CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE aka INVASION OF THE FLESH HUNTERS aka CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS
(Italy/Spain - 1980; US release 1982)
Directed by Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Written by Jimmy Gould (Dardano Sacchetti) and Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Cast: John Saxon, Elizabeth Turner, John Morghen (Giovanni Lombardo Radice), Cindy Hamilton (Cinzia de Carolis), Tony King, Wallace Wilkinson, Ray Williams (Ramiro Oliveros), May Heatherly, Joan Riordan, Venantino Venantini, Luca Venantini, Goffredo Unger, Walter Patriarca, Edoardo Margheriti, Paul Costello. (Unrated, 96 mins)
Throughout his long career, journeyman Italian director Antonio Margheriti dabbled in everything from post-HERCULES peplum, sci-fi space operas, gothic horror, 007 Eurospy knockoffs, gialli, spaghetti westerns, family comedies, crime thrillers, JAWS ripoffs, Indiana Jones imitations, commando action explosion movies, and whatever YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE is. 1980's CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE was his only stab at the graphically gory, extreme Italian horror made famous by the likes of Lucio Fulci in the wake of George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. He didn't really care for that style of horror, and CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE reflects that by trying to go for something a little different than the post-DAWN zombie flicks and the flesh-munching jungle cannibal films of Ruggero Deodato (CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST) and Umberto Lenzi (CANNIBAL FEROX, aka MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY). Despite the horrific elements and the overt zombie/cannibal influence, CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE actually fits more in the post-TAXI DRIVER, "crazed Vietnam vet" subgenre popularized by ROLLING THUNDER, THE EXTERMINATOR, FIRST BLOOD, and any number of lesser B-movie actioners. Like those other films, we have soldiers coming home from Vietnam, unable to re-adjust to civilian life, cast aside, and, for varying reasons, going on a rampage. Cannibalism is a rather extreme metaphor for the PTSD turmoil felt by shattered combat vets, but it shows some more thematic ambition than is generally seen in such exploitation films of the time. And, as Roger Corman and others have noted for decades, exploitation films are where filmmakers can sneak in the hardest-hitting messages, because nobody's looking for it amidst the blood & guts and the T&A.
Released to US grindhouses and drive-ins in 1982 by Almi Pictures under two different, equally lurid titles--first as INVASION OF THE FLESH HUNTERS in a version cut by several minutes to avoid an X rating, and a later relaunch later that year and into 1983 in its uncut form as CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS--CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE has Vietnam War PTSD manifesting itself in the form of a dormant cannibal virus infecting a trio of Atlanta-area Vietnam vets: crazed sergeants Tommy Thompson (Tony King), the improbably-named Charlie Bukowski (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, billed as "John Morghen"), and their C.O. Capt. Norman Hopper (John Saxon), who had a chunk taken out of his right arm by a feral Thompson in 'Nam. Hopper is still haunted by nightmares and some thawing, raw meat in the fridge is starting to look appetizing even before he, Bukowski, and Thompson can no longer resist the slowly-building craving for human flesh. Hopper comes to Bukowski's rescue after the latter bites a young woman in a movie theater (showing Umberto Lenzi's 1979 WWII drama FROM HELL TO VICTORY, conveniently from this film's executive producer Edmondo Amati) and instigates a police standoff in a flea market.
When Bukowski is arrested, Hopper, who's already put the bite (and probably more, offscreen) on the aggressively flirty, seductive, and underage girl next door (Cinzia de Carolis, credited as "Cindy Hamilton" and a long way from her role as Karl Malden's young ward and sidekick in Dario Argento's THE CAT O'NINE TAILS) in a cringey scene that can best be described as "incredibly uncomfortable" even though little is shown (some of Margheriti's crasser contemporaries would've left nothing to the imagination), busts him and Thompson out of the mental ward, taking an infected nurse (May Heatherly, best known as the nudie jigsaw puzzle-hating mom in the beginning of PIECES) along with them on a cannibal rampage through Atlanta that culminates in a police manhunt through the sewers. In pursuit are Hopper's news reporter wife Jane (Elizabeth Turner of BEYOND THE DOOR and WAVES OF LUST) and her friend Dr. Mendez (Ramiro Oliveros), who carries a blazing torch for her and is constantly trying to goad her into ditching Norman. There's also irate, foul-mouthed, trenchcoat-wearing Capt. McCoy (local Atlanta actor Wallace Wilkinson, also seen as Glenn Ford's captain in the insane THE VISITOR, another Atlanta-shot Italian horror film made around the same time) who barks orders at everyone after arriving at the flea market standoff and yelling "Is he a subversive, a queer, a black, a commie, or a 'Moslem' fanatic?" Wallace Wilkinson: canceled.
Just out on Blu-ray in its uncensored version in a 4K restoration from Kino Lorber (because physical media is dead), CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE looks better than it ever has in this pristine new transfer, an upgrade that's leaps and bounds over the 2002 Image Entertainment DVD. Though it's not as consistently over-the-top as a Fulci or Lenzi gorefest, CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE is still no slouch in the splatter department. From intermittent flesh-munching to tongues being ripped out to eyes being gouged out to one hapless victim's limbs being buzzsawed off to the legendary scene filmed through the gaping hole in Bukowski's shotgunned belly, Margheriti, however reluctant he may have been about dabbling in this subgenre, delivers a sufficient level of the goods. The Kino Blu includes a nearly hour-long retrospective ported over from the old Image DVD, featuring interviews with Saxon, Lombardo Radice, and Margheriti, who died in 2002. It also has a new commentary by film historian and former Video Watchdog publisher Tim Lucas, plus a new interview with Canton, OH-native King, a forgotten Buffalo Bills receiver whose brief NFL career ended in 1968 after one season. King soon drifted into movies (he had a small role in SHAFT and a bit part as a stablehand grooming Jack Woltz's doomed horse in THE GODFATHER), most notably in a memorable foot chase in what should've been a star-making supporting turn in 1975's REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER. By 1980, he was finding steady employment in Italy, doing two more Margheriti films after CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE (1980's Namsploitation outing THE LAST HUNTER and 1982's TIGER JOE), as well as Ruggero Deodato's insane 1983 sci-fi actioner THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS. Several years after his Italian sojourn, King changed his name to Malik Farrakhan and became head of security for Public Enemy.
THE SECT aka THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER
(Italy - 1991; US release 1992) Directed by Michele Soavi. Written by Dario Argento, Giovanni Romoli and Michele Soavi. Cast: Kelly Curtis, Herbert Lom, Tomas Arana, Maria Angela Giordano, Michel Adatte, Carla Cassola, Angelina Maria Boeck, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Niels Gullov, Donald O'Brien, Yasmine Ussani. (Unrated, 117 mins) The second and final collaboration between director Michele Soavi and producer/co-writer Dario Argento (following 1989's THE CHURCH), THE SECT is finally out on Blu-ray in the US, where it's fallen into relative obscurity over the last quarter century since its VHS release as THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER. There was talk that Anchor Bay was planning to release THE SECT during the big Eurocult DVD explosion around 2000 or so, but it never materialized, possibly due to expensive music rights clearance issues with the prominent inclusion of America's "A Horse With No Name" over the opening credits and into the first scene. A visionary filmmaker with an eclectic group of mentors--he was an actor and a regular assistant to both Argento and Lucio Fulci, and he found an unexpected fan in Terry Gilliam, who saw his 1987 film STAGEFRIGHT at a European film festival and hired him to handle second unit on THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN--Soavi's films from 1987 to 1994 constitute the last gasp of greatness from the golden age of Italian horror. Things had been on the decline for years, with aging directors moving to TV, Fulci ailing and effectively retired, and Argento beginning the long, slow descent into mediocrity that's ongoing to this day. Soavi was supposed to be the savior of Italian horror, but its fate was sealed long before the health problems of Soavi's young son, born with a rare liver disease that he wasn't expected to beat, prompted the director to put his career on hold indefinitely following his 1994 masterpiece DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE, aka CEMETERY MAN, which is more or less the end of an era. By the time Soavi's son beat the odds and bounced back from what was considered a terminal illness, Italian horror was over aside from the occasional Argento disappointment, and Soavi found a home on Italian TV, where he remains a busy and in-demand hired gun to this day.
THE SECT is absolutely brilliant on a technical level. There's inspired visual flourishes and fluid and often tricky camera work that makes it a dazzling and colorful film to look at, but the script feels like a patchwork hodgepodge of ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE WICKER MAN, with recycled Argento elements (particularly INFERNO, with its secret gateway to Hell and a murderous evil arising during lunar eclipse) and Soavi foreshadowing some DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE motifs to come, most notably a briefly reanimated corpse and the changing appearance of tiny figures in a snow globe on the heroine's bedside table. The film opens in southern California in 1970, when a group of free-spirited hippies are slaughtered by members of a cult ostensibly led by the very Charles Manson-like Damon (Tomas Arana), who quotes Rolling Stones lyrics and is revealed to be a middleman who answers to a wealthy, unseen figure in the back of a nearby parked limo who tells him to wait patiently, that his time will come, and it "may be years down the road." Cut to Frankfurt, Germany in 1991, as a young woman has her heart cut out by a deranged man (Giovanni Lombardo Radice), who is cornered by police in a train station and insists "They made me do it!" before grabbing a gun and blowing his brains out. A shabbily-dressed old man (the legendary Herbert Lom) is nearly run over by schoolteacher Miriam Kreisl (Kelly Curtis), who takes him to her house to get some rest. He dies the next morning after going through a door and finding a hidden basement beneath the house with a deep well with very blue water, leaving behind a shroud with his face outlined on it. Numerous other bizarre occurrences take place around Miriam: the mother of one of her students vanishes; her colleague Kathryn (Mariangela Giordano of BURIAL GROUND) is attacked by the shroud when it gets caught in a wind gust and promptly starts to behave in a possessed manner before being stabbed to death and coming back to life in the hospital; strange ribbon-like turquoise strands start appearing in Miriam's tap water; she finds a creepy woman wandering around in the basement; and she starts getting messages on her answering machine from the dead man, who is revealed to be Moebius Kelly, the leader of the Satanic cult and the man in the limo in the 1970 prologue. His plan is, of course, to use the innocent--and presumably virginal--Miriam as the vessel to deliver Satan reborn, as she faces the terrifying realization that almost everyone in her life--present and past--is part of a conspiracy to ensure that this happens.
It's a tough call, but THE SECT might be the straight-up strangest work in Argento's entire filmography. If it feels like it's pieces of several scripts stitched together, that's because it was. Soavi incorporated parts of a still-unfilmed script he wrote in the '80s titled THE WELL, while Argento is said to have had the biggest input in the 1970 prologue. While this wasn't a Steven Spielberg/Tobe Hooper, POLTERGEIST situation, Argento's paw prints are all over both THE SECT and THE CHURCH. As was the case with Lamberto Bava's two DEMONS films, producer/co-writer Argento was a constant presence on the set (look at any behind-the-scenes photo from DEMONS and Bava is standing there listening while Argento is pointing and appearing to give instructions), and it's been documented that Soavi was slightly frustrated by Argento's insistence on being involved in every aspect of THE CHURCH. Argento toned down the control-freak act and backed off Soavi a bit during the production of THE SECT, but his involvement is felt throughout, mostly from a recycling of ideas and images from INFERNO and, to a lesser extent, SUSPIRIA, so much so that one could arguably view THE SECT as an unofficial spinoff of the "Three Mothers" saga. Other bits obviously conceived by Soavi either foreshadow DELLAMORTE (the snow globe, the corpse of Kathryn coming back to life and attacking Miriam, the mythic elements of death and rebirth) or reference THE CHURCH, most notably the idea of a demonic sect operating in a secret underground location of a building that's a portal to hell (see also SUSPIRIA, INFERNO). It's very deliberately paced and even a tad overlong at just under two hours, and there's some moments that just don't work: the shroud attacking Kathryn is unintentionally hilarious; the constantly-invoked rabbit motif is overdone, especially the part where Miriam's apparently sect-controlled pet bunny watches TV and uses the remote control, resulting in a bunny reaction shot when it sees a magician (Soavi) pulling a rabbit out of a hat on a TV show; and a late-film sexual assault of Miriam by a demonic stork that crawls out of the basement well probably read a lot better on the page than it looks on the screen.
THE SECT is a flawed jumble of a film whose story is frequently an unwieldy mess, but it's so well-made and carefully crafted on a visual level, and so bizarre if looked at as a nightmarish fever dream that its lofty ambitions carry the weight and help it hit more often than it misses. The script really could've used one more draft and a final polish to tighten the plot a bit, but it mostly works. Lom, in what's probably his last great role, commands the screen as Moebius, and Arana makes the most of his limited screen time, with one memorable shot of the stoned Damon glaring into the camera as Soavi dissolves to a blazing sunset that's one of the most effective images of the filmmaker's career. Curtis, the eldest daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, is fine as the naive and almost childlike Miriam. Soavi settled on the actress after his first choice, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4 and 5 star Lisa Wilcox, turned him down when she found out she was pregnant. Curtis, two years older than Jamie Lee, never found the level of fame and success enjoyed by her younger sister, but she never really vigorously pursued it either. She worked as a stockbroker after graduating from college in the late '70s and into the early '80s before giving acting a shot when Jamie Lee got her a tiny part as one of Dan Aykroyd's former fiancee's friends in 1983's TRADING PLACES (she's wearing the blue headband in this clip). Other than THE SECT, her only starring role in a feature film was in an obscure 1987 German comedy called MAGIC STICKS. She had a few guest spots on TV shows like THE EQUALIZER, HUNTER, and STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, but her most prominent role after THE SECT was as a regular on the 1996-99 UPN series THE SENTINEL, which she left after the first season. Curtis' last acting credit was a guest spot on a 1999 episode of JUDGING AMY, and from then on, she's been credited on several of her sister's films as her personal assistant.
CANNIBAL FEROX aka MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY (Italy - 1981; US release 1983) Written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Cast: John Morghen (Giovanni Lombardo Radice), Lorraine De Selle, Bryan Redford (Danilo Mattei), Zora Kerova, Robert Kerman, Venantino Venantini, John Bartha, Walter Lloyd (Walter Lucchini), Meg Fleming (Fiamma Maglione), "El Indio" Rincon, Perry Pirkanen, Dominic Raacke, Jake Teague. (Unrated, 93 mins)
The Italian cannibal genre is always a touchy subject. Its origins are in 1962's MONDO CANE and the subsequent mondo documentaries of the 1960s and into the 1970s by Gualtiero Jacopetti & Franco Prosperi and others. There's also the influence of the 1970 Richard Harris hit A MAN CALLED HORSE, which spawned Umberto Lenzi's 1972 Italian ripoff THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER. In HORSE, Harris is an English aristocrat abducted and treated like an animal by a Sioux tribe until he eventually comes to earn their respect, abandons his privileged upbringing and ultimately becomes the tribe's leader. THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER took a very similar concept--with Ivan Rassimov as a British wildlife photographer in the jungles of Thailand--but steered it in a Mondo direction that a Hollywood film wouldn't dare venture. THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER, a fixture in American drive-ins throughout the 1970s under various alternate re-release titles (DEEP RIVER SAVAGES, SACRIFICE!), offered sparse but still graphic depictions of cannibalism, sex and rape involving subgenre mainstay Me Me Lai, and brutal animal killings, and though it's rather tame compared to what would come later, it's almost universally considered the first Italian cannibal film.
While Lenzi is generally credited with creating the Italian cannibal genre, it was Ruggero Deodato who established it as a legitimate craze with 1977's THE LAST CANNIBAL WORLD, released in the US in a cut version in 1978 as THE LAST SURVIVOR, but best known today as JUNGLE HOLOCAUST. A far more graphic riff on THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER and featuring Rassimov in a supporting role, THE LAST CANNIBAL WORLD stars Massimo Foschi as an oil prospector stranded in Mindanao after a plane crash. He's abducted and humiliated by a cannibal tribe and eventually resorts to cannibalism to earn their respect. Allegedly based on a true story, THE LAST CANNIBAL WORLD raised the bar for what the Italian cannibal genre was willing to depict. Here was the more aggressive barrage of flesh-eating, graphic rape, Foschi and Lai (again as a tribe girl/sex object) completely nude for a good chunk of the film, and on-camera animal slaughter, hands-down the most troubling element of the genre. Sergio Martino hopped on the cannibal bandwagon with 1978's MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (released in the US in cut form as SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD), which got a minor boost in class thanks to the presence of Ursula Andress as a socialite venturing into the jungles of New Guinea to find her missing husband, and Stacy Keach as the experienced guide she hires, traumatized by his own experiences being abducted by a cannibal tribe years earlier. MOUNTAIN's really foul elements, including a monkey obviously being thrown into a snake's mouth, a borderline pornographic cannibal orgy that showcases gratuitous masturbation involving a female cannibal, and one really unpleasant depiction of simulated bestiality with a cannibal and a water buffalo, are mostly confined to the climax, don't directly involve Andress or co-star Claudio Cassinelli, and happen long after Keach's character is killed off, a certain indication that Martino pulled a CALIGULA on his cast and shot the really vile stuff when they weren't around.
If THE LAST CANNIBAL WORLD got the ball rolling on the cannibal craze, it was Deodato's infamous CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980) that really caused the movement to explode. One of the key films in the genesis of found-footage that was used so effectively nearly 20 years later with 1999's THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and became practically standard after 2009's PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is a horrifying and intensely disturbing experience--go to a midnight showing of it with a snarky audience that's ready to mock it MST3K-style and you'll see them grow silent about 25 minutes in as the shell-shocked crowd starts really thinning out by the one-hour mark. It remains one of the very few irony-proof films that separates the players from the pretenders when it comes to cult hipster fandom. You don't simply watch CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST--you survive it. Deodato's handling of the found-footage element--the second half of the film consists of a professor (Robert Kerman, better known at the time as porn actor R. Bolla) watching increasingly damning footage left behind by a documentary crew who vanished while investigating the existence of cannibals in the Amazon--has yet to be equaled by any of its countless faux-doc/found-footage offspring. Deodato's film was so believable that Italian authorities actually thought he made a snuff film and he had to prove he didn't kill off his unknown actors. CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST has legitimate statements to make about the comparisons between the stone-age jungle and modern civilization, evidenced in the way that the tribes are generally peaceful but only end up turning on the documentary crew when the raw--no pun intended--footage shows the crew (civilization) acting like sociopathic assholes and goading them into acts of increasing savagery and abhorrence. One of the film's most telling moments involve two of the crew raping a tribe girl, who's later punished in one of the film's iconic images: impaled on pole that enters her vagina and exits her mouth. Lead filmmaker Alan Yates (Gabriel Yorke) is smirking and visibly amused at the horrific punishment until one of the other guys says "Watch it, Alan...I'm shooting," at which point he turns serious and melodramatically declares "Oh, good Lord! This is horrible!" CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is an intelligent film with moments that remain prescient today in an era when there is no depth to which the media won't plummet to sensationalize or outright manufacture a story. But any indicting aspirations it has to being the NETWORK of Italian cannibal movies is negated somewhat by Deodato also wallowing in the same exploitation and sensationalism that he's criticizing, whether it's turning his camera on the gruesome slaughter of a helpless animal (the turtle scene is arguably the most revolting thing ever filmed for a commercial movie, and co-star Francesca Ciardi's vomiting is real) or playing up the graphic exploitation elements.
Giovanni Lombardo Radice and Umberto Lenzi
on the set of CANNIBAL FEROX
Even with its ultimately heavy-handed message ("I wonder who the real cannibals are," muses Kerman's pipe-smoking professor), CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST was as smart as the genre ever got. After that, there was nowhere to go but down, and Umberto Lenzi was happy to oblige. A veteran journeyman who went wherever genre trends took him (he really found his niche with 1970s polizia), Lenzi returned to the cannibal genre he helped create with EATEN ALIVE (1980), which fused the cannibal craze with the then-topical Jonestown massacre, with yet another wealthy young woman (Janet Agren) hiring a guide (Kerman, again) to find her missing sister (Paola Senatore), who's run off to Sri Lanka and fallen in with a religious cult led by the insane Jonas (Rassimov, again). EATEN ALIVE is grimy, trashy, and cheap, with animal slaughter scenes pilfered from MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD, ears and breasts being sliced off, perpetual subgenre abuse object Me Me Lai being gang-raped, Senatore being sodomized by a cannibal, Rassimov inducting Agren into his cult by penetrating her with a venom-dipped dildo, and a seriously slumming Mel Ferrer, no doubt questioning the state of his career while appearing in his second movie in three years titled EATEN ALIVE, as a professor dropping exposition to a NYC detective (gay porn star Gerald Grant) about how cannibal tribes still exist.
Lenzi quickly followed EATEN ALIVE with CANNIBAL FEROX, the most infamous Italian cannibal film after CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, and one of the most notorious films ever made. HOLOCAUST at least had something to say and broke new ground, but EATEN ALIVE and CANNIBAL FEROX are pure exploitation all the way. Abandoning any illusions of restraint and not about to be told "Don't go there!" Lenzi goes all-in with CANNIBAL FEROX as NYU anthropology grad student Gloria Davis (Lorraine De Selle), her brother/research assistant Rudy (Danilo Mattei, billed as "Bryan Redford"), and her friend Pat (Zora Kerova) venture deep into the Amazon to prove cannibalism has never existed. Of course, they're wrong, but cannibals aren't their only problem: they soon fall in with Mike Logan (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, using his "John Morghen" pseudonym) and Joe Costolani (Walter Lucchini), a pair of on-the-run, small-time NYC lowlifes who ripped off $100,000 from a mafioso (John Bartha) and fled to South America to make their bones in the cocaine business. It doesn't take long for Mike to expose himself as a dangerous psychopath whose actions only stir up the natives who, in true CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST style, turn on the white interlopers. Whether it's animal killings or cannibal mayhem, Lenzi holds nothing back in CANNIBAL FEROX, with the most horrific punishment reserved for the much-deserving Mike, who's paid back in kind after he ties up a tribesman, gouges out his eye, and chops off his penis. Since Lenzi goes for maximum tactlessness, Mike is given the further indignity of having his dick not only chopped off but devoured by a cannibal in loving close-up. Mike's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day continues when he gets his hand hacked off before being restrained under a table with his head poking through and locked in place has the top of his skull is macheted off and his brains picked at like hors d'oeuvres at a dinner party. And then there's one of FEROX's iconic images: Pat's punishment for her part in Mike's murder of a native girl by being strung up with hooks through her breasts.
Where Deodato tried to make a statement with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, Lenzi just unabashedly goes over the line time and again in ways not telegraphed by the film's opening theme that's so "'70s cop show" that you almost expect to hear an announcer intone "Previously on CANNIBAL FEROX..." (Lenzi opened EATEN ALIVE with a similarly incongruous Budy-Maglione number). CANNIBAL FEROX was acquired by Terry Levene's Aquarius Releasing--the company behind the cannibal/zombie crossover ZOMBI HOLOCAUST's transformation into DOCTOR BUTCHER, M.D.--and released in 1983. under the instantly legendary title MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, advertised with Levene's typically hyperbolic hucksterism ("Bizarre Human Sacrifices! The Most Violent Film Ever! Banned in 31 Countries!"). A grindhouse and drive-in staple well into the fall of 1984, MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY became a fixture in video stores and scarred many budding gorehounds in those mid-1980s glory days of PMRC outrage and Satanic Panic. We knew slasher movies and zombie movies, but the Italian cannibal films were another beast entirely. To those who cut their teeth on horror in that era, MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY and its ilk were as far as grossout cinema could possibly go, which of course, was part of its charm (plus, grindhouse gorehounds in America saw it before most of the others: CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and EATEN ALIVE, the latter as both DOOMED TO DIE and later on VHS as THE EMERALD JUNGLE, didn't turn up in the US until 1985). Of course, CANNIBAL FEROX is garbage. Of course it's indefensible and utterly reprehensible. But it has its charms and it left its mark. In many ways, it's the ultimate exploitation movie: it's trashy, sleazy, sloppily-dubbed; has some incredible late 1980 time capsule NYC location shooting (DIVINE MADNESS, HOPSCOTCH, FAME, and THE EXTERMINATOR all playing at one NYC theater!); a pointless Manhattan mob subplot that Lenzi simply abandons; gratuitous nudity; delirious overacting by Radice; supporting roles for NYC-based porn actors (Kerman is present once again, this time as rumpled cop Lt. Rizzo in scenes shot at the same precinct Lenzi used for Ferrer and Grant's scenes in EATEN ALIVE), over-the-top violence, ridiculous dialogue ("Hey bitch, where's your stud?" and one of the greatest lines of all time as a starved Pat is tempted by a piece of meat: "No! Stop! It might be Rudy!"), and one of the most unforgettable and effective retitlings ever, even utilized by Rob Zombie for an early, pre-fame White Zombie album. You remember a movie called MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, even if it has a trailer as unappealingly narrated as this one:
After CANNIBAL FEROX, there was really nowhere else for the cannibal subgenre to go. By this point, they were all following the same template and audiences quickly grew fatigued with the repetitive mayhem. Joe D'Amato tried to get into the act with the softcore/cannibal fusion jams EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS (1977), released in the US in 1984 as TRAP THEM AND KILL THEM, and PAPAYA, LOVE GODDESS OF THE CANNIBALS (1978), and Jess Franco inevitably chimed in with DEVIL HUNTER (1980) and CANNIBALS (1980), both borrowing Lucio Fulci regular Al Cliver and Sabrina Siani for Italian legitimacy purposes but nevertheless exhibiting Franco's tendency toward amateur hour and his expected lack of attention to detail, whether it's a cannibal sporting a visible wristwatch or another with a disco perm, porn 'stache, and sideburns. There were a few later stragglers, like Michele Massimo Tarantini's MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY (1985), Mario Gariazzo's AMAZONIA (1985) and Antonio Climati's dubiously titled CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST II (1988). Italian hack Bruno Mattei tried to restart the cycle with a pair of 2004 shot-on-video atrocities, MONDO CANNIBAL and IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS, both of which shamelessly rip off CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, and Jonathan Hensleigh (THE PUNISHER, KILL THE IRISHMAN) directed the justifiably little-seen 2007 American found-footage dud WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, with two dipshit couples encountering cannibals while on a get-rich-quick plan to retrace the journey of Michael Rockefeller before his disappearance in New Guinea in 1961. Eli Roth's long-delayed THE GREEN INFERNO, shot in 2012 and finally due in theaters in fall 2015 after some distribution snafus, is purported to be an overt homage to the entire Italian cannibal subgenre.
MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, opening in my hometown of Toledo, OH on 9/14/1984
MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY playing at
the Liberty in Times Square
The legend of CANNIBAL FEROX has grown over the years, and is cemented by Grindhouse's recent Blu-ray release, which is without question the definitive edition. Packed with extras, including Calum Waddell's feature-length documentary EATEN ALIVE: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ITALIAN CANNIBAL FILM, and the instant-classic commentary with Lenzi and Radice--recorded separately--ported over from the 1997 laserdisc and later DVD edition. The commentary is one for the ages, with Lenzi's repeated defending of the film alternating with scorn and derision from Radice. The actor is known for his early '80s horror film work and being on the receiving end of the legendary drill scene in Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980), but whose first love has always been the stage, more or less admitting that he took these roles for the money. He doesn't hold back on the commentary, whether he's dissing Lenzi or repeatedly declaring that he's ashamed of CANNIBAL FEROX, citing it as the only film he regrets making. Radice also appears in a new interview segment, as do Zora Kerova and Danilo Mattei (Lorraine De Selle, retired from acting since 1988 and now a successful producer for Italian TV, is MIA). Grindhouse's two-disc Blu-ray set gives this landmark bit of drive-in scuzz the veritable Criterion treatment. CANNIBAL FEROX obviously isn't for everybody, but as Eli Roth points out in the Blu-ray's accompanying booklet of essays, "Lenzi's film was reviled for many years but for many of us, the film is a treasure." It's also a snapshot of a bygone era when something as vile as MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY could play in American movie theaters and drive-ins, a time when impressionable young fans were devouring everything they could find at the holy sanctuary that was the video store. It's an era that's passed and the likes of which we'll never see again. It's more about sentiment than quality, especially since it's not even the best of the cannibal subgenre, but Grindhouse's CANNIBAL FEROX brings those memories and images and that sense of discovery back in all its sleazy, offensive, gut-munching HD glory. You'll probably need to shower after watching CANNIBAL FEROX, but that's not a criticism--that means it did its job.
