Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) and her brother, Arthur (Antonio Marsina), travel to the jungles of New Guinea to search for a lost expedition, which included Susan's husband. They enlist the help of Edward Foster (Stacey Keach), an anthropologist, who has visited the area before and is certain that Susan's husband went to the supposedly cursed area known as Ra Ra Mea, on the island of Roka.
Sergio Martino's addition to the Italian cannibal sub-genre is a far more tame and forgettable movie than Cannibal Holocaust' (1979) or Cannibal Ferox' (1981). While featuring the numerous indignities that seemingly became mandatory amongst the sub-genre (such as castration, rape and real animal slaughter), Mountain of the Cannibal God' is much less brutal and therefore less compelling. The plotline was dreadfully arranged which meant that all the supposed plot-twists were noticeable long before they even happened. Rather than be shocked or appalled by the depictions on-screen, it becomes far easier for the viewer to laugh at what is going on; a reaction that no good exploitation flick should produce. Having said that, the first thirty-five minutes or so were fairly entertaining and set the movie up nicely. The movie benefited from some surprising and effective moments, as well as many well-executed (but basic) effects. Unfortunately, scripting and pacing problems meant that Mountain of the Cannibal God' started to become fairly dull shortly afterwards; something that no degree of `shock treatment' was able to fix.
The performances from the cast in Mountain of the Cannibal God' are possibly the best of the Italian cannibal sub-genre. Veterans Stacey Keach and Ursula Andress (ex-Bond girl) were certainly the crème de la crème of the cast as they both offered dramatic and convincing performances. Ursula managed to portray the sexiness of her character (despite being over 40 at the time) very well which certainly allowed the movie to gain in some respects from the multiple nude scenes in which she was involved. However, nudity as we know does not make a good movie. Claudio Cassinelli also gave a pleasing performance in his role as jungle-wise Manolo. The only bad performance was that of Antonio Marsina who came across as monotonous and unmotivated. His performance was less than aided by the terrible scripting for his character. Although the character of Arthur was obviously meant to come across as an annoyance, he became too annoying and thus made all scenes in which he was involved almost too painful to watch. One could be forgiven for wishing that Arthur had been killed at the beginning of the movie.
For all the movies faults there were some pleasantly entertaining scenes scattered about and although the viewer may be put off by the constant dragging, the later scenes can be somewhat of an enjoyable experience. The more basic effects were usually of a good standard but some of the advanced effects later in the movie fell very short and were thoroughly unconvincing. Fans of exploitation flicks should be partially impressed with Mountain of the Cannibal God' but will be very unfulfilled if they expect another Cannibal Holocaust' or Cannibal Ferox'. This movie is worth watching once, but I doubt many would deem it worthy of multiple viewings. My rating for Mountain of the Cannibal God' 5.5/10.
