Magia nuda

My review was written in October 1984 after a screening at Liberty theater on Manhattan's 42nd St.

"Shocking Cannibals" is an Italian shockumentary made in 1974 under the more accurate title "Naked Magic", currently imported as a gross-out exploitation film. Despite the prestigious names of producer Alberto Grimaldi (whose PEA banner coproduced) and high-minded narration written by novelist Alberto Moravia, film is a relentlessly sensationalist look at primitive peoples that is very difficult to endure, even for the hardened 42nd Street grindhouse devotees.

The only cannibals here, and that's really stretching it, are an Indian tribe living on the Amazon river who pulverize the bones of their dead tribesmen and mix the dust with a banana mash for an annual ritualistic drink, meant to allow the dead folks' souls to go free into the next world.

Cheap thrills-seekers have plenty of non-cannibalistic activities to observe, ranging from primitive survival activities of African tribesmen living around the White Nile river, Ethiopian medical and metaphysical (exorcism) rituals, and that old standby, the Filipino healer who perform magical operations on camera, removing cysts, tumors and leftover props from "The Exorcist" out of people's bellies without leaving any sign of an incision.

Moravia's text intones against the evils of civilized man despoiling the primitives' world, but what we watch is an extremely narrow view of their existence, namely the rituals and both food-seeking and sacrificial slaughter of animals. This is sheer exploitation, and he inclusion of nearly hardcore sex scenes on camera further ensures the picture an X rating, though the dozen or so fictional and docu-style brutality films (mostly Italian-made) currently floating around Stateside are not usually submitted to he MPAA's rating board.