Cannibal Ferox

"Cannibal Ferox" is the story of a junior anthropologist, whom brings her brother and a friend into the amazonian jungle in an effort to disprove cannibalism. Along the way they meet Mike and Joe, two dealers on the run from the mob, whom have also angered the natives of the jungle. In classic cannibal sub genre style, the home team takes bloody revenge on the entire lot.

Given the other reviews, I was expecting a warmed over copy of "Cannibal Holocaust". Though there are obvious parallels between the two (the theme of the so called "civilized" being the bringers of barbariety, the direction style used in the jungle scenes, gratuitous animal cruelty and small roles for both Richard Bolla and Perry Pirkanen), there's a vast difference in tone between the two films.

While "Cannibal Holocaust" was relentlessly sadistic, "Cannibal Ferox" plays a variation on the theme with it's underlying bits of horror camp.

The main characters' descent into jungle murder and madness is marked by classic horror bad decision making (How does not finding cannibals in one isolated village somehow disprove the entire phenomenon's existence? Why stay and camp in a village that has a decaying corpse hanging in town square? What's sexy about a mud covered coke fiend? The world may never know.), and their gruesome fates are sealed fairly early on, for sheer bold stupidity if nothing else.

Giovanni Radice rips through his role with almost gleeful bug eyed abandon, Zora Kerova is the obligatory slutty blonde whom meets a nasty end, with Lorraine DeSalle playing straight woman to the other leads hamming it up.

"Ferox" has buckets of blood for the gorehounds, but other than the animal scenes, it's not nearly as real looking as "Holocaust". This is not a detraction to the film, but fits into the low rent quirky tone very nicely, further complimented by the incogruous 70's wah wah music used throughout.

Overall, a fine example of grindhouse horror, worth repeated viewing and seven stars. 1 star detracted by the obvious filler New York sub plot (only bright spot is another delightfully trashy performance by Mr. Bolla), 1 star for being a bit slowly paced, 1 star for a bit too much of the heart of "Cannibal Holocaust" being cannibalized by this otherwise enjoyable film for fans of the more extreme horror romps.