Paradiso infernale

Antonio Climati is a man who will be remembered for one thing and one thing only: spectacularly contentious mondo films. During the 70s and early 80s, Climati produced a handful of some of the most unpleasant movies ever committed to celluloid, all in the name of "documentary". It was his 1976 film THIS VIOLENT WORLD that directly inspired some of the scenes in Deodato's exploitation classic CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, a film which dealt a critical blow to the mondo genre. With the similarities between mondo and the violent jungle travelogue approach of the classic cannibal movie, it seems only fitting that Climati would finally try his hand at it too. Ironically, his film has clearly been strongly influenced by CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, right down to the title...

Cannibal movie fans will immediately recognise the plot devices used in THE GREEN INFERNO from Deodato and Lenzi's past frolics in the jungle. However, it had one main difference- it was made ten years after the "golden era" of the genre. This is greatly reflected in the violence of the movie, which is enormously toned down. Whilst the "westerners captured by natives" plot remains perfectly in line with the most generic cannibal movie, there is no actual cannibalism in the picture and gore is kept to an absolute minimum. Similar to Deodato's CUT AND RUN, THE GREEN INFERNO treads the boards of a cannibal pictures whilst carefully avoiding cannibalism.

This isn't the only cannibal convention that has been sacrificed here. One of the most controversial aspects of the genre is the depiction of cruelty against and the killing of animals. Amazingly in THE GREEN INFERNO, these are replaced with scenes of COMPASSION towards animals! In one scene, a monkey is revived by the exploring party... and in total shades of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, at another point, a turtle is pulled out of a water tank, only to be replaced unharmed.

One has to wonder what Climati's intentions were. The awkward "anti-animal cruelty" stance that the movie seems to adopt would be easier to appreciate if one hadn't seen Climati's previous work. Movies such as SAVAGE MAN... SAVAGE BEAST positively reveled in horrifically drawn-out scenes of animal killing, so what could have changed in the meantime? In honesty, many of the animal scenes are still clearly cruel and putting the subjects under distress. This makes Climati's stance quite transparent. I honestly believe he was attempting to criticise the cannibal genre just as Deodato had damningly and directly criticised him in the past. This was also coupled with the chronological fact that audiences were simply less willing to watch animals being butchered with machetes by the time this flick was made.

As a movie, THE GREEN INFERNO is competently made yet somewhat forgettable. It has the same atmosphere as the earlier genre entries, but comes across as being rather watered down. The sound-track, photography and dialogue are all utterly perfunctory, and besides the animal issues mentioned already, a genre veteran can quite easily predict the entire plot after a few short minutes. However, in a way it is a fittingly odd end to an extremely strange genre of exploitation cinema- anaemic, bitter, and self-referentially critical.

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.

Oh dear.

Firstly the dubbing is horrific! You can't take it seriously from the start. The characters are cheesy and typical 80's b-movie over the top.

The story and how it pans out is loose, random and boring. It's a bit like a kids treasure hunt. It flits from one thing to another with no depth or development.

It is completely unrealistic, silly, painful and pointless.

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.

While it's not universally acclaimed as such, Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust is a masterpiece. A lot of the other cannibal flicks hailing from Italy (and elsewhere) aren't masterpieces, however and this is certainly the case with The Green Inferno a.k.a. "Cannibal Holocaust 2". Quite why this film gets to be called Cannibal Holocaust 2 when many better films get stuck with thinking of their own title is beyond me, but there's no way that The Green Inferno deserves to be associated with the Ruggero Deodato film. The film is a sort of cross between an adventure film and a nasty cannibal flick, though it's not as nasty as the genre's "big" films, and the adventure side of it doesn't work too well either considering that the film is completely boring! Nothing that Cannibal Holocaust great features here; the jungle setting is not well used, the natives never really feel like they're posing a threat and the film doesn't manage to be disturbing in the least - something that can never be said for Cannibal Holocaust. There's really not much else to say for this film; if I could go back in time to be before I saw it, I wouldn't see it. If you're looking for something like this that does work – see the brilliant Massacre in Dinosaur Valley!