Jungle Holocaust (1977)
Can this modern man survive
In a stone age world?
Directored by Ruggero Deodato
Starring Massimo Foschi, Me Me Lai and Ivan Rassimov
Spoilers
OK, so before Ruggero Deodato made his infamous Cannibal Holocaust he did this one, Jungle Holocaust also known as Last Cannibal World. Well, a plane crashes in the jungle and one guy is pretty soon killed by this big ball of spikes which is a really nice gory moment. Then the two remaining guys get separated as one disappears down the rapids. So, our main guy, he gets captured by cannibals and they take him back to their cave and tie him to a rock. They then start ripping off his clothes, fascinated by the material. Then when he’s almost naked this beautiful cannibal girl comes long and rips his underpants off. Then the cannibal guys seem overly fascinated by his penis and pull at it quite a lot. He’s then hoisted up on this device because they think he’s some kind of bird-god I think, because of the plane crash. Anyway later he’s kept in a cage with this crazy fucking dodo thing and the cannibal youngsters piss on him and throw rocks at him but he befriends this girl from earlier and when he eventually gets out he takes her with him into the jungle and rips her underpants off and rapes her. She doesn’t seem to care about this as she brings him food immediately after and they start to fall in love; a fumble in the jungle so to speak (couldn’t resist).
Oh it wouldn’t be a cannibal film without animal cruelty but thankfully this is a hell of a lot more toned down than Cannibal Holocaust; snake eats a lizard, snake eats a bat (looked like a set up to me) and there are just a couple of really nasty scenes where the cannibals kill a snake and the nastiest of all where they kill this crocodile/alligator which is just about as nasty as killing a croc can get, it’s grim – remember the turtle in Cannibal Holocaust, like that…
Other gore. Well, all the main gore is saved till the end really but it is incredibly graphic although it’s the first actual cannibalism in the whole film. Like i said this is going into love story/ jungle adventure territory but the ending stamps the horror label well and truly in place and echoes the Deodato ferociousness we know him better for. There’s a lot of nudity in this film which sort of makes it look authentic but not so much so as Cannibal Holocaust. It just feels more typical of the genre but maybe that’s underselling it a tad as it certainly journeys to the very dark side on a number of occasions. The soundtrack obviously is nowhere near the one of its successor.
Yeah, so there’s not a lot of cannibalism as such but what there is is unflinching and just wrong. And that’s on YouTube, uncut. So, Cannibal Ferox isn’t on there which means this should be my last cannibal film now for a while and that’s probably a good thing.
They’re pretty intense.
