MEMORABLE DEATH: Midget brains!

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Prisoner Of The Cannibal God - Lisa's Review

*** SOME SPOILERS***

So, another Cannibal movie in our list.  I thought we had exhausted them all with the passing of 'C', but nope, here's another entry.

This movie left me a little cold.  Not for the obvious hatred of close-up scenes of animal deaths (which this movie contains), but because I found it so monumentally dull.  To be fair, I think unless I adore or hate a movie, if its somewhere in the middle, it is very much dependant on my mood how I will find it.  Maybe on a different day, I would feel this one 'wasn't too bad'.  I don't think I would ever go as far as even describing this movie as 'good', but I found reaching the end of this one a bit of a struggle as I had absolutely sod all interest in how it ended.

The basic premis is, our main female character Susan (played by Ursula Andress) and her brother Arthur set off on an exhibition to find Susans' missing husband.  She brings an ex colleague of her husbands (Prof Edward Foster) who seems to have an idea where he could have gone.

After what seems like a sh*t load of red tape and needless scenes of them getting permisson to go, what follows is stereotypical jungle wandering.  We are also treated to the mandatory high maintenance, helpless female to frustrate any ladies who may be watching. The characters are all pretty one dimensional (mostly arseholes) and played out very obviously.  The acting is not the worst I've seen, but does appear wooden in a lot of places.
Interspersed throughout the movie are inserted scenes of animal deaths, which seem to have no place in the movie.  They are nothing to do with the storyline, were not needed and add absolutely nothing.  In fact they just leave you feeling a bit sick to the stomach and make you want to reach for the remote and turn it off entirely.  What makes it worse is the very obvious setting up of the worst scene of a python devouring a live monkey.  I persevered, just to see if this movie improved any.  Sadly it did not.

We learn throughout the movie that Susan's reasons for coming on the expedition aren't as originally stated.  She has no concern whatsoever for her missing husband, in fact if anything, she has utter disdain for him.  She is in it for entirely selfish reasons, as is the accompanying Professor Foster, who was taken prisoner by natives years ago and wants to exact revenge.  We also have an explorer Manolo who joins the party part-way through... yet we still wonder where the cannibals are?

We trundle through the movie wandering when something of any interest is going to happen.  Even the death of Foster, who loses his footing while climbing a waterfall is a kind of 'meh' moment.  Arthur also dies as they reach their destination and Manolo and Susan are taken prisoner.  This is where we see the body of Susans husband who the natives are worshipping as they believe to still be alive due to the ticking coming from his geiger counter.

They decide Susan is a goddess.They tie her up, strip her naked, smear her in mud and afterwards dress her in a very elaborate, beautiful (and very light coloured given the dirty surroundings) costume.  Manolo is tortured.

I won't spoil the ending, but I would be surprised if anyone who no interest in a naked Ursula Andress or who isn't on a 'Nasties completion task' would have got that far.

In conclusion, not one I would watch again or recommend.  Seemed to have a much larger budget than the other cannibal movies on this list and had some great cinematography, but all that was at the expense of good acting, effects and keeping your attention.

Big fat Meh from me.

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