User Reviews

If you've already exhausted the entire series of Italian cannibal films from the 70s and 80s and are hoping this 2003 effort from Euro-schlock director Bruno Mattei might breath new life into the subgenre, think again! CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST 2: THE BEGINNING, the title I saw this under, is actually less a sequel to the first film than an almost scene-for-scene remake of it. Unfortunately, it has almost none of the impact of the original film, which makes it a bit pointless. The print I saw was dubbed into English. I would have preferred subs because the dubbing here is beyond awful. I don't expect the dialogue to match the lips or anything, but most of the voice actors sucked and the dialogue itself was so awful and unnatural-sounding (especially the lead actress' to-camera monologues) it was a constant annoyance. Furthermore, literally everything about this effort is toned down from the original. There's less gore, less nudity, fewer shocks and much less technical competence on display here. While the original had a haunting soundtrack and some fantastic grainy camera-work, this has a generic score and a very flat TV-movie look. They didn't even bother sticking with the "found footage" concept either, as many of the camera shots are obviously not taken from the perspective of the characters. One plus, at least from my perspective, is that there's far less actual violence directed toward animals. This being from 2003 and with certain laws now in place, I actually didn't expect to see ANY real animal violence, so I was surprised to see one scene here where a lizard has its throat cut and is gutted. I suppose they felt compelled to do that to somehow tie this in to the original, but I thought it was unnecessary.

The plot is almost identical to the original film, with a group of five people (the original had four, but they added a big-breasted blonde to the proceedings) setting out deep into the jungle to do a documentary on cannibal tribes. Led by ruthless, fame-hungry female reporter Grace Forsythe (Helena Wagner) and her reluctant-at-first former lover Bob Manson (Claudio Morales), also a reporter, the crew and a guide eventually resort to violence to spurn a reaction from the docile natives. Just like in the original, they push around, shoot, burn and rape the poor natives to try to get some "good" footage. Of course this ends up backfiring in a big way and one-by-one they're hunted down and killed off by a tribe that the dubbed dialogue refers to as "The Invisible People." The framework is about the same as in the first film, with the footage being intercut with people at a TV station viewing it all. One slight difference is that the footage is coming in via a live satellite feed instead of someone finding film cannisters and viewing them later. The material, and the format, actually could make a perfect comment on the sudden boom in "Reality TV" and how desperate it is becoming to try to shock viewers, but this film isn't ambitious enough to even attempt to exploit the obvious possibilities there. It's much too busy trying to poorly clone its source material.

Now the film does have some blood and some nudity, I'll give it that much. The two leading ladies appear topless one time, but the men don't even remove their pants during a gang rape scene. The gore isn't nearly as effective as most other films in this genre either, though there's plenty of blood being flung around. Remember that female shish-ka-bob from the original CH? Here it's replaced by a woman merely tied to a pole, which isn't too shocking, though the film crew acts as if it is. The cannibal feasts look a bit ridiculous here, with the tribesmen behaving like mindless zombies who make sloppy messes of themselves as they chow down on guts and brains. They did manage to one-up the "abortion" scene by having the freshly removed fetus getting stomped on by the ladies who cut it out. The ending is a carbon copy of the ending of CH, though not nearly as effective. Philippines shooting locations were acceptable, as were the native villages and costumes, which might make this best watched with liberal use of the mute button.

awful......just awful. For a start the digital video camera is not a steadicam, and even if she was joking ITS NOT FUNNY!! the script consists of stolen Cannibal Holocaust lines and images with the main part being a swamp of incoherent crap that only the most messed up mind could comprehend and think is slightly decent. this film also contains some of the lamest picture in picture effects I've ever seen. with its token 80's porn soundtrack and English dubbed over English this film has made me realize that some movies need to be sunk below a 1 grade on the voting scale. and for some strange reason everyone keeps talking to the camera even the people that aren't in the jungle i.e DIGBY. this film makes no sense what-so-ever as the start of the movie portrays the jumping of time between past and present-i mean seriously WTF?!?! to make it even more awful is the 2minute appearance of the German priest that introduces us to the guide Garcia. (with the wonderful crash zoom intro). the acting was great..............for a low grade cheesy basement porno. to sum this movie up in a few words let me travel back "3 mouthes ago"

awful.....just awful!!

There's not much meat on Grace is there?...I'm surprised the cannibals even bothered to eat her...a light snack at best.

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.

If there's something that all cannibal movies seem to have in common - beyond scenes where white people mistreat the native populace, real animal atrocities and copious levels of gore - it's the idea that mass media is the root of most of the modern world's issues. Italian exploitation filmmakers were several decades ahead of the mistrust of what many would call fake news today and their human beings devouring human beings offerings often placed documentary filmmakers or network television reporters as the reason why all of this chaos is taking place. The natives were just fine doing their rituals and eating random folks in the jungle. The white people bring cocaine and their modern perversions into the unspoiled green inferno, ruining everything.

Somehow, 24 years after Cannibal Holocaust, a 73-year-old Bruno Mattei - using his Vincent Dawn alter ego - would find himself in the jungle trying to bring back the sick feeling you get in your stomach when mass media goes to places that they should have known better to avoid.

Grace Forsyte (Helena Wagner in the only role of her career) was once a big deal in the world of television journalism, but the fickle whims of fate have cast her into the pile of the also-rans. She decides to reverse her fortunes by heading into the belly of the beast and capturing Amazon cannibals on video along with another once-famous telejournalist named Bob Manson (Claudio Morales, who was also in Mattei's A Shudder on the Skin and Orient Escape).

The footage that they send back gets big ratings and makes them both stars again, but the TV news industry runs on blood, so they're forced to get increasingly violent and horrifying images to continue getting those big numbers.

Look, this movie is also called Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning and Cannibal Holocaust 2: The Beginning, so Mattei wasn't even trying to hide what he was trying to do here. It's a shot on digital video cover version of that film, along with a hilarious subtitle typo (some mouths later instead of some months) and a lot less real animal violence.

This was shot at the same time as In the Land of the Cannibals with much of the same crew. Is that one any better? Look for the review soon.