Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story (1985)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Eighteen-year-old Catherine Miles (Elvire Audray) is on a trip in the Amazon with her parents when they are attacked by a tribe of jungle people. The parents are murdered and their heads cut off but Catherine is saved by a member of the tribe who appears to have a thing for her. Catherine is then taken back to their village where she witnesses all sorts of horrors.
There's no question that Italy was the home of the cannibal movie and many think that it reached its height with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. This film here came towards the end of the genre and was also known as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST 2 as well as several other titles. For some reason this movie doesn't get much attention from fans when they discuss the genre but I personally thought it was a fairly entertaining movie, although it certainly doesn't rank among the best.
What I enjoyed the most was Audray herself. The horrible English dubbing makes it hard to really judge her performance but I thought she was extremely cute in the part and I also thought she was rather believable in the role. This was especially true as the character becomes more like those holding her hostage. The supporting players are decent at best but there's certainly nothing horrible here.
The film also benefits from a very good score by Franco Campanino, which clearly wants to be like the one in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. There's also the violence and gore, which is pretty fun, although there's no question that the effects aren't as good as what we saw in films from earlier in the decade. There are a couple decapitations, several other body parts cut off and plenty of blood throughout. Fans of gore will certainly get a kick out of some of the violence here and especially a couple head shots.
AMAZONIA: THE CATHERINE MILES STORY starts off with the lead character going to trial for murder and throughout the film we get some narration of her testifying in court. I personally thought this set-up was rather lame and it actually hurt the film a bit. With that said, I thought the movie was fairly entertaining for what it was and it was worth watching for fans of the genre.
