Cannibal Girls

This is a good example of the glory days of the drive-ins and the grindhouses. Everything you wanted in those days was included. Beautiful women and nudity and blood. For those days...If you watch it now it is a funny piece to see. Just look at the clothes, mini shorts, f*** me boots in glorious white up to the knees, smoking in bed, hairstyles you can't imagine. It is even stranger that this flick never had a proper release just until a few months ago. A lot of people did search for a copy because there was something funny about it and luckily on the official DVD you can find it also, the "warning bell". each time that there is a killing you will be warned by some kind of horn of an old car. Once the so-called gore is over, you will here a bell, warning you that you ca open your eyes again. sadly, it never becomes gory, you never see the axe going into the flesh. You do see the red stuff flowing as a result. There is also a bit too much of blah blah. But overall, it's a funny piece to watch. Some of the actors still are in the business others just left it after this flick. But it is also worth watching for the fans of the director Ivan Reitman. He became a famous producer in the seventies of horror (Shivers, Death Weekend, Ilsa,...) and of blockbusters like the Ghostbusters trilogy. I guess the fans will be delighted with it's proper release.

This movie is pretty boring, but it DOES have a young Eugene Levy in a big messed-up afro, sideburns and sunglasses. That aside, it's either scary or funny and I woulden't recommended it. But it's watchable, most due to Eugene Levy (the genius from Waiting for Guffman and American Pie I & II).

It's not big budget, it's goofy - but I liked it. A lot of great horror movies (and I use the term "horror" loosely with this film) were low budget, starred nobodies, and shot with a sort of your-hometown look.

Cannibal Girls holds a bit of a Manson feel, as it was the buzz of the time. It was shot in rural parts of Toronto, areas which no not exist as rural any more. And it holds two big Canadian actors, who were nobody at the time - but do a great job of what they would become known for a few years later, great character actors. This is what makes it an alright film, but you have got to drop your standards of horror movies a bit to see this.

The story has a bit of an urban legend idea to it I suppose. The movie also contains something I think any true horror movie buff would think about when entering upon an odd out-of-the-way situation - don't you sometimes wonder if that hamburger, with the funky taste, you are eating at the diner in Tuckedawaytown, pop. 35, is really cow? When the film was first shown, it supposedly had a warning bell to let the "squeamish" know of impending grossness. Seeing it the first time 16 years after its original release, I didn't see any reason for bells' and whistles. I'm sure some people would have wanted that bell more with films like Zombie. However, I still wonder if cannibal girl #2 was eating a man sausage, or a MAN sausage.

Hey man, loosen up, Cannibal Girls is a cheap pseudohorror mouthful any horror buff should sample once.

David Cronenberg said he was the first man to make a horror film in Canada, but I think this was made first. (unless it wasn't considered a horror film). SCTV's Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin star as couple who goes to a small town filled with strange people who turns out to be cannibals. The film is low on horror and dead on comedy. American International Pictures didn't know what to do with this film, so they tacked in a door bell sound to warn the viewers of all the shock scenes. (would be shock scenes is more like it). Siskel & Ebert gave this film "The Dog of the Week" back in 1980. Reitman second directional effort is a misfire to horror fans, but it's an intresting film looking back at it now.

There is an explanation to the disjointed and jumbled storyline. From what I read, the movie was originally made in 1971 as a cheap quickie by producers Reitman and Goldberg, largely depending on improvisation. On seeing the completed footage, they felt that they could get a good distribution deal if they made some alterations... which took about two years to complete!

So it's no wonder that with all this make-it-up-as-we-go-along for two years that the finished product makes little sense - and moves awfully slow as it tries to figure out what to do with itself. It seems to have been intended as a horror comedy, but it doesn't work as such. The comedy, apart from a couple of moments that induce small smirks, is not only bad in itself, it's delivered with almost no energy. Levy and Martin show nothing of the zaniness they brought out later in their careers.

The horror moments are marginally better; the crudeness of the production does give a few of these moments an effective grittiness. There are some other moments that could have also worked had they not been spoiled by some terrible acting (voice and posing) by the actors.

I suspect you might have guessed already that this is a bad movie, considering how the movie has never received a video release or is readily available on cable or TV (at least in the U.S.) despite its association with Levy, Martin, and Reitman. Don't expect a DVD release of it any time soon - even MGM (which now owns the A.I.P. catalog) isn't *that* desperate!