Just perfect...
... View MoreAfter playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
... View MoreExcellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
... View MoreThe film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
... View MoreA young woman seeks vengeance and finds love when her parents are killed in the Amazon and she is taken prisoner by an indigenous tribe of headhunters.The "cannibal genre", if there is such a thing, is pretty strange. It seems to have only lasted a few years and only in Italian cinema. Two films are widely known ("Cannibal Ferox" and "Cannibal Holocaust") while the imitators are forgotten and hard to find. This is one of those, following some of the same themes -- animal violence, and the idea that white man is more dangerous than the native.Nobody of note seems to have been involved in this. Director Mario Gariazzo is obscure, maybe known for "Bloody Hands of the Law" with Klaus Kinski, but i doubt it. The DP is Silvano Ippoliti, who had been active since 1949. But aside from a film with Tinto Brass, "Caligula", has anyone seen much of his work?
... View MoreAnother example of cheap exploitation, this should be of interest to cult movies fans due to the fact that a) it's Italian and b) it's a jungle-set adventure featuring cannibals. However, those expecting another CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST will be in for a bit of a disappointment with this sometimes-amateurish effort which adopts the style of what I like to call a "schlockumentary" - ie. the events that occur in the film all claim to be true, and the movie even goes so far as to incorporate supposedly real crime scene footage of a mortician holding up a severed head - it's so blatantly fake that I find it hard to believe that anyone could have been taken in by this. In any case, although a tribe of cannibals are mentioned, there's no gut-chewing in this movie. Instead, throughout the typical jungle antics, we get repeated cuts to courtroom footage where the lead character Katherine Miles is on trial for the slaughter of her uncle and aunt. This adds an original, if unconvincing, framework to what is basically another exploitational blood-and-skin jungle shocker.The lead is played by the otherwise unknown Elvire Audray, a young and nubile blonde who spends the entirety of the film topless - an authentic facet of the movie, of course, and not an excuse to show some naked female flesh. The setting, the native tribe, the music and the style of filming all make for an authentic feel to the movie, ironically only ruined by the intrusion of the badly-acted courtroom sequences which pop up periodically. At least the framework of the movie gives it a structured plot, so that you actually feel that it's going somewhere instead of middling along aimlessly like some of these jungle shockers do. Although pretty, Audray can't act very well, and the cast are generally wooden or ham actors. The only exception is Alvaro Gonzales, whose tribesman Umakai is a genuinely noble and heroic figure thanks to his strong, almost mute performance.The movie is pretty gory as a whole so it comes as no surprise that it has been cut in its UK release. Nonetheless, bits of gruesomeness remaining that the film has to offer include bloody deaths by blowpipe darts; heads being chopped from corpses (ironically, this is cut when it happens, but left in during a later flashback to the event); real-life animal violence; forced rape; a man having his face eaten off by ants, flies and worms; a man being eaten by a crocodile and the culminating double axe murder with Katherine as the culprit. Rotting severed heads also play a bit part in the film's narrative. There's also one of those lovely grub-eating interludes which Lenzi saw fit to include in his influential CANNIBAL FEROX film. Exploitation fans might get a kick out of this sometimes sleepy expose of jungle life thanks to the atmosphere and scenic setting it offers, but there's no real horror here - only some shoddy gore effects.
... View MoreWHITE SLAVE has some decent elements and originality going for it. The story is about a girl who's lost in the jungle after her boat is attacked and her parents are killed. She ends up becoming part of a tribe because she has no choice and can't escape. One of the tribesman takes her as his wife, and he ends up being a pretty decent guy, as savage tribesman go...But she's having no parts of it because she believes it's his fault for the death of her parents. As she learns the tribal language, and her "husband" learns English, the lines of communication open up, and the death of her parents may not be what they seem... Definitely not as memorable as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or even CANNIBAL FEROX - but the twist in the story is a welcome change to an otherwise rather straight-forward genre. Not nearly heavy enough on the red stuff for most "gorehounds" tastes, but still worth a look. 7/10
... View MoreThis is basically another one of those cannibal/jungle movies. It's true this movie is nothing but gore and nudity, but that's all you should be expecting from this kind of movie.A young girls parents are killed and decapitated (in a fairly gory scene) and she is taken prisoner by a group of headhunters. They strip her and trade her as a slave, so she spends the rest of the movie running through the jungle naked. Unlike a lot of these kinds of movies it actually does have a plot and it's supposedly 'based on a true story'. Definately worth a rental.If you use words like "atrocious banal" then you probably will not like this movie.
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