Review of White Cannibal Queen

Dr. Jeremy Taylor (Al Cliver), Jerry to his lady friends!, is a specialist in tropical diseases. Together with his wife Elizabeth (Pamela Stanford) and young daughter Lana (Anouchka) he is traveling by boat to a remote jungle Hospital to conduct some research. However the captain of the boat warns Jeremy that a previous expedition was attacked, killed and eaten by a local tribe of cannibals. Some cannibals sneak on board the boat, even though they had to swim across the river to the boat when they board it they are completely dry. The cannibals kill the captain with a spear. They grab Elizabeth and do what cannibals do best, they rip her stomach open, pull her intestines out and eat them. Jeremy witnesses this, the cannibals decide to kidnap Jeremy and take him back to their village. Lana manages to hide from the cannibals and is not seen. Later she is found floating in a river by the tribes leader and his young son, immediately she is worshiped as a 'white goddess' and is also taken to the village. Once there, the cannibals chop the lower half of Jeremy's left arm off. They cook it over a fire and start to eat it. They are soon distracted by the arrival of their leader and Lana. Jeremy senses his opportunity and makes his escape. He is found and rescued by two men in a jeep. Cut to New York, cue lots of shots of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. Jeremy is Hospitalized and considered mad, but he does get a sexy nurse, Ana (Lina Romay) to look after him and take him for walks around Manhattan. When Jeremy is released he heads straight for Barbara Shelton (Shirley Knight), the president of the Shelton organization who funded his original expedition. He tries to obtain funding for another trip so he can find his now grown up daughter (Sabrina Siani). Eventually she agrees as long as herself, her lover Charles Fenton (Olivier Mathot) and some of their rich friends who want to come along for an adventure, can join him. Jeremy's sexy nurse Ana also tags along. While taking some photos of each other Barbara steps onto a severed hand. Jeremy also find his Hospital which has been attacked and all the staff killed. As the remaining group carry on towards the cannibals village they are picked off one-by-one. Directed by Jesus Franco this is a pretty inept film. At least one of the expedition isn't given a name which sums up the depth of character Franco wanted to achieve. The cannibals themselves are laughable, they decorate themselves with children's face paint, and have dodgy haircuts. The village is depicted by two huts. And why do the females in this film wear high heeled boots? They look good ladies but aren't very practical considering their hiking through the middle of thick jungle. There is also a plastic crocodile at the beginning that looks stupid. Talking of plastic props, Franco uses several plastic skulls that maybe he borrowed from Jerry Warren after he had made Frankenstein Island (1981), they don't even have hollow eye sockets. The editing is poor, Lana is seen looking through the window of the boat, the next time she is seen she is floating in a river, thats as clear as mud as to what happened there then. At the end when the main cannibals head is held underwater, when he gets up his hair is wet and his face paint is smudged, in the next shot after that he is dry and his face paint is perfect. The one thing that could have saved this the gore, is also ruined by Franco. He films the cannibal scenes in such a way that they are boring. Unbelievable but true. He uses slow motion, jerkiness, extreme close ups, blurriness, the odd shot in black and white that appear to be placed in there at random, and on the soundtrack he uses chanting, heavy breathing and echoing. It's a shame because the effects aren't to bad, lots of animal intestines, blood, rib cages and fake torn flesh, it's just the way Franco presents it. He makes sure there's plenty of naked flesh around, too. Sabrina Siani is always at least half naked whenever she appears on screen, which isn't a bad thing by any means. Franco has a cameo as a businessman who trades with the cannibals. There are much better cannibal films out there, but this is good for a few unintentional laughs. It keeps moving at a fair pace but overall is very poor. Don't waste your time.