Did you people see the same film I saw?

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Thanks to a few moments of bloody violence (including some graphic slaughterhouse footage), The Cannibal Man earned itself a place on the official Video Nasty list during the 1980s. However, despite its 'notorious' reputation, the film is not simply a mindless gore-fest, but rather a depressingly nihilistic psychological thriller and a commentary on class divide and social intolerance in Spain during the rule of Franco, thus elevating it above many of the titles vilified by the BBFC.Vicente Parra stars as Marcos, a blue-collar worker in an abattoir at a Spanish soup factory, who attacks a taxi-driver who beats his sexy girlfriend Paula (the gorgeous Emma Cohen). When the driver is reported dead in the next day's paper, Paula wants to go to the police to explain what really happened, but Marcos is convinced that, being poor, his side of the story will be ignored; during the resultant argument, Marcos strangles Paula and stashes her body in his bedroom, an act that sees the young man slipping into insanity. Over the next few days, Marcos is compelled to kill again and again to keep his terrible deeds a secret.With the number of corpses increasing daily (and becoming all the more smelly thanks to the oppressive summer heat), Marcos decides to try and dispose of the evidence by chopping up his victims and sneaking body parts into the meat mincer at his workplace. During this time, Marcos develops a platonic friendship with fellow social outcast Néstor, a rich gay man living in a high-rise apartment overlooking Marcos's house, who possibly knows more about his neighbour than he is letting on.Featuring great performances, solid direction from Eloy de la Iglesia, a chilling minimalist electronic score, well executed moments of tension, a very effective atmosphere of death and decay PLUS gratuitous sex, brutal violence, and a hilarious homo-erotic swimming pool scene for good measure, The Cannibal Man is one video nasty well worth seeking out, particularly if you're a fan of 70s Euro-horror.Oh, and for those who say that the title is misleading because no cannibalism actually occurs—well, I reckon that's open to debate: at one point, Marcos tucks into a bowl of soup before discovering that it is from his own factory and realising it may well contain meat products other than those on the ingredients label.7.5 out of 8, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Dour, moody, petulant, very masculine and unsociable loner abattoir worker Marcos (a fine, low-key, creepily nonchalant performance by Vincente Parra) and his peevish, unhappy girlfriend (the lovely Emma Cohen) take a ride in a taxi one fateful night. The irritable cab driver tosses them out when they start making out in the back of his taxi. Marcos and the cabbie have an altercation which results in the cabbie being killed. Marcos' girlfriend wants to tell the cops. Marcos, who's distrustful of authority due to his lowly working class social status, throttles his girlfriend in a fit of pique. Pretty soon Marcos becomes extremely paranoid and begins to kill every last person who suspects him of being a homicidal maniac (Marcos even whacks his own brother with a wrench). Marcos strikes up an uneasy friendship with an earnest, but suspicious gay neighbor. Things get even more tense. Meanwhile, Marcos chops up the corpses residing in his spartan, squalid rathole abode and disposes of the body parts by incinerating them in the slaughterhouse furnace.A grave, gruesome, exceedingly unnerving and disconcerting depiction of how severe self-loathing and one's miserably meager station in life can feasibly drive you murderously around the bend (Marcos registers strongly as a hauntingly sullen and scarily twisted proletarian anti-hero), this dark, stark, deeply disturbing and harrowingly plausible psychological horror portrait of everyday gratuitous violence, repressed sexuality (there's an edgy air of homo-eroticism apparent in the relationship between Marcos and his meddlesome neighbor), and seething, volatile little guy angst makes for a very queasy and unsettling viewing experience. The late, great Eloy de la Iglesia's taut, austere, fiercely humorless and deliberate direction, ably assisted by Raul Artigot's grainy, gloriously unadorned no-frills cinematography, Fernando G. Morcillo's spare, spooky, nerve-jangling score, occasional outbursts of hideously graphic and genuinely shocking violence, gradual pacing, an unsparingly solemn tone, and properly subdued naturalistic acting from the uniformly solid cast, creates a frightfully squirmy and sweaty suffocating gloom-doom atmosphere which ultimately delivers one hell of a potent and lingering kick-you-in-the-gut wallop. Anchor Bay's typically up-to-par DVD offers a nice widescreen presentation with the trailer as the sole extra.

(aka: APARTMENT ON THE 13TH FLOOR)The title CANNIBAL MAN is somewhat misleading for this Spanish film since it really has nothing to do with cannibalism at all.A butcher named Marcos (Vincente Parra) lives in an old whitewashed house on the edge of some new high rises that were recently built. One night he goes out on a date with his girlfriend and accidentally kills a taxi driver in a fit of rage. She wants him to turn himself into the police but he refuses.When she threatens to turn him in, he slits her throat with a long butcher's knife. And so begins his killing spree. He manages to kill five more people (including his brother, his future father-in-law, and a waitress who's real friendly towards him) in a desperate act of covering himself up before the inevitable end comes. He takes the body parts to the local slaughterhouse so they can be ground up by the machines. He also has to buy multiple cans of air freshener in order to get rid of the smell.The one person who convinces him otherwise is the young homosexual on the 13th floor of the high-rise who knows his secret but doesn't say anything about it. An act of conscious suddenly grips Marcos and the homosexual is spared.It's not a particularly gory story although there is blood and there are scenes of people being stuck with all kinds of sharp instruments. However, if you're looking for decapitations and body parts lying around, you won't find anything like that here. Everything's implied which it and of itself, works well for this particular film. Unfortunately the Anchor Bay DVD doesn't come with any extras beyond a trailer.It has good acting and a good script for an obvious low budget, obscure film even though it does share a similar theme with Claude Chabrol's more prestigious LE BOUCHER (1970). A butcher, multiple homicides etc...It beats out anything Jess Franco would've filmed around the same time.6 out of 10

Plot: The movies about a guy who works at a slaughterhouse and what happens to him and most of all his mind when his spouse calls it quits. Bit by bit he starts to loose it....Form: It plays out very neatly. You have to follow the story tightly to make any sense of the whole thing. Follow closely and you get a reward at the end in the form of knowledge on the human mind.Who is it for?: First of all this is not a movie for kids. It is a highly realistic movie with a hard story,lots of violence and gore and an adult theme. So if you are a sensitive viewer or under 17 I would not recommend it for viewing. There are a lot of non-violent films out there about similar topics. But on the other hand if you don`t have a problem with violence in films and like a touch of realism, this is really the one for you. Grade: 10 out of 10