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From infamous Euro/Porn and Sleaze director
Joe D Amato, finally comes one of his
few straight up horror films, uncut to
DVD (finally).
Anthropophagus
A.k.a. Anthropophagous the
Beast/Man Beast/The
Grim Reaper/Savage Island
(and I'm sure many more that I am still
un aware of). With these many titles
in mind, it always blows me away why even in
their own countries so many Euro Trash,
Exploitation and Sleaze films had and still
have so many different titles. I am not
going to lie. This was not an easy film to
review, so please, bare with me here.
Six American friends head out on what
they think is going to be a nice boat trip
to the Greek islands. One of the six (Tisa
Farrow) is met early on in the
film. Although she does not know the other
five, she asks if she can tag along, as she
is meeting up with some friends on one of
the islands. Little do they know these
friends have already met up with an untimely
demise in the opening of the film. The
opening, in my opinion, was quite amusing,
because of the fact that it completely
reminded me of the Stephen Spielberg
film Jaws. Upon their arrival to
the island, they discover that her friends
and their boat are nowhere to be found.
As strange events begin to unfold (such
as corpses in houses, a frightened def girl
found in a wine cellar and a strange older
woman that appears in windows throughout the
film) the group just continue to go
about there business (I guess because of
the horrid acting) seeming not to
really care or take any notice to these
strange things at first. As the group
decides to go forward in their investigation
of the island, they lose their boat, do to a
most unfortunate accident. Aboard the boat
are a Crewman and a pregnant woman (the
woman being one of the six friends as well
as being the wife of another of the group).
The woman is stuck aboard do to a busted
ankle. This scene was quite amusing for the
fact that the boat drifts away with the
current and nobody does anything to try and
get to it, or the people on board, They just
assume the current will bring it back (seriously,
this is actually stated in the film).
This whole thing had me rolling!
Further in their investigations, they
find out about the beast (Antropophagus)
that stalks the island, killing and
devouring anyone he comes across. The
findings of how the beast came to be,
happens to be, probably, the most
interesting part of the film. As the plot
unfolds, the group has become fewer and the
remaining people find themselves in quite a
predicament, ending in beautiful, glorious,
blood and guts. Thank God! (Including
the infamous and mostly unseen, abortion
scene and self intestinal ingestion scene).
The Ratings:
Antropophagus lacked
interest completely, meaning, it seemed like
everyone that was part of it could have gave
a shit less. Not unlike many films of its
type. The characters in the film (using
dubbing, subtitles or neither) just
seemed to show no enthusiasm, whatsoever (with
the exception of Tisa Farrow of
Zombi 2 fame, but than
again I may be biased when it comes to her)
which was one of the films major downfalls.
Though I also, at times, feel that poor
acting and lack of interest can be the charm
to some of these films, but still at times
be quite disappointing. If not for
Farrow, my rating probably would have
been a lot lower (when it comes to the
acting). I would definitely have to
give the acting in this film a 5.
As for the scenery, it was beautiful.
Filmed in various locations in Italy and
Greece. This is something I love about
films of the independent sort. Rather than
always using sound stages and sets, they
mostly use real locations. Don't get me
wrong, sound stages and sets are great,
depending on the film. For the locations
and scenery I give it a 7.
The score to the film was a joke. It
sounded to me as if a child or some heavily
drugged up hippie could have composed it.
If these are not the reasons for this
terrible soundtrack, well then I just don't
know. The sound quality itself is terrible
as well, but do to the time period and
budget, Ill give it a break. For these to
combined (sound and score) its a
big fat 4.
As for the film overall, Do not get me
wrong, I most definitely enjoyed it. Though
it left nothing to the imagination, (possibly
due to the lack of interest in the whole
making process) the movie itself gets
my rating of a 6. If not for the
gore and the actual storyline being somewhat
original (and the fact that I love
cheesy horror films) my rating may have
been worse. I also thank God I got the
uncut version, I don't think I would have
enjoyed it as much any other way. That's a
complete lie, I probably would've enjoyed it
anyway.
For fans of movies like Burial
Ground, Virgin Among the
Living Dead, Flesh for
Frankenstein and Absurd
(the said sequel to
Antropophagus), don't pass
this one up.
A definite late night popcorn flick!
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