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Released by: Raro Video
Released on: 9/13/2005
Director: Stelvio Massi (as Max Steel)
Cast: N/A
Year: 1986
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The Movie:
The late Stelvio Massi, best known for directing action films like the Fred Williamson Black Cobra series and polizia thrillers like A Man Called Magnum attempted to revive the mondo movie genre that was kick started by Jacopetti and Prosperi's Mondo Cane way back when in 1962. By the time 1985 rolled around, the year that this movie was made, the world had seemingly had enough tasteless shockumentaries but that didn't stop Massi from directing Mondo Cane Ogg - L'Orrore Continua under the very porn star sounding pseudonym of Max Steel (furthermore not to be confused with THIS Max Steel, the kids action figure from the late 80s).
Massi tries nothing knew this time out, and while there are a few keen gross out moments to be found, the movie isn't nearly as interesting or as well made as a lot of the better known mondo films of the sixties and seventies. The formula - show something sexual, gross or violent and provide some sort of narration to give it context, edit it together, and then close on a 'thought provoking note' - isn't strayed from at all and we've seen similar situations before in other films.
The movie starts off by showing us different women from around the world doing different bizarre things. Women in asia eat to get fat so that they can dive for kelp in icy ocean waters which in turn is used to improve the skin quality of women who are already over weight and who want to lose weight and have the money and privelage to be able to do so. Women in an African country gather cow manure to use as ingredients in bricks which in turn are used to build homes. Once the women are sufficiently ogled and put down by the narrator (who has few kind words to say about the fairer sex or any nationalities not of European or western origin) we move on to strange cultural acts, as we witness some Hindu men jumping down into a well to prove their bravery and other cultural anomalies. We also learn how a crack team of government officials stopped a heroin smuggling ring from porting their good across the border in a corpse, and of course, we witness the subsequent autopsy that proves their theory.
We also learn of international aphrodisiacs and witness an Asian man decapitate a small tortoise so that he can drink his blood and then cut him open to eat his guts. We see some Indonesian men skin a python alive then boil him and at him and we see a Chinese medicine man cure a woman of frigidity using a simple white mouse. Forty-minutes or so later we head on into pervert country. Massi and crew point out to us some female impersonators which ultimately leads to some sex change operation footage which bares an eerie resemblence to some of the procedures we see in Doris Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman (though what we see here is much more graphic). We also see how medicine can cure erectile disfunction and we learn how electric shocks to the testicles during a slideshow that shows men and women during the 'men' slides can 'cure homosexuality.' It's all very interesting in theory but complete nonsense in practice and about as scientifically realistic as The Clones Of Bruce Lee.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The non-anamorphic 1.85.1 widescreen transfer isn't the greatest but it gets the job done. Some of the colors are a bit on the faded side and there's some mild print damage and moderate grain throughout but everything is watchable and there's a decent amount of both foreground and background detail in the print. No compression artifacts to note though some aliasing is definitely present in some scenes. Overall, a decent, if flawed, transfer for the film.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is in Italian with optional English subtitles that are (almost) free of typos and that do a decent job of translating despite the odd awkward phrase here and there. The majority of the film is narration and background music and it all comes through nicely without any problems in terms of hiss or distortion, and the levels are properly balanced ensuring that nothing gets buried in the mix.
Aside from the trailer (in Italian with no English sub-titles) the disc provides a biography and filmography for Stelvio Massi (in English or Italian) and an insert booklet with some bi-lingual liner notes that detail the history of the film and Massi's contribution to the mondo movie phenomena.
The Final Word:
Shockumentary fans already know they want this one for the few stand out moments it contains but the curious are advised to start with the better film in the genre that are readily available. Mondo Cane Oggi has its moments and the disc looks and sounds fine but the film has a few too many dull spots to make this one essential.