IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS – Another from B Mattei's final directorial flourish, this romp through the jungle pinches bits from 'Cannibal Holocaust' and 'Predator' in its weighty disquisition on civilisation versus savagery. Hilariously, it even siphons off a few passages from 'Mondo Cannibal', the latter being a wholesale Mattei rip of CH (see below)... wow Bruno, you're dead postmodern, you are. I think he was more bothered about slamming some gore and nudity up on the screen – or maybe not, as there's precious little of either here. In fact, I wish 'In The Land Of The Cannibals' had been as mind-boggling as the magpie autophagy of its construction, 'cos, toss it on one of those cannibal cook-pots and it'd boil down to not much more than wonky ass dialogue and a really bad soundtrack. Now, these two things alone might sustain me, and I have to say I was particularly aggravated / enthralled by the music, which was a kind of triumphalist military-type bombast done on a high end casio. But, all in all, pretty thin gruel from a talent as luminous as Mattei's, and I often found myself checking my watch and longing for the lunacy of something like 'The Other Hell', or 'Island Of The Living Dead' for that matter.
MONDO CANNIBAL - … On the other hand, this is the real full-on Mattei meal deal. As already stated, it's basically a reconstruction of 'Cannibal Holocaust' minus any aspect of the original's directorial brio. Sitting through 'Mondo Cannibal' was a weird experience. Watching it made me think of a dodgy clone lab where CH DNA had spawned a hideous replica with a soul of warped plastic. It felt hypnotically vapid, coming on like a simulation of a film, as removed from 'filmic reality' as a cheaply produced international soap. No doubt this was due in part to the threadbare video production, but also the moves, the camera work, the dialogue all swam in this direction. A word on that dialogue – it felt like it'd been dubbed by robots on the verge of hysteria. I lost count of the number of times I could only gawp at what I was hearing, and quite often I did worry about my bladder control. Do 'snot-fanciers' really exist? Not in my cloistered world, up till now. Crazy. And, as with 'Island Of The Living Dead', it all felt quite deliberate, mocking. He's rubbing our noses in it. The gore was pretty full on, as was the sleaze in a couple of scenes. But Mattei, being the sly fox that he was, maybe felt that the grating misogyny and arguable racism could be justified by trying to play CH's get-out-of-jail-free card: media critique. Now, I didn't believe Deadato and I don't believe Mattei. Mattei really ups the ante in nose-thumbing cynicism, and winks at us when that studio exec paraphrases CH's final cop-out line next to a big TV company logo - “sometimes I wonder who the real cannibal is.” Yeah, right. Anyway, I could go on but I'm sure you're tired enough already. 'Mondo Cannibal' – it made me feel dizzy. And that's a recommendation.
THE EVIL – Back to some kind of normality with 'The Evil', a seventies horror film which I hadn't seen before. Basically, it's about a psychologist who renovates an abandoned house in the hope that he can turn it into a rehab clinic. He's joined there by a bunch of his students, and before long the usual supernatural schtick rears its head and we're treated to a barrage of era-specific special fx and mounting hysteria. I quite liked 'The Evil'. It's a bit lightweight, but it does its job. OK, I didn't get that sense of 'whaaat?' that I always hope for when I'm sifting for forgotten relics, but then, for every 'The Pit' come ten or more mere functionaries. 'The Evil' is a bit better than this, and odd moments of craziness hang around its hoary framework and worn out foundations. There's a strangely effective moment when a statue tilts its head, there's Andrew Prine cutting his hand off apropos of nothing, and there's the ending, which has a Lucio Fulci kind of 'metaphysical plane in a cellar' feel to it – the two surviving characters go beneath the house and find a vast white space with the devil in it. Wish the rest of the film had been more like that, but to be honest 'The Evil' is pretty entertaining, and rattles along at an excellent pace, meaning I didn't check out my watch too often, or at all really. Will be enjoyed by lovers of seventies horror and is probably quite good value for money if you get hold of it via that Shout Factory double bill with 'Twice Dead'.
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