"The Man from Deep River" is remembered, if at all, for supposedly being the first cannibal flick. These were basically movies that took aspects of all those awful "Mondo" flicks from the sixties and put them into a traditional narrative. The "Mondo" movies purported to show the cruelty and depravity of people in exotic locations such as the jungles of South East Asia, South America, and Africa... but really just showed the cruelty and depravity of the filmmakers for staging and exploiting acts of real animal cruelty for the titillation of the audience.
The cannibal flicks remain a controversial sub-genre for their violence and scenes of animal torture and sacrifice. "The Man from Deep River" is surprisingly not that violent until the end, when we finally meet some cannibals, but it does feature a few unfortunate animals being tortured and killed on camera, including a monkey, a snake, and a pig.
I was unable to watch any of that and looked away until it was over. Seriously: if you want to watch an animal being tortured, get help.
Other than that, the movie is actually a fairly convincing portrayal of tribal life. The main character, a white guy who is taken hostage by the tribe until he becomes one of them, and even marries the chief's daughter, is pretty unimpressive, but it wasn't him I was interested in. So it's not that bad, but not that good either, and is perhaps deservedly forgotten.
The cannibal flicks remain a controversial sub-genre for their violence and scenes of animal torture and sacrifice. "The Man from Deep River" is surprisingly not that violent until the end, when we finally meet some cannibals, but it does feature a few unfortunate animals being tortured and killed on camera, including a monkey, a snake, and a pig.
I was unable to watch any of that and looked away until it was over. Seriously: if you want to watch an animal being tortured, get help.
Other than that, the movie is actually a fairly convincing portrayal of tribal life. The main character, a white guy who is taken hostage by the tribe until he becomes one of them, and even marries the chief's daughter, is pretty unimpressive, but it wasn't him I was interested in. So it's not that bad, but not that good either, and is perhaps deservedly forgotten.