Leave it to the always blithely shameless and opportunistic Italian sleazemeister supreme Bruno Mattei to rip-off Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" wholesale with this trashy tale of famous and heartless TV reporter Grace Forsythe (deliciously overplayed to the ruthless bitchy hilt by Helena Wagner), who leads an expedition into the remote jungle to find a cannibal tribe to document in order to salvage her floundering television career. I think we all know what happens next.
Once again Mattei fumbles the ball with hilariously horrendous results: We've got terrible acting from a lame no-name cast (Claudio Morales in particular hams it up atrociously as macho adventurer Bob Manson), tin-eared profane dialogue, flat cinematography that makes this flick look like a cheap'n'seedy third world reality TV show, generic one-note characters (venal network executives who care more about ratings than scruples and human lives, noble savage cannibals, a wicked main female character who'll do anything to retain her status as a popular television personality, and so on), a meandering narrative which unfolds at an unwieldy stop'n'go pace, and heavy-handed moralizing about the evils of the immoral modern media and how so-called "civilized" man are far more cruel, deadly, and debased than any flesh-eating primitives. Moreover, Mattei not only delivers a satisfying smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity and oodles of hideously graphic gore, but also even tosses in a tasteless rape scene and the needless actual butchering of a lizard for extra appalling measure. A real cruddy riot.
Once again Mattei fumbles the ball with hilariously horrendous results: We've got terrible acting from a lame no-name cast (Claudio Morales in particular hams it up atrociously as macho adventurer Bob Manson), tin-eared profane dialogue, flat cinematography that makes this flick look like a cheap'n'seedy third world reality TV show, generic one-note characters (venal network executives who care more about ratings than scruples and human lives, noble savage cannibals, a wicked main female character who'll do anything to retain her status as a popular television personality, and so on), a meandering narrative which unfolds at an unwieldy stop'n'go pace, and heavy-handed moralizing about the evils of the immoral modern media and how so-called "civilized" man are far more cruel, deadly, and debased than any flesh-eating primitives. Moreover, Mattei not only delivers a satisfying smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity and oodles of hideously graphic gore, but also even tosses in a tasteless rape scene and the needless actual butchering of a lizard for extra appalling measure. A real cruddy riot.