Paradiso infernale

Paradiso infernale got one great weakness - it lacks almost on all fields: there is not enough gore, not enough sleaze, not enough action, not enough cheese. What we mostly get are some cliched and watered down copy scenes of "serious" cannibal movies like Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust, one could dare to say this one is made for a mainstream audience and taken away is most of the "spice" of such kind of trashy movies. To make things worse many of the scenes feel very disjointed, somewhat it looks that every idea that crossed the minds of the writers was somewhat squeezed in. Anyway, the flick got some funny scenes and there is some cheesy feel of a cheap Indiana Jones movie, so if you are on the trip to watch everything "cannibalistic" you can put this one on your to watch list, it won't kill you - neither by total joy nor by total boredom.

Green Inferno (AKA Cannibal Holocaust II) is what you get if you suck all of the visceral power (and the cannibalism) out of Cannibal Holocaust. Like Deodato's infamous shocker, the film sees an intrepid female reporter and her team venture into the jungles of the Amazon to try and find a missing professor of anthropology. Unlike Deodato's film, it features no gruelling horror (unless you count the sight of a small carnivorous fish being extracted from a man's ass!), instead coming across like a National Geographic documentary crossed with a lame jungle adventure (with elements of humour). It certainly doesn't deserve to be associated with the king of all Italian cannibal movies.

Much of the film revolves around the protagonists stealing a plane and then trapping monkeys which they exchange for gas; this allows director Antonio Climati to include that genre staple -animal cruelty - but even these scenes lack the ability to shock or disgust (it's a wonder why he held back given his involvement with notorious mondo movies Africa Addio and Savage Man Savage Beast, both of which feature loads of animal violence). After successfully fuelling their stolen plane, the characters have a run in with angry natives that amounts to nothing, are attacked by bats, meet a topless jungle beauty, are captured by river pirates who are harvesting the organs of indigenous children, and eventually locate the missing professor, who is perfectly fine. No cannibalism involved whatsoever.

I was previously familiar with the 1988 Italian movie "Paradiso Infernale" by its English title "The Green Inferno" and I remember having seen the movie once, many, many years ago. So as I had the opportunity to sit down to watch the movie again here in 2023, I opted to do so. And I have to admit that I had fully and wholly forgotten about the storyline of the movie.

It sort of amazes me that writers Antonio Climati, Marco Merlo, Francesco Prosperi, Federico Moccia and Lorenzo Castellano could collectively manage to put together such a weak script and storyline for a movie. I suppose that five writers and creative minds working on a script just simply was diluting the creative output.

I found very little entertainment in "Paradiso Infernale", and I guess that is why I had forgotten all about the storyline here, because there was nothing noteworthy to be witnessed throughout the course of the 90 minutes that the movie ran for.

The acting performances in "Paradiso Infernale" were adequate enough. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble.

"Paradiso Infernale" is not a particularly outstanding movie experience, and for a movie such as this, with a cannibal theme, then there are actually far better and more enjoyable movies out there from around that same era of cinema.

My rating of "Paradiso Infernale" lands on a three out of ten stars.

Unfortunately, there are no "Cannibal", no "Holocaust" and actually no "II" in this movie. The story is something like BBC documentary supplied with poor and, in fact, unnecessary acting. It can't be compared to Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust", the title of the subject is just the exploitation of Deodato's movie success.

Even some rather natural and, frankly speaking, amazing scenes, for example, with strange fish crawling in aborigine's fundament or the reanimation of a monkey with the help of rubber tube can't save the movie from total failure, at least in my eyes.

And I am sure that it will be completely useless and pretty disappointing for all Italian (cannibal) horror movies fans and for all that violence-lovers. And, for certain, it is not a must see movie for true cinemaddicts.

I'm having trouble classifying Natura Contro aka The Green Inferno from 1988 correctly. Was this an adventure movie meant for Indiana Jones fans? Or a Cannibal film for fans of Cannibal Holocaust?

There is a bit of both in it and that immediately means that you also have to love both to find this one working for you.

The plot summed up: a group of American adventurers takes a stolen plane into the South American jungle to find a professor and his discovery (a treasure in a jungle village). Along the way, they must capture Monkeys to buy gasoline for the plane, capture Anacondas to get a raft, and save an Indian village from Jungle Pirates who kidnap children to trade their organs for dollars!

What this film certainly has in common with Indiana Jones is its very Hollywood, simplistic view of the rest of the world. Indian tribes in South America, who I think probably can't even speak Spanish or Portuguese, turn out to be perfectly fluent in English. They let themselves be bribed with a tape recorder because the tape has a recording of Jungle Sounds (Yeah, you don't hear that often in the Jungle...) And the women walk around in monokini, but put on clothes when they go out with the Americans (because so the Americans wouldn't feel uncomfortable?). I think as a viewer it is best not to ask too many questions.

The lite, at times almost funny style of adventure (which seems to come from a children's film) is in stark contrast to the sometimes very cruel things that happen around. All the gore that should have made this a horror movie remains out of the picture, but castrating a man with a snake, for example, is still quite dramatic and serious. The characters lack the shock you would expect after seeing this happen.

So my biggest problem is the characters' lack of realism in relation to their condition. I'm not saying that the actors do a bad job, they just act like they're in a romantic comedy and not in a alive/dead situation. Weird! Another minor problem is that I suspect this too is a movie first filmed in Italian and then dubbed into English. As there is just a little something wrong with the lip syncro... I much prefer that movies just keep the Italian spoken and opt for subtitles. The masses, which this film probably aimed at in the US, will probably prefer a dub.

Other than that, the film isn't all that bad: the jungle is beautifully filmed and the plot, although a bit cheezy, is quite interesting and fun. I have the strong impression that they first wanted to make a Cannibal Horror film, and then they changed their mind. Scary scenes and gross was omitted and the characters became pranksters and young do-gooders. It just watered down to what it is.

How many points should I give to this film? Difficult! As Horror? Not even 3/10 because there is hardly anything left of it. As an adventure film? Actually, Natura Contro is not doing so badly: the film is adventurous and the characters know how to arouse the viewer's interest.

So 6/10, it's interesting for fans of 80s adventure movies but don't expect any horror!