Cannibal Ferox Director's Cut 2-Blu-rays

From Umberto Lenzi, one of the greatest “polizioteschi” auteurs and responsible, among many others, of Man From Deep River; a great film in its own right and the one which started the whole cannibal “filone,” and Nightmare City, which inadvertently became one of the most influential “zombie” movies ever. I really like most everything he did, down to his more questionable and weak output, to which this movie belongs. From the interviews that are usually included in the home video releases of his “ouvre,” he strikes me as a guy who, most of all, knew his craft extremely well and was highly cultivated. However, he also strikes me as a very arrogant individual who would blame someone else in the cast and crew for the sometimes obvious shortcomings of his films (Joe D’Amato got his turn for the ending in Hitcher in the Dark, which I personally think had nothing wrong with it). Apparently, there was this sort of implied competition between him and Ruggero Deodato as to who the creator of the subgenre was. The whole affair is an interesting and amusing play in “intertextuality,” in which movies like A Man Called Horse and the jungle flicks from the 30s take part. Obviously, The Green Inferno by Eli Roth, which draws heavily from this particular film, is also implicated. However, I don’t know how seriously one should take this. I consider him, who does almost nothing but remakes of films which are not so great themselves, the most overrated director in history. As for the film itself: If there’s anything to rescue, it’s that is one of the most notorious chapters in the rivalry saga between the two individuals who lay claim of faterhood for the “genre.” It does have a certain charm by default that the vast majority of the Italian drive-in fare from that era had: the “detail” and “realism” you wouldn’t get anywhere else, the soundtracks (I think is almost imposible to name just one bad italian composer, and that would depend on taste), the way it was obvious that they were put together in a heartbeat, but with a unique craftiness nobody else had, the fact that they were all dubbed, the prescence of John Morghen, Lorraine De Selle, Robert Kerman and Zora Kerowa (not only familiar, but beloved faces for those of us who grew up in places where you couldn’t afford to get in the theaters where big studio movies where shown), etc... It has the same dramatic elementa as Cannibal Holocaust, minus the metatextual touch, and even the same animals are killed. However, in my book, Deodato’s film would rank as “serious,” even important (one of the most ever; just look at all the found footage films that have been made ever since). Lenzi’s reaction upon viewing it, from what I can tell in the whole tone of his own ripoff, must have been one of passionate rage. That would have prevented him from “appropriately” reading it as he should’ve and, having perceived it as nothing more than an exploitative film, set out to outdo it in that particular department. I hate to bring out the animal violence because when putting a finger on it, you risk coming of as an hypocrite, but let’s take for instance the pig slayings in each. While in both cases is a live animal on camera, the scene in Lenzi’s movie drags on longer, as do the rest of the copious animal sacrifices..... enough said. Lenzi was just out to do whatever Deodato did in that department bigger, not “better,” but I guess it’s impossible to outdo great ideas; you just come up with a different one that’s equally succesful, if lucky. Also, the worst possible way to “outdo” something that’s done right already is using the very same formula and try to beat it in its own game. From that perspective, there’s no “redeeming value” whatsoever: Only entertainment and, most definitely, gross out and even shame and guilt value. Actually, like very few others. However, I am giving this release of this particular “artifact,” very much of it’s irrepetible times, five stars because it’s simply stacked sky- high with extras. My copy came with the soundtrack on CD (again, in much cases, the music is beautiful, or at least groovy, but extremely inappropriate); the sole inclusion of the Eaten Alive! documentary is worth the price. Even though I failed enough humanities and English courses in college to have any respect for or give any credit to scholars, I must humbly acknowledge that most of the points they make, do make a lot of sense and find them insightful. For completists. If for instance, you want Lenzi, a guy who did make a difference in Italian “genre” cinema, at his performance “peak” or his most “representative,” your best choices are Almost Human or Nightmare City.

Cannibal Ferox would be my number three top cannibal films. I've seen this one time years ago when I was a lot older of course. But now finally they re-released grindhouse Umberto Lenzi's cannibal film. With such many stuff you get in this film like feature film on one Blu-Ray disc. The other Blu-Ray disc is the special features (can't wait to see that). And they give you a CD disc with twenty score sounds from the film plus bonus tracks and alternate takes. Including a booklet you can read if you get the time. And a nice looking covers for the Blu-Ray cover and the box that covers everything. I would recommend this if you're a horror cannibal fan as much as I am.Glad to be a Horror Buff.

Not for the faint of heart....great service.

Eh, I suppose it’s a nice set but these old exploitation films always look unacceptably grainy when transferred to Blu Ray. It’s really distracting for me although I love the film.

Definitely a bizarre addition to your grind house film collection. Lots of bonus materials.

I always used to think that Ferox and Holocaust were the two formative extreme cannibal exploitation films. The truth is that Holocaust is, and Ferox just retraces its brutal steps. Fun for exploitation fans, but a major bummer for film fans. In Cannibal Holocaust (1980) we were graced with an excellent introduction to our characters, their motivation, and why we’re all here. But as if in a rush, we now find ourselves in the Amazon almost immediately as our three protagonists begin their search for a jungle village which, by all local accounts, doesn’t seem to exist. Rudy (Danilo Mattei; Ironmaster), Gloria (Lorraine De Selle; House on the Edge of the Park, Wild Beasts) and Pat (Zora Kerova; The New York Ripper, Anthropophagous) venture into the Amazon so that Gloria may gather the information she needs to “prove” her dissertation’s thesis that “cannibalism as an organized practice in society” does not exist, nor has it ever. You’d think Gloria would be intelligent, working on her PhD in anthropology and all, but she can’t be that smart… since these three American buffoons drive into the jungle without a guide, breakdown, and then travel aimlessly on foot and off-trail in hopes of basically “bumping into” Gloria’s alleged village of cannibals. But they sure do seem to get lucky—or unlucky. During their adventure hey bump into Mike (Giovanni Lombardo Radice; The Omen, City of the Living Dead) and Joe (Walter Lucchini; Ironmaster), who claim to have escaped cannibals! Written and directed by Umberto Lenzi (Nightmare City, Ghosthouse), this film follows close in the footsteps of its predecessor Cannibal Holocaust (1980). The tortuous use of a coatimundi (that narrow-snouted muskrat looking critter) echoes Holocaust’s influence—when we saw one stabbed in the neck and killed on film. Keeping in the spirit of animal cruelty, we watch a coatimundi die to an anaconda (for real, on film) while yelping its last breaths, a jaguar kills a small monkey (for no good reason), Mike stabs a young pig to death (again, for no reason), an iguana ravages a boa, and an alligator is gutted. Probably considered avant-garde filmmaking by some, this needless “real” gore contributes no more value to the film than the completely forced nudity. Throw in a lot of violence against women, some genital mutilation, bloody eye gauging, child nudity (a la National Geographic), dismemberment and sloppy disembowelment and I guess we’ve got ourselves an exploitation film. Overall the gore and violence aren’t very effective, but anyone would wince at the castration scene—we see quite a bit. I was particularly surprised by the meat hooks through the breast! It was also somewhat unexpected (or more hilariously unreasonable) that the natives had a special table designed just for skull-capping victims to expose and eat their brains. But hey, that’s the kind of thing we signed up for with this film, right? The grossest thing about this movie was when they found a native eating big fat beetle grubs alive. You saw its guts as he bit into it and chewed with his mouth open. Yuck! A lot of things happen but they never coalesce into a reasonable story. Our trio encounters natives who had gorily died to booby traps, it’s explained that they had helped Mike and Joe escape, and when they all later return to the village together the natives sit quietly together as if scared of their white visitors (who do as they wish in the village like pale rulers). There seems to be no inspiration behind this stale film. It just rides the coattails of Cannibal Holocaust (1980) with no more rhyme or reason than chasing a paycheck. Holocaust was avant-garde extreme filmmaking, but Ferox is just one of the many random exploitation films inevitably to be found in its wake. Don’t think I’m being fair to this film? They even decapitate a large turtle and then butcher it while it’s still twitching… just because Holocaust did it. We flip-flop scenes between New York and the Amazon, just because it worked for Holocaust, and New York’s Lt. Rizzo is played by the star of Holocaust (Robert Kerman; Night of the Creeps, Cannibal Holocaust). As the story unfolds, a great deal more of the Ferox story (and the cast) mirrors Holocaust but continues to offer little in its honor in the process. Everything that made Holocaust work is absent here, unless you count “real gore” from animal cruelty and a few boobs as highlights. This is a cheap, uninspired knock-off and, while admittedly quite entertaining to a fan of the occasional extreme or exploitation film, it completely fails as a “film.” This is an exploitation “flick” that has nothing original to say, and says nothing at all well outside of step-by-step instructions for field-dressing a turtle or pushing natives to cannibalism.

Best cannibal film next to cannibal holocaust and green inferno

decided to go with the gindhouse version as its uncut and better picture quality and its uncut...if you like the 70's cannibal genre then this is the movie for you

It's good

Grusome would be understatement cruety this colud be a snuff movie looks real can understand why it was banned in so meny contries beware film is exstreme vewing

This is a good well-directed cannibal classic which might have borrowed some ideas...

Parfait

Film bello per quei anni