The Firelight Shocks DVD Review Section

Cannibal Ferox (AKA Make Them Die Slowly) Distributor: GrindHouse Region: 1 Ratio: 1:85:1 Sound: Stereo

Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox should need little introduction. Just in case you've missed out on the delights of seeing it before, however, here's a basic outline for you. Three Americans travel through the jungles of South America in the hope of proving that cannibals don't actually exist. However, answering the hopes of the horror fan, they indeed do. As does a particularly nasty psychopath, played by horror veteran John Morghen, who quickly sets about attacking everyone in sight, eventually getting castrated by the natives before they start feasting on his brains. However, despite there seemingly being more than enough range for acts of graphic violence in the above storyline, true to form for Italian Cannibal films, the really disturbing aspects come from utterly unecessary scenes featuring the killing and torture of real animals. Cannibal Ferox is apparently a response to Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, a film which is equally reprehensible in terms of animal cruelty, but which at least has an original idea behind it. Obviously not on the storyline side of things (it could hardly qualify as a cannibal film then, could it?), but in its narrative device of the majority of the film, including their deaths, being shot on the main characters' own cameras. However, Cannibal Ferox doesn't even have this solitary saving grace in its favour. It is nothing more than the flimsiest of plots hanging together by a thread of real animal cruelties, and, occasionally, faked human ones. And that really is the only thing that holds the film together; nothing actually happens for a long time in the film other than the characters travelling into the jungle and various animals being killed, as if the death of the animals makes the dull goings-on better and not far, far worse. Of course, eventually the cannibals do rise in their ludicrously-wigged glory, and it becomes strangely refreshing to see special effects as John Morghen has his dick lopped off. And then it becomes plain horrible again as a girl is strung up by hooks through her breasts. One very strange thing about the film is that, as much as it does seem to have the approach that anything can be filmed as long as it is thoroughly gross, neither of the two American girls gets raped… it's almost as if Lenzi decided that, whilst the killing of animals is absolutely fine, rape really would be pushing it. Still, in defence of Cannibal Ferox… um, no. Can't think of anything. Oh, the DVD version's taken from a good print of the film, there you go.

EXTRAS: Undoubtably the best added feature on this DVD release is the commentary, with both Lenzi and Morghen talking over the film about their very different experiences and perceptions of the film. And when I say very different, they couldn't be more so. At the end of the film Morghen finishes off with "well, that's it. I won't say I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you hated it"; Cannibal Ferox is something of an embarrassment to him which he passes off more than once with the old "I was young, I needed the money" excuse. Lenzi on the other hand is both the director clarifying one of his 'finest' films, and the sadistic animal torturer doing what he can to justify himself, quite pitifully as well. What does seem particularly striking about the commentary is how disorganised it is; Lenzi and Morghen are talking separately, and the soundtrack just cuts between them. Neither of them have seen the film for a number of years, and seemingly don't have anything planned to say. Although this could clearly go horribly wrong, it does work well. Although there's some repetition between the two of them (not to mention Morghen mentioning that one of the women is the producer's wife about three times), it does mean that both Lenzi and Morghen do comment freely on the same scenes very often. If they could have been got in the same studio at the same time, it would quite possibly have descended into a mass of Italian swearwords even before the appearance of the anaconda. That Morghen hasn't seen the film in years is also very visible when his character castrates one of the natives…his "oh my God!" is very moving. What comes across very early on in the commentary is that Morghen is a humorous and decent guy, right from his initial "hi guys! Welcome aboard!". He continues in this semi-camp fashion throughout, including his "mmm…yummy!" during one of the cannibalistic acts. This style of commentary is highly effective in cutting through Lenzi's mumblings, as in these examples; Lenzi: "They were a real savage tribe" Morghen: "They were all going around on their motorcycles, listening to rock music" Morghen: The anaconda wasn't hungry enough to eat the animal "but Lenzi wanted more, wanted the animal to die" Lenzi: "I saved him" And then there's the sentence in which Lenzi sums up the entire plot: "they kill everybody because he was very bad to them" Morghen "So now they know that I'm not Mary Poppins!" John Morghen also sheds some light on some of Lenzi's film practises, more perhaps that Lenzi himself does. He describes a talk with Lenzi during production, where the director told him that the next day Morghen was to kill a pig. "No, you're crazy" was his response. Lenzi then went on to say that Robert De Niro would have done it, to which Morghen responded "No, De Niro would have kicked your ass back to Italy". On a similar but nastier note, Morghen also talks about how a piranha was required to bite someone's leg when they got out of the water. The piranha wasn't interested in this, being too interested in dying, so Lenzi got the wardrobe woman to sew the piranha's mouth to the trousers. Other extras on the DVD are a very extensive gallery (including stills, promotional material and posters), theatrical trailers for the Italian, German and US releases. The trailers are just all the gore from the film, minus the animal killings (which for some reason must not have seemed so good to advertise). There's also hidden footage from Grindhouse's theatrical re-release, and, finally, an interview with Lenzi himself (without Morghen to take the piss). Phil.