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Released by: Intervision Film Corp.
Released on: November 11th, 2014.
Director: Bruno Mattei
Cast: Claudio Morales, Lou Randall, Cindy Jelic Matic
Year: 2004
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The Movie:
Another late era Bruno Mattei Cannibal Holocaust knock off shot with some of the same people and possibly in what could be the same park seen a year before in Mondo Cannibal, 2004's In The Land Of The Cannibals (alternately known as Land Of Death and Cannibal Holocaust 3: Cannibal Vs. Commando!) also borrows a little bit from… Predator. Yup. There's no alien hunter here, but the whole 'commandos searching the jungle for something' aspect that was such a big part of that Schwarzenegger blockbuster definitely played a part in Mattei's inspiration for this picture.
A commando named Lieutenant Wilson (Lou Randall) leads his small group of highly trained military types on a mission deep into the jungles of Brazil in hopes of bringing back Sara (Cindy Matic), the daughter of his boss, Colonel Armstrong. It seems the young lady was accompanying some westerns on an expedition deep into cannibal territory and neither she nor her comrades have been seen since. Wilson is savvy enough not to go this alone, however, and he enlists the aid of a man named Romero (Claudio Morales). He's the best, we're told, and he also smokes a corncob pipe, kind of like Popeye. Romero also has an assistant with him, a native who runs around in jean shorts and helps them keep an eye out for danger. Along with the guy in the jean shorts, Romero also has a member of a local cannibal tribe along for the ride. This guy is basically their prisoner and they make him drink hallucinogenic jungle booze at one point, which causes him to laugh manically. Why? We do not know.
At any rate, as this intrepid group of explorers plow through the jungle they quickly come across some gooey, gory human remains - a skull that's been turned into worm food. Shortly after, they are attacked by cannibals with blow darts. One solider is hit and Romero then shoots him in the head - 'I was doing him a favor' he says. In this harsh world, blow darts cause immeasurable suffering and only a man with balls of steel, a man like Romero, knows how to best deal with these things. From there, they basically follow the basic plot of Cannibal Holocaust. They arrive at a village and find some evidence that the missing persons had been in the area, then witness a native man taking out a native woman on a riverbank in what is basically blatant rip-off of one of Deodato's most infamous set pieces. More jungle exploring is followed by more nasty, goofy, phony looking corpses popping up in the brush. Once they stumble upon a half-naked white chick in the midst of a native tribe, they know who they've found, but can they get her out of their in one piece and will she even want to leave?
Lots of really bad tough guy (and tough lady) dialogue in this one keeps it amusing. Morales as Romero steals the show, however. He's the baddest of the bad, a man who knows everything about everything, including who the real cannibals are. He's tough enough to burst into action, savvy enough to know when to tell the American commandos to chill out and not kill everyone and sophisticated enough to smoke a corncob pipe. A hero for the ages. The rest of the cast are stereotypes, the commandos all sort of blend together and the cannibals are more or less all Xeroxes of the same fairly racist stereotype perpetuated by the genre.
Borrowing liberally from the aforementioned Cannibal Holocaust and Predator, the movie also swipes from Cannibal Ferox and even Franco's White Cannibal Queen at times. There's also a female commando here named Vasquez (played by Ydalia Suarez, who also showed up in one of Mattei's final films, 2007's Island Of The Living Dead) who was basically just cut and paste right out of Aliens. Mattei even borrows from his own movie Robowar in spots. There's not an original bone on this movie's body but to Mattei's credit, it moves quickly and offers up a fairly constant barrage of bad gore and wanton nudity. There's some obligatory stock footage in here too, for those who get off on these things, and while the production values are awful and the acting completely wooden and wonderfully hampered by super shitty dubbing, as terrible as it all is fans of unabashed Italian exploitation pictures should have a good time with this one.
Video/Audio/Extras:
In The Land Of The Cannibals is presented in a 1.33.1 fullframe transfer that looks about as good as the shot on video image will allow. Detail is a little soft and sometimes the brightness looks a little too high but there aren't any seriously glaring issues with the transfer. This is a cheaply made shot on video film and it shows but that's not a problem with the encoding. Compression artifacts are never an issue and there aren't any obvious edge enhancement problems.
The English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track on this DVD is fine. It's perfectly audible and free of any hiss or distortion. The levels are well balanced and the canned synthesized score sounds about as good as one could expect
Extras include a static menu, chapter selection and a trailer.
The Final Word:
In The Land Of The Cannibals is a whole lot of stupid, gory and completely brainless fun. Mattei's film rips off anything and everything it can, including his own movies (he did this frequently throughout his illustrious career) but he does it with such relentlessness that you kind of have to appreciate it. By all rights, this is an awful film, but check it out with a belly full of beer and a bucket full of chicken wings on hand and it can definitely make for a good time.
