Schlock purveyor Joe D'Amato combines soft-core pornography with hard-core gore in this unwieldy combination of an EMANUELLE flick and a cannibal chomper. Made a couple of years before Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST truly shocked the world, this low-budget Italian effort is a pretty weird movie, half boring and half shocking, and all dated. D'Amato has his eye firmly on the exploitation market – little surprise considering the director spent his later years churning out hardcore pornography – and for the first hour the film stops and starts as it delivers a series of sweaty, poorly-shot sex scenes, complete with the obligatory '70s cheesy music. Finally, D'Amato seems to shake off the confines of the porn industry and he turns the film into a low-rent cannibal adventure, where some authentic locations add to the experience and the gore flows thick and fast in the last ten minutes.
It's all very predictable and, for a man of D'Amato's standing, quite poorly made. The jungle locations look fantastic but many scenes are too dark, leaving the viewer squinting as they try to make out just what's happening. The casting is pretty good for an Italian film. Laura Gemser looks sultry and often strips for the camera, but her role here is to stand back from the proceedings and she doesn't really get involved too much in the cannibal stuff. Gabriele Tinti, Gemser's real-life husband, is very good in his professor role, and you barely remember he's in the film. Better is Donald O'Brien (ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST) as a sleazy, impotent good guy, and Susan Scott, who plays his sexy wife, Maggie. Scott is the real star in her sex scenes, which really push the boundaries of decency, and she shows herself to be an actress who certainly isn't shy when it comes to revealing her body. Scott's late-night encounter with her husband's black servant is one of the most unintentionally hilarious sex scenes I've ever watched, and a real highlight (?).
As for the adventure stuff, it's not very exciting and you can pretty much guess who's going to live and die. I did love the hilarious cannibal P.O.V. shots where we hear the natives murmuring, and the gore effects, while cheap and fake-looking, are designed to be shown in the sleaziest light imaginable; there's a definite sexual aspect to the killings, especially when the natives goes after the women. This leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth but it isn't disturbing in the same way Deodato's movie was, for instance, although some fake snuff footage early on is more effective. The action-packed escape at the film's climax reminds us what this film could have been like, and I did enjoy the ultra-cheesy man-torn-in-half-by-string death which is the most memorable bit in the film for me. But in all this is very cheap and dodgy stuff, and hardly satisfying for fans of either sex or horror films.
It's all very predictable and, for a man of D'Amato's standing, quite poorly made. The jungle locations look fantastic but many scenes are too dark, leaving the viewer squinting as they try to make out just what's happening. The casting is pretty good for an Italian film. Laura Gemser looks sultry and often strips for the camera, but her role here is to stand back from the proceedings and she doesn't really get involved too much in the cannibal stuff. Gabriele Tinti, Gemser's real-life husband, is very good in his professor role, and you barely remember he's in the film. Better is Donald O'Brien (ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST) as a sleazy, impotent good guy, and Susan Scott, who plays his sexy wife, Maggie. Scott is the real star in her sex scenes, which really push the boundaries of decency, and she shows herself to be an actress who certainly isn't shy when it comes to revealing her body. Scott's late-night encounter with her husband's black servant is one of the most unintentionally hilarious sex scenes I've ever watched, and a real highlight (?).
As for the adventure stuff, it's not very exciting and you can pretty much guess who's going to live and die. I did love the hilarious cannibal P.O.V. shots where we hear the natives murmuring, and the gore effects, while cheap and fake-looking, are designed to be shown in the sleaziest light imaginable; there's a definite sexual aspect to the killings, especially when the natives goes after the women. This leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth but it isn't disturbing in the same way Deodato's movie was, for instance, although some fake snuff footage early on is more effective. The action-packed escape at the film's climax reminds us what this film could have been like, and I did enjoy the ultra-cheesy man-torn-in-half-by-string death which is the most memorable bit in the film for me. But in all this is very cheap and dodgy stuff, and hardly satisfying for fans of either sex or horror films.