It starts like ALL FUCKING SPAGHETTI JUNGLE FLICKS. With some criminal assholes in New York who find out maybe the man-eating jungles aren’t the best places to hide out after all. There’s Romero-esque in-your-face gut-munching reminiscent of the old “Night of the Living Dead” only in vivid color and done cannibal jungle movie style. There’s nekkididity – them natives like them some white women. There’s lots of gleeful dancing and mugging and staring right into the camera by hilariously unconvincing natives with facepaint. There’s a parrot. More nudity. CANNIBAL TERROR: Guess they were running out of combinations of words to name the same variation on a theme made with each film and, like with VHS duping, the quality seems to degrade with each repetition, each new “copy”, though maybe not exponentially, at least. It’s probably true of a lot of trope-template based genres. (Consider the slasher genre.) Though while CT is phoned in (when gleeful gutmunching is not afoot) and awful, it also wastes less time getting to the point than even such a great piece of jungle trash like “Cannibal Ferox”, which gut punches you pretty damn hard but makes you wait at least 45 minutes or so. There’s random guitar playing. Random voyeurism and rape intercut with not-rape. There’s an old man living in the jungle with his cute daughter for no godsdamn satisfying reason I can discern. You know. Because. There’s CANNIBALS LIVING RIGHT NEXT DOOR. There’s gratuitous dancing (besides that of the natives). Did I mention the parrot? Note: While CT does get the ball rolling quick, it’s also quick to take a break for not much. There’s not a lot of style, and when there is, it’s largely accidental and absurd. But Camus this is not. There’s a Last House on the Left-ish level but these bad guys wouldn’t last two seconds with Krug and Co. There’s an odd but addictive score. CT is like a Franco film without the stylized Franco wonk, though wonk there is, in CT’s own special way. There’s lots of woods wandering. More jungle gyrations. There’s NOT the slap in the face parade of animal mutilation after animal mutilation. An idea: I think this one sold itself on its title and basic content, riding the coattails of a popular Euro subgenre of extreme horror. There’s a guns vs. arrows melee. More tribal partying while the obligatory tied-up white folks watch nervously. Quit looking at the camera, you damn fake natives! Actually, carry on; it’s one of the most weirdly charming bits in this surprisingly lazy cannibal entry. Especially surprising given the juxtaposition with the excited minimalism of the score and the vivacity of the cannibal party scenes. It’s almost like watching the old stereotyped Indians in the old cowboys and Indians flicks. There is the obligatory native-dismembers-whitey sequence. More gutmunching (finally). The two major gutmunching scenes sort of sandwich – if you will – the meat of the story’s action (*sigh*). If you want to call it action. There’s dumb fun and doofy amusement to be had if you’ll patiently wade through the dull bits (or be unafraid to use your FF button – see, I watch the movie FOR you) because, really, the plot, as such, is no more relevant than the excuses for getting asshole city folks into the cannibal-infested jungles in any of the movies of this ilk. Strangely, though a minor classic of the genre at best, CT is nevertheless distinctive enough in the midst of its particular badness to be slightly unique. Maybe even memorable, at least within this corner of movie culture. There’s a hilarious dialogue between an old white dude serving as translator and another white dude. One thing it does differently is the involvement of a child. Of all the heinous atrocities (yay!) these films are known for, strangely, child endangerment is not usually one of them. There’s a cannibal with sideburns. There’s an abrupt ending. [AUTHOR'S NOTE: Turns out this ISN'T an Italian film; rather, it was a Eurocine production, the same production company behind Jess Franco's terrible but entertaining Oasis of the Zombies.]
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