Wow! Such a good movie.

Truly Dreadful Film

One of my all time favorites.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

A small commando squad ventures into the heart of the Amazon to retrieve Sara Armstrong (Cindy Jelic Matic). The hottie daughter of a senator, she was kidnapped by a cannibal tribe. The soldiers are led by a guide named Romero (Claudio Morales), a man who knows the score when it comes to the local tribes and their customs.Ad copy refers to this as a cross between "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Predator", which pretty much sums up the whole silly affair. In fact, director Bruno Mattei ("Hell of the Living Dead", "Rats: Night of Terror") and his co-writer, Giovanni Paolucci, spend so much time shamelessly aping "Predator", and "Aliens" as well, that you just have to shake your head and laugh at their nerve.On location shooting in the Philippines is effectively atmospheric (and supplemented by some stock footage), and there's a pleasingly high body count. The gore devised by Giuseppe Ferranti is actually quite good. The characters are all patently ridiculous, and receive appropriately cheese ball performances. Ydalia Suarez is the most amusing as Vasquez, an oh so obvious nod to the gung ho marine played by Jenette Goldstein in "Aliens"."In the Land of the Cannibals" is plenty stupid, but it's not pretending to be anything other than a routine ripoff film and continuation of that cannibal genre popularized by the Italians in the 1970s and 1980s. While this viewer would readily admit that it's hardly "good" stuff, it's actually pretty entertaining, provided one isn't annoyed by the lack of imagination in the script.Six out of 10.

Ripping off big budget American films was a common practice for Italian filmmakers in the seventies and eighties with the likes of The Exorcist, Dirty Harry and Jaws being 'reinvented' several times by a host of names, which often included Bruno Mattei. By 2003, cheap exploitation cinema had become less popular in Italy; but Bruno Mattei was still making movies and apparently he didn't see any reason to stop this often practiced tradition of ripping off American movies, and saw fit to reinvent John McTiernan's Predator and splice it together with another popular American export, the cannibal movie, and what we have as the result is this film. Land of Death takes place, as you would expect, in the Amazon jungle and as was the case with Predator; we focus on a group of soldiers that have to go into the jungle on a rescue mission. They have to rescue a general's daughter who has been kidnapped by a cannibal tribe who, fascinated by her blonde hair, believe her to be some sort of goddess.Most of the Italian rip-offs released during the seventies and eighties were a bit more subtle than this film. The order of the day was usually to rip a film off thematically and basically spin a new story around the idea used in the successful American film. But Mattei apparently couldn't be bothered to go through the time consuming process of thinking up an idea and writing a script; so what we get instead is just a re-run of Predator. And I mean that literally; whole lines of dialogue are taken, scenes are stolen almost frame for frame, the characters are the same etc. In fact if it wasn't for the fact that there is no alien, this could be a frame for frame remake of Predator (although it's more along the same lines as the fan made version of Indiana Jones quality-wise than Gus Van Sant's Psycho!). Basically, if you've seen Predator, you will know exactly what to expect here and to be honest there's not much point watching unless you're only there to see just how badly McTiernan's film has been stolen from. Mattei does at least give us some gore...but to be honest, this is shameful stuff.

Land of Death (2003) ** (out of 4) One of several films Italian director Bruno Mattai made during his comeback a few years before dying. Mattai's films are always bad so the real question is if they are bad enough to be entertaining and this one here is. It's also worth watching Mattai to see what and who he rips off and this time out he does a scene for scene remake of Cannibal Holocaust even though, of course, that film is never credited. In the film some American soldiers go missing in the jungle so another group goes in to look for them and they too run into cannibals. I was really curious to see what Mattai would do with this politically incorrect genre and he delivers exactly what those earlier controversial films did. You have rape, torture, flesh eating and yes, real animals dying. These scenes are always disgusting but Mattai has them here after all the years of protest towards Cannibal Holocaust and others like it. This film here contains the bad dubbing and bad acting but everything is bad enough to where the film remains interesting if you've seen the other movie. There really isn't a single original idea here as everything comes from Cannibal Holocaust but it's interesting to see such a rip off.

This 2003 cannibal flick is directed by Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead) under other name - Martin Miller. Mattei also did the writing credits and the music score.Plot : A group of soldiers led by Leutenant Wilson (Lou Randall) are sent to the Jungle of Amazonia to find a general's daughter who was somehow caught by the jungle natives. They take an experienced guide Romero (Claudio Morales) and one of the captured cannibals to take them through the jungle...On one hand this movie is really good. The acting is okay. Claudio Morales (who looks like Chaco from Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust) and the newcomer Lou Randall look very solid for these types of European cannibal movies. The movie is not as gory and violent as Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox , but fans of low budget cannibal flicks will be satisfied.On the other hand , like the summary says its "Predator meets Cannibal Holocaust". If you have seen those two , you'll laugh while watching this movie. There is animal violence , a captured cannibal , even a punishing ritual when a cannibal kills his wife on the riverside - everything Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust had with more gore and violence. There is a group of soldiers (thank god the leading actor doesn't look like Schwarzenegger) , there is a scene with "scorpion" and a few others (for those who seen Predator will get it) - everything McTiernan's Predator has + it has Arnold. With all the above Mattei also throws in a story about a girl captured by the cannibals (we've seen this a thousand of times before) - and there we go , we have Land of Death. If you can overcome the plot of this movie , it is really good , especially for cannibal movie lovers. If you don't - at least you can laugh at some of the scenes that were used in Predator and Cannibal Holocaust almost 20 years ago.