|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Science-Fiction |
|
|
| Horror |
|
|
| Fantasy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD
aka
PRISONER OF THE CANNIBAL GOD
(La Montagno del Dio Cannibale)
Rating: 
Italy. 1978.
Director – Sergio Martino, Screenplay – Sergio Martino & Cesare Frugoni, Producer – Luciano Martino, Photography – Giancarlo Ferrando, Music – Guido and Maurizio de Angelis, Production Design – Massimo Antonello Geleng. Production Company – Dania Film/Medusa Distribuzione.
Cast:
Ursula Andress (Susan Stevenson), Stacy Keach (Professor Edward Foster), Claudio Cassinelli (Dr Minolo), Antonio Marsina (Arthur), Franco Fantasia (Father Moses Suspicion), Lugina Rocchi (Puka Chief)
Plot: Susan Stevenson arrives in New Guinea in search of her husband Henry who has gone missing. She is directed to anthropologist Edward Foster who believes that Henry might be on the forbidden area of Roka Island. Along with Henry’s brother Arthur, they mount an expedition to the island. They discover that Henry went in search of plentiful uranium deposits on the island. But then they find themselves, as Henry was, captured by cannibal tribes.
The Italian cannibal film has a well-deserved reputation as the genre that was prepared to go to the most graphically nasty extremes of any exploitation genre. This mini-genre was started off with Umberto Lenzi’s Deep River Savages/The Man from Deep River (1972), which set the limited formula for the rest of the films. The cannibal genre hit its stride around 1980 with such notorious entries as Cannibal Holocaust (1979), Cannibal Apocalypse/Cannibals in the Streets (1980), Zombie Holocaust (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981). Amongst these Slave of the Cannibal God/Prisoner of the Cannibal God had the biggest budget of any Italian cannibal film – and is the only one to star any internationally renowned actors – Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach. It is also one of the few that was not outrightly banned in most countries and consequently remains the most accessible of the abovementioned cannibal films.
As with any cannibal film, Slave of the Cannibal God/Prisoner of the Cannibal God largely exists as a smorgasbord of decapitations and human entrails. These amount to some decided shock effects – one of the bearers caught in a trap that slams him between two cage sides mounted with sharp rocks and the others returning to find only a gnawed arm; the gutting of Claudio Cassinelli around a campfire; a native’s dick chopped off for attempting to have his way with Ursula Andress; a dwarf kicked out of the way and falling and splattering his brains over a rock. Whatever grander pretensions these films have, gore is ultimately the bottom line. As to why – the answer is probably the same that one can give as to why some like Mexican food with chilli hot enough to burn one’s head off – some people just like it that way and it is seen as a kind of badge of courage as to the amount one is able to endure.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
|