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Cannibal ferox (1981)
Wow!!! This is the marvellous movie!!
Wow! Where do I begin with my review on Cannibal Ferox?! There is just so much I want to write about, I surely won't be able to fit it all in.I first saw this film just after 9/11, and it really got me thinking. We live in a world where the West are supposed to be the good guys and we are all very civilised. But then when you look at all the bad things in the world you wonder how this can be true, and that's just the point Ferox makes.
So, anyway, the movie begins in New York with a young dude wondering around the city. Some might think that the music is a little bit dumb here, but that's just because it was the times, and that was very normal back then. All the time this guy is just wondering around you are thinking "Okaaaaay, who is this guy?!?". Then it happens, he runs into two thugs who just blow him away, and you are left totally shocked 'cos you think he is the main character or something. Then it goes to the jungle and we meet the real main characters, Gloria, Rudy and Pat. Gloria is the intelligent young psychology student who wants to finally prove that cannibals are not real. Rudy is her cool and handsome brother, and Pat is the free spirited sex bomb! Straight away you warm to Gloria and her brother, but maybe Pat not so much, especially after she sex with the biggest moustache ever! Then it's time they go into the jungle. They see a butterfly on the boat then when they get off they get trapped in some swamp and have to walk. This is where you know things are not gonna be pleasant. They get a small cat on a rope that I think was kinda cute. But then the first real horror thing happens, the cat is on the rope which is on a stick in the ground so it can't escape. Then out of nowhere a huge and poisonous snake comes out of the jungle and strangles it to death! Now I know some people might not like this bit, cos you can tell it is all 100% real, and the animals had to die. But I think this is just nature, and the film has to show it because that is the message it has, that we are all in nature and can not escape it. OK, they walk some more into the jungle and see an old tribe man eating maggots from the earth. If you have a stomach then turn away at this point. For me it is the worst bit of the movie, because you see the old guy biting the maggot and chewing, and I think this is worse than the animal kills and man eating that comes later. Then they run into Mike and Joe. Mike has to be one of the worst villains in all of cinema! Straight away you get the worst feeling with this guy. Joe is just his blind henchman, too scared to stand up, even though he knows he is wrong. Joe is badly injured as well. So they all wonder around some more, and Mike tells them a story about a "Portuguese guy". Yeah right!!!! This is all just a big lie, and we find that out later. So they go to a village and Mike shoots a tribe girl. She dies and her husband runs off. At this point you are thinking oh boy, the cannibals are no way gonna be happy when they get back. Joe dies of his illness. The cannibals take his body and eat his guts right in front of Gloria and Rudy!! They all try to escape but get captured. Mike gets what he deserves when his dick gets knifed off. The special effects here are so real that I literally had to hold my nuts and wince the first time I saw it. Someone said it looked like a hairy hernia, but I didn't think so. Plus this was 30 years ago, and much better than the CGI that is around today and just looks really fake. I won't spoil the rest for you. But I will say that if you are after a dumb horror movie you can just turn your brain off with, then this is not for you. This movie is brutal, heart breaking and very thought provoking. The scene where Gloria and Pat are singing to keep their spirits up always leaves me in tears. I didn't give this movie 10/10 because I think that about half way through there is a black cop who is really not right for the movie. He looks really corny and says such silly lines. It really ruined that bit of the movie for me, and I wish Lenzi had got rid of that bit, because it is so not right in this film. But the rest of the film is actually perfect and the message is as powerful today as it was 30 years ago. The film's message is just so powerful, after all who are the real cannibals?
Zombi 3 (1988)
Zombie trash with a serious identity crisis.
I've now seen this film twice, and I must say I enjoyed it both times. It's fast paced and fun, but ultimately daft. Having said that it deserves to be trashed because of screwing up what could have been a good follow up to the seminal original. It is clear for those who have seen the awful 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' that the films massive shortcomings can be owed to Bruno Mattei, and that the little that is commendable about it can be owed to Fulci. This is not idle Fulci sycophancy, the directors styles are starkly contrasted throughout, and you can tell who directed what, particularly in Mattei's case.
The film is centered around the outbreak of a virus (oddly referred to as 'top secret' by a scientist, it's secrecy apparently being more noteworthy than its potentially apocalyptic effect on mankind) somewhere in south east Asia. The virus causes zombie like behaviour in those affected, and the virus quickly spreads across a seemingly arbitrary area of land. Our protagonists unwittingly wander into the danger zone, and have to fight for their lives against hordes of infected Asians.
The film seems to be stuck half way between being a zombie gore flick, and an out and out action adventure, and this confusion is captured most clearly by the zombies themselves. They do not appear to have a set of characteristics common to all. Some are of the regular soulless shuffling variety, so well rendered in the original, and probably Fulci's creation here. The other main group consist of those who in being infected with the virus lost all sense of themselves, but incurred a savage aggression and a desire to earn a black belt in ninjitsu: Indecisively leaping around unsure of whether to continue honing their upper roundhouse technique or engage with their brethren in what looks like a mass tickle fest on their hapless victims. Martial arts skills aren't their only talents either, they are well versed in guerilla tactics, hiding on rafters and under bales of hay, and sometimes inexplicably falling from nowhere but the heavens themselves. This is all definitely the work of Mattei.
There is a third, more chatty, variety of zombie. This type apparently retain a sense of irony as well 'I'm really thirsty...FOR YOUR BLOOD'. The ridiculous twist at the end in which the DJ turns zombie but continues to preach ad libbed gibberish about the fate of mankind, only serves to enhance the WTF factor and obliterate any hope of a serious resolution.
Then there's the infamous zombie head which slowly propels itself through the air, a jokerish skeletal grin wrought across its face, as if to say 'yeah we know how bad this looks'.
The characters are all utterly one dimensional as you would expect. But its the pseudo comical dialogue and dubbing that really prevents us from taking their plight seriously. Having said that the first soldier to die does put up an impressively valiant display against an unstoppable zombie menace. Indeed this is the first and perhaps only time we hit real zombie agro, and one of the only effective scenes in the film.
The guy who played the chief scientist has heart, but no talent, utilising pauses in his lines entirely at random, so he ends up sounding like a confused asthmatic. The scientists' on screen attempts at finding an antidote are totally unconvincing 'now lets put these two molecules together!'
There are a few moments that stick out as genuinely effective however. In an early scene a female protagonist explores an abandoned garage. Upon entering a room we are confronted with a hazy view of a shifting figure in the corner and a squirming mass on the floor, all shot in an atmospheric diffused light. The silence is interrupted by the appearance of a speedy machete wielding zombie who trashes everything in his wake in his alarming desperation to have her. His sheer aggressiveness is one of the few moments of real horror in the film. The before and after theme conveyed through the hotel that plays host to the happenings of the earliest stage of the outbreak, and later as a refuge to our protagonists is imbued with an thick humid ambiance. There is a scene in which one of the soldiers cautiously approaches a boarded up room that clearly houses hordes of the undead, and this is quite tense. Things become more dramatic when they board themselves in the hotel unknowing to what lurks upstairs. But this is sloppily handled and not nearly as effective as it could have been.
All in all I would say this film may just about deserve to be called a royal screw up of a potentially effective tropical zombie fest, rather than simply a through and through bad film. If nothing else it has plenty of the unintentional laughs that I've come to expect from just about anything Italian and gory from the eighties.