In 1983, the Director Of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to power to deprave and corrupt and, if the title in question had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, any dealer stocking it could be fined or jailed. In one case, involving Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares In A Damaged Brain, one of its distributors was sentenced to eighteen months in prison (eventually reduced to six months on appeal, but sheesh).
It was a heady time, driven by moral outrage, framed as a battle for the very soul of the United Kingdom, and the seventy-two films that appeared at one time or another on that DPP list attained a level of notoriety their filmmakers never expected (unless, arguably, you were Umberto Lenzi). Thirty-nine remained banned, thirty-three were dropped from the list. All of them became must see items, of course.
As the memory of those crazy days fades and those of us who lived through the Nasties era scratch our heads and wonder what all of that hysteria was about, did those movies actually threaten the fabric of society as we knew it? Let’s take a look at another of them…
CANNIBAL TERROR (1980, dir. Alain Deruelle)
*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***
Mario (Antonio Mayans, credited as Antony Mayans) and Roberto (Antoine Fontaine, credited as Tony Fontaine) are two small time criminals who, with the help of a woman named Lina (Mariam Camacho, not credited at all), kidnap the daughter of millionaire Monsieur Danville (Olivier Mathot, credited as, er, Olivier Mathot). The fugitives from justice then hightail it over the border to a safe house to await the ransom. However, their journey is rudely interrupted by a tribe of cannibals (yep, we’re all sick of that happening) and, although our shady trio escapes their clutches, plot shenanigans dictate that this will not be the last time they come up against this bunch of people munchers…
After the Italians proved to be dab hands at the queasy delights of the cannibal-inflected adventure flick, other European folks saw the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and production company Eurociné thought they’d help themselves to a piece of the human shaped pie. They had three cannibal-related movies in production around the same time, the other two being Jess Franco’s White Cannibal Queen (also known at Cannibals) and The Devil Hunter (also known, at least by me, as What The Hell Did I Just Watch?). Surprise, surprise, both of these titles are present and (in)correct on the Video Nasties list.
Terreur Cannibale, to give Deruelle’s opus its original, French title, shares footage with the aforementioned White Cannibal Queen because Eurociné were fond of cutting budgetary corners. Case in point: their 1981 undead Nazis vs French villagers tale Zombie Lake was offered to Jess Franco, who apparently turned it down due to the lack of money provided for the project. Considering how little cash Franco was able to make a film for, that’s a damning indictment. By the way, my description of Zombie Lake, which also found its way on to the Video Nasties list, makes it sound several times more exciting than it actually is.
Although Deruelle is generally credited as the director of the piece and made an appearance at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival promoting the movie (which I find hilarious), other prints credit Julio Pérez Tabernero as the guy at the helm and some anecdotes suggest that cast member Mathot may have assisted along the way. For the UK release, Deruelle was given the pseudonym of Allan W. Steeve, which is flirting with Alan Smithee a little too much for my liking. Regardless of who was in the director’s chair, Cannibal Terror is, not to put too fine a point on it, shite. I know that’s not a particularly erudite way of describing something, but I think it fits the bill perfectly. It’s shite.
Shite, I hear you say (especially as I’ve just used that term twice)? How so? Pull up a chair, because I have thoughts. The opening seconds do not bode well for the remainder of the runtime, as the jolly, La Bamba-esque stomper of a theme from Jean Jacques Lemeztre heralds the beginning of an, er, cannibal movie. Not the doomy synths of Donati preceding Ferox or the wistful, intriguing Ortolani stylings of Holocaust’s theme, it’s party time on the French Riviera and you’re all invited! Coupled with that, as soon as the English dub kicks in, you’ll be convinced you’re in trouble. What was the point in anyone trying to sync the dialogue properly? It’s all in another language and it wouldn’t have matched up anyway. You’re here for the cannibal stuff, right?
If you are here for the cannibal stuff – and that’s probably the only reason you are – it takes around twenty-five minutes for the tribe to show up and make off with Mickey, a woman who a) takes it upon herself to drive the kidnappers and kidnappee into the jungle and b) is there to provide some first act disembowelling material. The sequence in which Mickey is killed off is risible for a number of reasons: the jungle appears to be scrubland somewhere in Spain; it showcases just how inauthentic – and European looking – the cannibals are; the suspense generated as to her inescapable fate is absolutely zero; and the gore effects come courtesy of what looks very much like a pig carcass that’s been stuffed with various items of offal.
This amateur hour approach to the gruesome moments is likely to be one of the reasons that, although Cannibal Terror made it on to the very first DPP list of Nasties, it was subsequently dropped and when 88 Films finally dared to foist it back on the public in 2003, it passed through the British Board Of Film Classification uncut and without so much as a whiff of controversy. Yes, the original VHS video box cover was designed to emphasise terrifying savagery, but it looked more like a bunch of blokes chowing down on undercooked ribs after participating in a face painting session. In terms of what’s on screen, viewers were far more likely to be offended by the shoddy filmmaking than the amateurish displays of blood and guts.
Likewise, the potentially upsetting scenes in which Mario stalks and then assaults the bound Manuela (Pamela Stanford), the wife of safe house owner Antonio, are so incompetently staged that they wind up being offensive in a different way than they were intended. Manuela can clearly extricate herself from the ropes with very little effort, but instead we’re treated to an extended helping of Mario slobbering all over her and thrusting at an angle which suggests he’s having sex with thin air.
Of course, once Antonio finds out what’s happened to his missus, his feelings of hospitality for Mario and his mates run out very quickly. With equally terrible rope-tying skills, Antonio traps Mario in the same place as Manuela was attacked and then whistles (!) for the cannibals to exact revenge on his behalf and grab themselves an unexpected, all you can eat buffet. Meanwhile, Danville is on a mission as he closes in (very slowly, mind) on his missing daughter. Everyone and their dog eventually wanders past the remains of Mario – not entirely sure why what’s left of him has been abandoned in plain sight – and the rest of the crims are captured by the cannibals. It ends with more unconvincing entrail spilling, the kid is returned to her parents and that sodding piece of jaunty music gets another airing.
Oh, sorry, did I spoil the ending? Let’s be honest, I’ve saved you ninety-three minutes which you would have wasted on watching this. At best, this is a curio for anyone who’s wondering just what kind of material provoked the ire of the censorious. At worst, this is genuinely one of the most awful movies you’re likely to see. All those folks who go to the cinema to watch a technically proficient, decently acted but not especially great movie and then take to social media to pronounce it “Worst. Film. Ever.”? It’s blindingly obvious none of that lot have seen anything of the likes of Cannibal Terror.
It’s highly likely that there was no completed script when Cannibal Terror began filming and that the story was being written as the production went along. I would say that this explains the pacing being off, but in terms of the pacing, there is none for me to complain that it’s off. It’s a grind from start to finish, there’s almost no character development and even fewer surprises as Deruelle throws his disposable protagonists to a bunch of ridiculously realised savages, whose tribe seems more likely to be knocking back a cerveza or two of a weekend rather than carving out a primitive existence in the uncompromising wilderness. They spend most of their time jumping on the spot to the latest jungle sounds and holding spears which are never actually used to stab anyone.
A number of years back, I wrote a blog piece covering a dozen different cannibal movies from Umberto Lenzi’s seminal 1972 subgenre entry Deep River Savages all the way through to 1988’s gore-lite Natura Contro from Antonio Climati. Cannibal Terror was one of the titles I sat through; I thought it was the worst of the lot by some way back then and the intervening years have done little to change my mind. Even if you’re a connoisseur of bad films, this doesn’t fall into the “so bad it’s good” category. It’s just bad. Very, very bad. Cheaply made, terribly dubbed, dreadfully acted and remarkably dull, even the extended scenes of laughably fake gore outstay their welcome and only serve to enhance the paucity of the technical knowhow attached to this production.
This appears to have been Deruelle’s only foray into the horror arena but, outside of this apocalyptically awful waste of celluloid, he made a number of porn films under the alias of Alain Thierry. I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of seeing any of those, but I’m willing to bet that that most, if not all of them, are more fun to watch than Cannibal Terror. Fill your boots if you have a fetish for badly tied knots. Everyone else, you have been warned.