"And worse…They’re sure not going to split any hairs. We’ll all pay for this, guilty or not."

Cannibal Ferox is one of those movies that you always hear about as being the most violent film every made. Perhaps it is the marketing of the movie that states Banned in 31 Countries and numerous warnings on the box and in the trailers. Know this however, this is one graphic movie. Maybe not the most violent of all time, but it is up there.

The movie is about a brother and sister, along with a trampy companion, who go to the Amazon for proof that cannibalism is a myth. The sister is doing her thesis on it, and her brother is going along for assistance. Along the way, they meet a cokehead and his friend, who have somehow angered a tribe of natives. The rest is cannibal chaos at its best!

The gore here is top notch. You have all of the vital organs in the body spread out on display, like a buffet. You’ve got brains and eyeballs to boot. The violence is the real kicker. Loads of it, and it is creative too. Sure you get the obligatory native spear jabs, but there’s more.

You have women hung by their breasts, several member dismemberments (quite graphic), two directional bitch slaps from way back, a very disturbing decapitation, additional lopped off body parts, an eye gouge with a knife, a ripped open chest with the contents being hungrily devoured, and much more. Did I mention piranhas?

They even have stuff which they put in just to gross you out. It isn’t really value added. An example of this is a native eating big fat caterpillars (this guy would rock on Fear Factor). Quite nasty. There is also something here which I completely disagree on, and that is the animal torture and killings that go on. I found myself fast forwarding it a couple times. No movie is worth an animal being tortured or killed over. Frankly, I’m disappointed. Special effects artists can simulate a human corpse getting ripped open and their intestines scattered about like strewn laundry, but they can’t simulate a turtle being killed, dismembered and pulled out of its shell? I wish somebody would release a version of this movie with the real life torture scenes cut out. Hell, maybe they do have a version like that.

Of course you are going to have copious amounts of nudity in a cannibal flick. It’s not as much as you think however, and it is rarely in good taste (pun intended). I will leave it at that.

The acting is good. The cokehead reminded me very much of Matthew Mcconaughey. He is actually Giovanni Radice, the guy who got the drill in The Gates of Hell. I knew he looked familiar. The script is wacky (“What, do you get off on ecology, twat?”). The storyline has as many holes as your average Italian horror movie (the whole New York plot could have been eliminated). There were times at the beginning where everybody was speaking Spanish, but they didn’t bother with subtitles. Oh well, fuck it. I think the trampy companion slept with the local sheriff to get a shower. I’m not kidding. Ahhh, the early 80’s! The music is dramatic, eery, and quite effective. It takes the movie to a new level.

All in all, you have a very powerful movie here. It is bound to offend 9 out of every 10 people who watch this in one way or another. It is exploitive, unapologetic, and unsettling. It even has a bit of a plot twist at the end, which is designed to make you ponder on the whole “savage” concept, and its designation.

Did I like the movie? Apart from the animal killings, yes I did. I am still a little disturbed at a human decapitation scene in particular. You’ll know it when you see it. Will you like the movie? Well, you are reading this review, which means you are a sick bastard like yours truly. I would have to say, yes! It is not nearly on the same level as the oft-compared Cannibal Holocaust, directed by Ruggero Deodato, but it is an intense piece nonetheless. Go get it, if you can find it.

The animal scenes were unnecessary I agree but what really pissed me off was the way women were portrayed in the movie. I’m not a raging feminist and yes I realize the movie is old but the level of degradation was way over the top. I lost count the number of times words like twat, whore, and bitch were used, as well as the number of times women were smacked around.

The gore was top notch but I thought there was too much of the cheesy dialogue and not enough action. I think I heard too much hype before I watched this, which tends to ruin a lot of movies for me. The characters were extremely unlikable so I was rooting for the cannibals for the most part. I agree with Payne that the New York scenes were completely unnecessary also.

This isn’t the first time I’ve watched a movie where a woman was hung from her breasts. Do people not realize that breasts are only pockets of fat and will not hold someone’s entire body weight?

4 out of 10 Cannibal movies, only one more to go.