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ANTROPOPHAGUS
PLOT
A couple of friends are just about to take a boat trip along the
Greek archipelago when a girl named Julie asks if they can drop her
of at an island on their way. The friends thinks it's just fun to have
another person joining them so they agree. Big mistake. When the friends
finally reach the island after a couple of hours on the boat, it seems as
if the island has been abandoned as there isn't a soul in sight. After
a while they run into Julie's blind friend who seems to be the only one
left on the island except from some mysterious woman who keeps running
away from them. The blind girl is hysterical and mumbles something about
a beast that has killed everyone on the island. Ofcourse everyone is a
little sceptical, but as the night unfolds, it seems as if they probably
should've taken her more seriously from the beginning. As the group of
friends get smaller and smaller, they have to try to escape the horrible
cannibal that is now stalking them.
REVIEW
Anthropophagus was actually the first UK Video Nasty that I ever saw so
this has a special value to me. I have lost some interest in this film since
then but I still think it's a very good film and I have probably watched it
more than 10 times by now. This is more of a slashermovie than a cannibal
movie and for me that's a good thing since I'm not a big fan of cannibal
movies (with a few exceptions). I thought that the plot was incredibly
smart and I love these deserted village movies. Anthropophagus is one of
those movies that I can cuddle down in my bed and watch over and over
without ever getting sick of it. Unfortunately, very few people have been
able to view the fully uncut version of this film as all the US releases
are cut in the two best scenes.
Joe D'Amato is not one of my favourite directors. I think his directing is
flawed and the scene transfers look bad. This however does not affect the
movie one bit. Joe D'Amato has managed to stay very neutral in his directing
here so you don't really think of it that much. Surprisingly enough, there
was no nudity at all in this movie, I mean, coming from the director that
brought us the Emanuelle movies and lots of other Italian sleaze you would
imagine that you at least get one tit shot. For me this is a good thing,
I think that a movie feels classier the less nudity it has.
The acting is far from perfect but it's still very good with an Italian
cast that have starred in many other well known Italian classics. We have
Tisa Farrow, sister of Mia Farrow, who starred in Lucio Fulci's Zombie.
We have George Eastman playing the beast Nikos, whom we know from Emanuelle
Around The World and we have Zora Kerova who starred in the cult classic
Cannibal Ferox. I'd have to say that it was a very well put together cast,
but many of the actors didn't feel very experienced and somewhat insecure
at what they were doing.
When I watched this for the first time back when I was only fourteen years
old, my expectations were probably as high as they could get. I had heard
both good and bad things about it and when I finally got hold of an uncut
VHS copy of this, I just had to buy it. Safe to say, this movie lived up
to my expectations and even went past them. This is a true classic in my
opinion and while being far from flawless (I can name lots of flaws, to
name two: there's a little girl who comes in front of the camera by mistake
one time, and then how the hell did the beast do a 1hour walk from the mountain
to the village in less than 10min?) I still hold it dear.
Andreas Schnaas made a remake of this back in 1999 called Anthropophagous 2000
which was a disgrace to the original, Joe D'Amato must turn in his grave.
There are actually a couple of different DVD releases for Anthropophagus,
there's the cut US DVD which has totally ok quality but the soundtrack is
all different from the original, then there's the German special edition
which is quite good except from the incredibly lousy picture and last but
not least there's midnight video's dvd-r which I personally recommend as it
has the best picture quality of all the releases and is completely uncut,
too bad that they had to burn in Japanese subtitles or that would have been
an almost perfect release.
GORE
Keeping in mind that I saw the complete and uncut edition of this movie,
all the gore that I mention here might not be in the version that you get
a hold of. First we get a very gory meat cleaver in the head, which is totally
unrealistic because blood doesn't dry in 1 second. Then one gets the
intestines ripped out. Then we have some gory dracula action where the
beast takes a big bite out of ones neck. Then we get a severed head which
looks an awful lot like those papier-mâché heads that we used to do in
kindergarten. Then there are some gory knife stabbings and some rotten
corpses. The most infamous death here is probably the one where the beast
rips out the foetus from a pregnant woman’s stomach and takes a bite out of
it. Last but not least, the beast grabs hold in ones hair and starts pulling
so hard that blood runs down the face.
SOUNDTRACK
This felt like it had all been done with an 80's synthesizer, which makes it
feel very cheesy. Then we have some very nice italian/greek guitar music
and such which I love a lot, helps to create a nice European atmosphere to it.
And what would a classic horrormovie be without some piano music, yes indeed,
we do get that aswell, just not as much as one could hope for.
BOTTOM LINE
One of my oldest horror favourites in my collection. If you can get a hold
of an uncut release of this movie, I suggest you check it out as it is a very
good and gory movie, though not very scary. This is what companies should
focus on releasing uncut onto DVD with 5.1 sound instead of those new crap high
budget movies. Deserves a watch from anyone who likes Italian classics or
classic slashermovies. Rest in peace Joe.
Review
By: AnthroFred
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