And now, back to business. CANNIBALS!
Managed to choke down a heaping helping of MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD. I had originally passed on this one in a major way as its stars were just too well-known. I mean, URSULA ANDRESS? STACY FREAKIN KEACH???? How hardcore can a movie be with stars like that? I mean I just don't see Ursula Andress eating raw snakes or Stacy Keach getting his dick cut off. Which are two elements I fully expect in a cannibal flick, let's face it.
Well thankfully this *is* a legit cannibal movie, replete with 'content' similar to the above-described, just not involving the lead actors. Let's see, we get pig-f*cking, masturbation, castration (is it castration if the balls are left on?), and even a groovy crocodile attack where a guy gets his arm eaten off.
And despite all this, the movie manages to still be a tepid, boring YAWNATHON. I didn't reant a movie called MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD to see people TALK.
We are also treated to LOTS of snake-eating, and TONS of animal-on-animal violence. Now please don't misunderstand: (I'm putting on my serious cap now) I am a big animal lover. I'm not a vegetarian but I like pets of all shapes and I certainly don't enjoy seeing real animals get hurt. This was a major shocker for me when I first saw CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST because I just did not expect there to be slaughter scenes with real animals. Maybe that sounds perverse (and what on this sordid page isn't), but HUMAN violation is perfectly fine (and even required) by me in a horror movie, but NOT animal death. No matter how gruesome or realistic, nothing you say can convince me that the human deaths are in any way "real." (I'd never want to see a snuff film.) But animals? Listen, I know what these Italians get up to. I know they don't have access to "the Italian Stan Winston." So its basically Faces Of Death time for the monkeys and turtles in a cannibal flick.
And MOUNTAIN delivers on this vile trend in spades, only in a weird way it is sickly funny (if you are totally desensitized that is). The animal stuff in this movie is so OBVIOUSLY engineered for the PURPOSE of gratuitous violence that it becomes comic, especially after watching the interview with the director later on wherein he insists all the animal action was "happenstance" and "coincidence." Sure, whatever. You "coincidentally" had your camera set up at the very moment a snapping turtle fights an alligator. Or when a boa constrictor eats that little monkey (truly disturbing). As the documentary points out, the director is flat-out lying, as you can very clearly see some kind of travelling matte effect obscuring a rod or stick that shoves the little monkey into the jaws of the snake. Stacy Keach must list this movie at the very top of his resume I guess.
Back to the narrative proper. Ursula Andress remains frustratingly clothed for most of the film. One time early on she changes her shirt. Big Deal. Then near the end she gets naked and natives smear paint all over her, but then its back-to-the-clothes time, sorta begging the question, "what was THAT all about?" Poor Stacy Keach gets killed off so unexpectedly an hour in you truly expect him to pop up later on claiming to have just been unconscious, but alas, he never does. (And atypically for a cannibal movie, he is not eaten or dismembered, he just falls on some rocks. See? What'd I tell you about big stars in these movies?)
Towards the end we get almost all of the censor-worthy elements in one long montage, apparently attempting to show "an orgy of sex and violence." One nameless gal pleasures herself, another anonymous fellow is liberated from his manhood, a really big hairy pig finds ecstasy in the loving arms of a guy wearing a stupid-looking wig, and Ursula's brother gets disemboweled and eaten. Then she and some other dude escape on a log in the river. Great.
OH YEAH, the only reason I rented this in the first place was because freakin IMDB said it starred HELMUT BERGER as Ursula's brother!!! But it doesn't. What a ripoff! I TOLD YOU, big stars never do anything cool in Italian movies! They are just slumming and taking advantage of the free travel. Ever see TENTACLES? Henry Fonda, John Ford, Shelly Winters, Bo Hopkins ... ALL SURVIVE. Bleh! Boo! What's the point? The only people who ever give it up are the Ensign Redshirts you've never heard of.
God, I love Italian movies, I really really do, bless their little hearts.
Well thankfully this *is* a legit cannibal movie, replete with 'content' similar to the above-described, just not involving the lead actors. Let's see, we get pig-f*cking, masturbation, castration (is it castration if the balls are left on?), and even a groovy crocodile attack where a guy gets his arm eaten off.
And despite all this, the movie manages to still be a tepid, boring YAWNATHON. I didn't reant a movie called MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD to see people TALK.
We are also treated to LOTS of snake-eating, and TONS of animal-on-animal violence. Now please don't misunderstand: (I'm putting on my serious cap now) I am a big animal lover. I'm not a vegetarian but I like pets of all shapes and I certainly don't enjoy seeing real animals get hurt. This was a major shocker for me when I first saw CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST because I just did not expect there to be slaughter scenes with real animals. Maybe that sounds perverse (and what on this sordid page isn't), but HUMAN violation is perfectly fine (and even required) by me in a horror movie, but NOT animal death. No matter how gruesome or realistic, nothing you say can convince me that the human deaths are in any way "real." (I'd never want to see a snuff film.) But animals? Listen, I know what these Italians get up to. I know they don't have access to "the Italian Stan Winston." So its basically Faces Of Death time for the monkeys and turtles in a cannibal flick.
And MOUNTAIN delivers on this vile trend in spades, only in a weird way it is sickly funny (if you are totally desensitized that is). The animal stuff in this movie is so OBVIOUSLY engineered for the PURPOSE of gratuitous violence that it becomes comic, especially after watching the interview with the director later on wherein he insists all the animal action was "happenstance" and "coincidence." Sure, whatever. You "coincidentally" had your camera set up at the very moment a snapping turtle fights an alligator. Or when a boa constrictor eats that little monkey (truly disturbing). As the documentary points out, the director is flat-out lying, as you can very clearly see some kind of travelling matte effect obscuring a rod or stick that shoves the little monkey into the jaws of the snake. Stacy Keach must list this movie at the very top of his resume I guess.
Back to the narrative proper. Ursula Andress remains frustratingly clothed for most of the film. One time early on she changes her shirt. Big Deal. Then near the end she gets naked and natives smear paint all over her, but then its back-to-the-clothes time, sorta begging the question, "what was THAT all about?" Poor Stacy Keach gets killed off so unexpectedly an hour in you truly expect him to pop up later on claiming to have just been unconscious, but alas, he never does. (And atypically for a cannibal movie, he is not eaten or dismembered, he just falls on some rocks. See? What'd I tell you about big stars in these movies?)
Towards the end we get almost all of the censor-worthy elements in one long montage, apparently attempting to show "an orgy of sex and violence." One nameless gal pleasures herself, another anonymous fellow is liberated from his manhood, a really big hairy pig finds ecstasy in the loving arms of a guy wearing a stupid-looking wig, and Ursula's brother gets disemboweled and eaten. Then she and some other dude escape on a log in the river. Great.
OH YEAH, the only reason I rented this in the first place was because freakin IMDB said it starred HELMUT BERGER as Ursula's brother!!! But it doesn't. What a ripoff! I TOLD YOU, big stars never do anything cool in Italian movies! They are just slumming and taking advantage of the free travel. Ever see TENTACLES? Henry Fonda, John Ford, Shelly Winters, Bo Hopkins ... ALL SURVIVE. Bleh! Boo! What's the point? The only people who ever give it up are the Ensign Redshirts you've never heard of.
God, I love Italian movies, I really really do, bless their little hearts.
posted by figurebuilder at 9:17 AM
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