Video Nasty #19 - Faces of Death

I must admit revisiting Faces of Death last week for this post, reminded me of my teenage years when as soon as the coast was clear I would pop some anonymous looking porno tape into the VCR – not that Faces of Death provides any erotic thrills, far from it, but I felt I could only watch the film in secret - I mean who would want anyone to know that they were watching this kind of junk ?


Faces of Death produced in 1979 feels like a petulant unruly offspring of the Mondo genre. As if the films of Mondo creators Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi were not shocking enough, Faces of Death removes all the extraneous fat of the mondo shockumentary genre with its far flung cultural exotica - here the emphasis is placed solely on death and suffering. Presented like an educational documentary, the film is introduced and narrated by one Dr. Francis B. Gröss, a pathologist conducting an investigation into the various faces of death which amounts to a seemingly endless conveyor belt of death footage organised around a particular theme.

Nowadays Faces of Death seems positively quaint with its earnest and cautionary narration, but back in early 80's the film seemed genuinely groundbreaking ushering in the "Death Film", one of the most despised offshoots on the Mondo genre. Much of the footage in Faces of Death is faked - a monkey having his skull cracked open for some diners to sample his brain is entirely fabricated, so too are scenes where a crocodile devours a game warden, a grizzly bear attacks a hapless tourist, a stuntman is killed on a movie set, a man protesting against nuclear power sets himself alight, and a convict is seen convulsing and foaming at the mouth in an electric chair - "his eyes are taped to prevent them popping out of their sockets", Dr. Gröss reliably informs us...

Some 40% of Faces of Death is estimated to be fake but the film's factual footage is often disquieting - a woman is captured on a news team's camera jumping off a building and hitting the ground beneath, paramedics are seen collecting the mangled body parts of a cyclist hit by a truck, there's footage shot inside a morgue showing cadavers in various states of disrepair, including the remains of an infant. In true mondo style, there's some animal atrocities in the film as well - cattle are seen having their throats cut in a slaughterhouse, a herd of seals are clubbed to death, and two pit bull dogs fight to the death - "they have been conditioned by man to wage war on their own kind" the good doctor wryly comments...

Despite the film being pure exploitation Faces of Death strives to be a serious discussion on the subject of death but continually comes up short. The musical accompaniment consists of some seriously inappropriate cuts - during the electric chair sequence the soundtrack features a jaunty speakeasy number, as well as a mawkish folk ditty strummed over some footage of environmental neglect ("Jesus doesn't live here anymore"). The faked footage is easily given away, despite the film makers using guerrilla style camerawork, but nevertheless the film was a huge hit on VHS (like porno, home video was probably the best way to see it), and the film became something of an urban legend, in turn fuelling some popular myths - at one point in the film a San Franciscan cult is seen cannibalising the innards of a corpse, and orgying among the bloody viscera - probably confirming the suspicion among viewers that such satanic cults were out there, perhaps making snuff movies of their antics.

Like it or not, Faces of Death is not going away. In 2008 the film made its unlikely high-def debut in the US courtesy of Gorgon Video’s Blu-Ray edition (Region A). Overall, there’s not much to get excited about. The image looks dated, colours are washed out and detail is lacking while audio is merely serviceable. Paradoxically, the transfer might be entirely suitable, part of the film’s success on video was the limitation of the image which gave the faked footage an authentic rough hewn look. As for extras this 30th Anniversary Special Edition fares better with interviews with the crew who worked on the film, as well as an excellent audio commentary with director John Alan Schwartz who spills the beans on much of the film's ballyhoo.

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Notes
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It's been said that the film was made for the Japanese market and a shot in the morgue sequence of film where corpses have their genitalia covered up might confirm this. It's often said that Faces of Death out grossed Star Wars, when shown in Japan, something I personally find hard to believe...

Video Nasty #18 - Exposé

On the face of it Exposé from 1976, could pass for a typical British New Wave exploitation film, with its heady mix of sex and violence, but director James Kenelm Clarke has fashioned something quite distinct from the work of contemporary film makers like Pete Walker and Norman J Warren, and despite the infamy of being on the DPP's list, the film remains something of an unsung classic.


The Exposé title is rather cheap and tawdry, compared to the far more poetic shooting title of The House on Straw Hill, but it does have some thematic resonance to the plot. Udo Kier plays Paul Martin, a reclusive and paranoid novelist who's on the final stage of his second book. Wishing to dictate the last remaining chapters, Paul hires a beautiful young woman named Linda (Blood on Satan's Claw's Linda Hayden) to handle typing duties at his isolated country house, but Linda is not who she appears and has come to Straw Hill with revenge on her mind... I wonder does Stephen King have days like this ?

Exposé hardly breaks any new ground in terms of story, in fact the plot is predictable right down to the final scene, but the film remains impressive for it's sense of style and mood. Director James Kenelm Clarke invests the film with a surprising visual sophistication, with its skewed camera angles and some abstract editing creating a strange and disorientating atmosphere. In one sequence a shot of Linda's blonde hair dissolves into a golden meadow, and there's also a subversive use of the pastoral setting - in the film's most notorious scene, Linda lays down among the tall grasses to masturbate only to be set upon by two rapists. Most memorable though is the film's fervent association of sex and death. Udo Kier's character has sex wearing surgical gloves, less a latex fetish than a Sadean fantasy, and a lesbian love scene between Linda and Suzanne, Martin's lover is intercut with the novelist's near fatal demise when his car goes out of control.

Fiona Richmond was a popular men's magazine star in the mid-70's, and was added to the cast purely to provide some celebrity skin. Her performance as Suzanne is a little over the top but her actual part in the film is minor. Better work is done by Udo Kier, dubbed to remove his heavy German accent, but effective nonetheless as the neurotic writer hiding a dark secret; and Linda Hayden, who's quite superb as the vengeful black widow, by turns sensual, enigmatic and cold blooded. Hayden nets one of the most provocative scenes in the film when during her violation in the field, she seductively strokes the barrel of the gun aimed at her by one of her attackers. Exposé would mark the directorial debut of James Kenelm Clarke, who had previously produced current affairs programs for BBC Television and composed the score for José Larraz's Vampyres, while producer Brian Smedley-Aston was one of the editors on Performance, and following Exposé handled cutting duties on Jeff Lieberman's Squirm and Blue Sunshine - quite a segue way.

Aside from a French disc which I can't comment on, Exposé is currently unavailable on DVD. In 2002 the Odyssey label issued a version cut by the BBFC and sporting a cheap sleeve - that disc is now out of print and one to avoid. Severin have acquired the rights to the film a few years ago but so far a DVD has not surfaced due to problems locating usable materials.

Video Nasty #17 - Evilspeak

Of the American films on the DPP's list, Evilspeak from 1981 is one of the most accomplished looking, but also one of the more dated, and much of it's appeal will hinge on how nostalgic you feel towards an era when the humble personal computer was considered an all powerful piece of hardware, a myth propagated by the likes of Evilspeak, War Games (1983) and Electric Dreams (1984).


The film set in a military school concerns Cooper-Smith, an awkward and clumsy teenager who regularly falls in for some abuse from the bullies and the scorn of his teachers. After a chance discovery of a book of black magic in the school basement, Cooper-Smith programs a spell into a computer to invoke the spirit of Estaban, an evil 16th century satan worshipping monk, and before you can say pig blood blues, all hell breaks loose...

Evilspeak hit on the novel idea of using new technology to harness some very old spells, but strip that away and the film is mostly derivative of other horror films - Carrie, quite obviously, but you'll find stuff in there from The Omen - the doberman dogs here replaced by wild boars as emissaries of satan, as well as The Exorcist, when actor RG Armstrong (about to show how he can "turn a little boy into a little girl") has his head twisted back to front. That aside, the film is entertaining enough - Cooper-Smith's tormentors are such despicable shits (at point killing his pup in a mock ritual) that their comeuppance is one to savour in the excellent and uncharacteristic gory climax which features some spectacular decapitations and a rather visceral heart-ripping.

Well directed by the undistinguished Eric Weston, Evilspeak gains much from its cast. The doomed Cooper-Smith played by the prolific character actor Clint Howard (brother of Ron) is absolutely great, all nervous and twitchy, and there's sterling work from his supporting actors. The film could have easily played on TV were in not for the splatter in the final act, but perhaps the DPP were worried that teenage boys would be sacrificing small animals to their Commodore 64s, and in a comprehensive roundup, both the original uncut tape and a revised cut version of the film were removed from video shops.

Anchor Bay's 2004 edition of Evilspeak is a decent enough release, containing a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer taken from the longest available print. Mostly the film looks very good, but there are occasional snippets taken from a lesser quality source. An almost subliminal shot of a boar chewing on a woman's intestines looks so washed out it might have been taken from a workprint. Audio is serviceable, and the extras feature a trailer and a group audio commentary including Clint Howard and Eric Weston.

Video Nasty #16 - The Driller Killer

In the hierarchy of the Video Nasties list, The Driller Killer takes one of the top slots. For Britain's moral guardians, that once-in-a-lifetime title and VIPCO's outrageously gruesome VHS sleeve perfectly encapsulated the scourge of Video Horror that was sweeping the nation...


The Driller Killer is usually cited as Abel Ferrara's first film, when in fact it was his second outing behind the camera, following his debut film in 1976, 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy, a hardcore porn flick. By the time shooting began in 1977, the original idea for The Driller Killer, about a night stalker killing the homeless of New York with a hammer and nails, had mutated into a story about a disturbed oil painting artist named Reno Miller who's solution for dealing with the pressure of artistic frustration, the threat of almost certain poverty and the loud punk rock band next door, involves killing off the city's derelicts with a portable drill...

It's not quite the heir apparent to Repulsion as some would have you believe (although it does make a visual pun on the Polanski film with the inclusion of a skinned rabbit), but seen in the context of the other films on the DPP list, Ferrara's film looks refreshingly out there, occupying its own idiosyncratic space somewhere between grindhouse and arthouse with its schlocky title, splashy gore and surreal dream sequences - all of it shot with a grungy, improvised, hard New York style that gives the film a powerful sense of immediacy. The film has a number of intriguing aspects that further distance itself from the slew of serial killer films from the late 70's, like Maniac and The Toolbox Murders - the film shows no actual violence towards women, an absolute rarity for the genre. Also the cutaways to the film's inhouse punk band The Roosters, with their three-chord garage minimalism, filmed at Max's Kansas City, makes The Driller Killer an important artifact from the punk era, alongside Jubilee, The Blank Generation, Liquid Sky and Smithereens.

Of the many DVD releases of The Driller Killer, Cult Epic's 2004 2-disc edition remains the best edition, with a fine 1.85 anamorphic transfer that correctly frames the film (unlike the disastrous French disc that cropped the lower part of the frame). Audio is a little weak on dialogue but good on music, and as the title card that prefigues the film suggests, "This film should be played loud". Disc 1 also includes Ferrara's now legendary rambling, self-deprecating audio commentary. The second disc of the set is devoted to some of Ferrara's early short films - Could This Be Love (1973), The Hold Up (1972), Nicky's Film (1971), (all with optional director commentary) as well as a trailer for Nine Lives of A Wet Pussy.

Video Nasty #15 - Don't Go In the Woods

Had you gone camping in the Great American Outdoors back in the late 70's, early 80's, chances are you would have bumped into a film crew and a gallon of fake blood. You might have even come across James Bryan and a small band of devoted followers making the twelve thousand dollar epic Don't Go In the Woods, an instantly forgettable little stalk and slash horror film from 1980, now immortalized for all the ages on the Video Nasties list.


The plot of the film is a generic as they come - a maniac is roaming the woods and killing all those who cross his path, but at least director James Bryan had the good sense to include lashings of gore to thrill audiences between the longueurs of people trudging through endless forest. For such a remote area of Utah, one has to wonder what all these people are doing here - the film is positively teeming with campers, hikers, courting couples, painters, fishermen, and most bizarrely, some poor guy who has to negotiate the rugged terrain in a wheelchair, all of whom inevitably end up sliced and diced by a machete wielding, spear chucking cast off from The Hills Have Eyes.

A trash fan's wet dream, Don't Go In the Woods is usually accompanied by a critical savaging wherever the film plays but it's not without its fans, among them author Stephen Thrower who devotes a few pages of his Nightmare USA book to the film. It can't quite escape the shadow cast over it by better films, namely The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the superb Canadian backwoods film Rituals, but if you can acclimatize yourself to the terrible acting, clumsy editing, the decidedly amateurish electronic score and cringe worthy dialogue - all of it post synched, the film gets by on sheer enthusiasm alone. At least Bryan displays the occasional flair for visuals, with some striking shots of moody forest trails and mist enshrouded mountain slopes. Thank heavens for small mercies it was lensed on film stock, had the film arrived later in the decade, it might have been shot on video á la Redneck Zombies or (gulp!) Woodchipper Massacre, such was the weapon of choice for impoverished film makers.

Code Red's 2006 DVD of Don't Go In the Woods, the first release for the indie label really is the definitive edition of James Bryan's film. The fullframe transfer looks just fine, the print used is a little scrappy in places but perfectly keeping with the film's humble origins. The sound is fine, the looped voices still sound canned but overall the audio has a good range of effects. Most surprising of all, Code Red have furnished the DVD with some extensive extras, among them, a 57-min shot-on-VHS documentary about the film, and no less than two audio commentaries - surely the last word on Don't Go In the Woods...

Video Nasty #14 - The Devil Hunter

Truly one of the worst of the Video Nasties, The Devil Hunter from 1980 was Jess Franco's second and final foray into the then fashionable Cannibal genre of which Franco had little affinity for, and every inch of this piece of celluloid dreck bears this out.


In the film, a beautiful model is kidnapped by some vicious thugs and held for ransom on a remote island. Two Vietnam vets are dispatched to return the girl to safety but unbeknownst to the kidnappers and the rescue team, the island is stalked by a large cannibal creature with ping pong balls for eyes and a taste for platinum blondes...

For anyone who needs to see The Devil Hunter my advice would be to regularly check your pulse during the film - such is the glacial pace, you might find yourself slipping into a coma. If there's any point of interest in the film it's probably how jaw dropping inept the whole business is. With lighting changing from shot to shot, there's no attempt to make any of the film look consistent. Take one scene for instance when the girl is being exchanged for the ransom. Both parties agree to meet on a beach for the swap but the cutting back and forth suggests it's dusk on one part of the island and daytime in another part, even though the space between is within walking distance. Also, the English dubbing is perhaps the worst ever in European Cult Cinema. Not only do characters speak with their mouths firmly shut but judging by the ridiculous accents it's quite likely the same voice artist was employed to dub all the characters. Perhaps knowing he was onto a loser, Franco fills the film with shots of female crotches and has his leading lady, clad in a torn pink dress molested as often as possible. But somehow it's just not enough...

All this would seem bearable if it was as bloodthirsty as it's Italian counterparts, but the film features almost no cannibalism or gore, besides a very fleeting shot of somebody's intestines. Another point of irritation is the incessant soundtrack, which never seems to pause - at any moment there's likely to be Franco's own musical stylings like a spectral piano refrain, or worse still some tribal drumming or the heavily echoed breathing sounds of the creature, and most annoying of all, a loop of the same damn bird chirping out the same call ad infinitum. Among the cast is Zombie Flesh Eater's Al Cliver, wooden as ever, but there's one hilarious scene where Cliver is supposed to be scaling a cliff wall, but Franco simply turns the camera over on its side and has Cliver scramble on all fours over some rocks. Also, in the cast is Terror Express' Werner Pochath, a fine actor who wisely exits the film at the half way mark.

Severin's UK DVD is much like their US issue - the 1.66 transfer is probably a good effort but the film looks so soft and washed out it's difficult to say. Audio is actually quite good, even if there's little to get excited about. If the English dub is unbearable, a French dub is also on hand, and gives the whole thing a little more respectability. Extras include a trailer and an interview with Franco about the film (from the same interview session as the featurette Bloody Moon) on . You have been warned.

Video Nasty #13 - The Cannibal Man

The title of this 1973 Spanish film is troublesome. Given that there's little flesh-eating¹ in the film, it's been dismissed by gorehounds as one of the more marginal of the 39 titles. However, there's a delicious double irony to the title as well. Had the the film been released under its original title La Semana del Asesino (or Week of the Killer), in all probability, the film would have escaped the DPP's Terror. On the other hand had the film not been banned, it might have languished in obscurity, a fate most undeserving of this curious and interesting film.


The story concerns a lowly, introverted slaughterhouse worker named Marcos. One night while out with his girlfriend, Marcos inadvertently kills an irate taxi driver. Increasingly pressured by his nervous girlfriend to go to the police, Marcos strangles her, forcing him into commit more murders to cover up his crimes...

If there's a weak point in The Cannibal Man, it's the ease in which the film's protagonist slides into the act of murder. Even his second victim, Marcos' own brother is afforded little remorse after he's dispatched with a blow to the head. Perhaps director Eloy de la Iglesia simply wanted to load his film with as much contentious imagery as possible - by the beginning of the 1970's, Spain was becoming increasingly liberalized and the loosening bonds of censorship saw Spanish film makers tackle some provocative topics. The violence in the film while not gratuitous is sometimes explicit, but to call the film purely an exploitation picture would be doing it a disservice - it's more Fassbinder than Fulci.

The film as a whole might be best read as a sort of Kafkaesque nightmare and the film is laced with some strange ideas and logic - as the bodies begin mounting up, Marcos is tormented not by some quizzical detectives, but by a pack of stray dogs that gather in increasing numbers at his home, giddy from the smell of putrefaction from the corpses stored in a bedroom. There's also a sense that Marcos' way of life is disintegrating along with the corpses - at one point Marcos sadly concedes that he will be forced to give up his ramshackle cottage to make way for another block of high rise apartments. And there's also the matter of Marcos' confused sexuality and his ambivalent relationship with a predatory homosexual - Marcos makes love to two women in the film but his friendship with Néstor is his most relaxed and rewarding.

Eloy de la Iglesia had made a number of films before he wrote and directed The Cannibal Man, and it shows. There's a certain flair to the visuals, and the combination of clever lighting and some arresting camerawork make the most of the spartan set where much of the film takes place. There's also a strikingly evocative score, accentuating the sense of melancholy felt throughout the film. Vicente Parra's excellent portrayal of the doomed Marcos remains the focal point of the film, and there's sterling support from Eusebio Poncela who handles the tricky role of the homosexual Néstor with poise and sensitivity.

Blue Underground's 2007 DVD, a port of the old Anchor Bay disc features a good 1.85 anamorphic transfer. The image is sharp and colorful but the print used exhibits some flutter every now and then, not a deal breaker but worth noting. The only audio provided in the English dub track, a shame the Spanish track could not be sourced but over all the English dub is really very good. The only extra offered in a trailer. Finally, the Blue Underground sleeve is a doozy, easily the label's goriest design to date! Well worth seeking out.

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Notes
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1. The Cannibal Man title has often been described as a misnomer but there is one scene where Marcos unwittingly eats some meat from the slaughterhouse where he works - the same place where he has been mincing the body parts of his victims. When Marcos discovers where the meat is from he's suitably nauseated...

Video Nasty #12 - Cannibal Holocaust

Ruggero Deodato's 1977 film Last Cannibal World took the basic framework of Umberto Lenzi's Deep River Savages and delivered an intelligent, atmospheric and well acted jungle adventure, but there was little in that film that would prepare the world for Cannibal Holocaust, with it's radical style and structure. Deodato's film, if you were to think in such terms is the Citizen Kane of the cannibal genre, but for all the praise heaped upon the film, Cannibal Holocaust is a problematic work.


The plot of the film is conventional enough - a New York professor journeys into the heart of the Colombian rain forest in search of a 4-strong documentary team gone missing. Only the grisly remains of the film makers are uncovered along with some cans of film footage. Later back in the US the production company who financed the would-be documentary, tentatively titled The Green Inferno, piece together a rough assemblage of the found footage detailing atrocities committed by the film makers on the native people and in turn the retribution visited upon them...

However you feel about the Third World Cannibal film, it would be a mistake to ignore Cannibal Holocaust, the film quite clearly stands apart from the likes of Cannibal Ferox and Slave of the Cannibal God. If nothing else, see the film for Riz Ortolani's soaring score, its bold use of cinematic language and the remarkable way it juggles two distinct styles - the beautiful, lush photography and the carefully composed direction meshing with the rough documentary texture of the Green Inferno section, all shot with erratic hand-held camera, careless zooms, skipped frames and bad splices. Technical accomplishments aside, Cannibal Holocaust remains a reluctant masterpiece. The credibility of the film's central theme, a critique of the obsessive quest for sensationalist imagery, more specifically the tactics of the so-called Mondo school of documentary film making, is demolished by Deodato's onscreen killing of animals, a staple tradition of Mondo Cinema. At best it makes the film look naive and confused, at worst the film quite knowingly smacks of hypocrisy.

Deodata was 40 when he made the film - still a young man, and Cannibal Holocaust looks like a young man's film with it's eagerness to shock and awe. The special effects are orchestrated to look as convincing as possible, especially so in the Green Inferno sequences of the film, the rough veritaé quality performing a remarkable sleight of hand, embellishing the human carnage, much of it sexualized, with an unsettling authenticity. Just look at the famous shot of the young native girl impaled on a stake (a ritualistic punishment for being raped), a scene which still has viewers wondering how such an uncanny effect was realised. Ultimately, Deodato had to pay a hefty toll for making such a provocative film. Legal proceedings against the film took in place in Italy, and for three years Deodato made no further films (his 1980 film House on the Edge of the Park was in the can by the time the fallout of Cannibal Holocaust began), returning to the fold in 1983 with Raiders of Atlantis, an entirely lightweight, post-apocalyptic action film.

Given the film is huge box office where ever it goes, it's not surprising Cannibal Holocaust has been released on DVD in a number of different versions throughout the world. A detailed breakdown of the various cuts can be read here. The film first arrived in video shops in the UK in 1982 courtesy of GO Video and in little over a year, copies of the film were fast disappearing, the film a key player in DPP's roundup. Word has it that UK DVD label Shameless has secured a new version of the film with just 15-seconds worth of cuts by the BBFC (one of the animal killings). Another step towards the rehabilitation of the Video Nasties list in the UK.

Video Nasty #11 - Cannibal Ferox

The name Umberto Lenzi has to figure prominently in any discussion of the Third World Cannibal film - Lenzi virtually invented the genre with his 1972 film Deep River Savages. The director returned to the jungle in 1980 for Eaten Alive, and made a third outing the following year for Cannibal Ferox, a film second only to Cannibal Holocaust as the most notorious of all the cannibal films.


In the film, Gloria, an anthropology student ventures into the Amazon jungle as part of her thesis refuting historical claims that natives engaged in acts of cannibalism. Accompanied by her brother and her friend, they chance upon two Americans in the jungle seeking their fortune. In fact both are on the run from some heroin dealers in New York and their brutal mistreatment of the natives, especially at the hands of the sadistic Mike, spells dire consequences for all involved...

Trashy, racist, campy and inept - just some of the criticisms applied to Cannibal Ferox over the years and while much of this sticks, the film remains one of the more enjoyable entries in the cannibal genre. Despite the fact that Lenzi wrote the screenplay, the director shows little affinity for this type of film - even the jungle vistas look dull and nondescript. Better fun is had from the cast which includes John Morghen and the delectable Zora Kerova. In recent years John Morghen has poured considerable scorn on the film, but his turn as the crazed coke-head Mike is one of his best performances from this era. Perhaps the film's biggest flaw is it's plundering of Deodato's film. The juxtaposition of the so-called savage society of Amazonia with the "civilised" Western society is well made in Cannibal Holocaust, but Lenzi's insistence on cutting from the jungle back to the violent streets of New York with it's cold blooded gangsters and overworked cops, just comes off as irritating and interrupts the flow of the film.

Whatever shortcomings the film has, Cannibal Ferox's raison d'être is its violence. Lenzi makes no apologies for being in the shock business and the abuse he dishes out to his cast is indeed ferocious - organs are dug out a stomach and devoured, an eyeball is plucked from its socket, limbs are hacked off, a skull is cracked open, and in the film's most notorious scene a woman has her breasts pierced by two iron hooks and hung up for a slow excruciating death. Had Lenzi afforded his special effects people a larger slice of the budget, such grueling scenes might have transformed Cannibal Ferox into a genuine stomach churner, but the splatter is often quite shoddy (but no less enjoyable). Be warned though, if you're sensitive to such things, the real killing of animals might get your juices flowing. But aside from the protracted killing of a small jungle raccoon by an anaconda, the scenes of animal slaughter are mercifully brief.

Grindhouse's US DVD looks comparable to their 1998 laserdisc - the image is grainy throughout but at least it's sharp and the DVD handles the darker scenes very well. Colors look very washed out at times but much of this seems to be inherent in the original film. The audio is fine and the film can be viewed in the English dub or Italian dub. I haven’t seen Sazuma's Ultrabit DVD but word is that this edition is by far the best as transfers go. Extras on the Grindhouse disc include a short interview with Lenzi, some international trailers, a gallery of promo artwork, coverage of a Grindhouse organized screening of the film in LA, and of course the now legendary dueling banjo commentary track featuring Lenzi and Morghen who offer widely different views of the film as it unfolds.

Video Nasty #10 - Cannibal Apocalypse

Cannibals in the streets as one alternative title for this much loved Italian film warned. Antonio Margheriti's 1980 film fixed upon the simple but great idea of taking the cannibal out of the wilds of New Guinea and letting him run loose in the urban jungle of big city America.


In the film some Vietnam vets go on the rampage in Atlanta carrying an infectious strain of rabies which causes it's host to engage in acts of murder and cannibalism. Led by former US captain Norman Hopper (John Saxon), the cadre of crazed vets pursued by the police must fight for their lives, once again behind enemy lines... Written by Dardano Sacchetti and Antonio Margheriti (here under his familiar pseudonym Anthony M. Dawson), Cannibal Apocalypse is a veritable Hydra head of different genre elements - it's part horror film, part actioner, with traces of the war film and zombie film thrown in for good measure.

Antonio Margheriti, one of Italy's busiest and best jobbing directors displays his usual flair for kinetic, action-driven Cinema and the film moves at a terrific lick with little time to scrutinize the admittedly absurd idea of cannibalism spreading like a disease. Of all the Italian films that soaked up the influence (and splatter) of Dawn of the Dead, Cannibal Apocalypse remains the best. The debt to Romero's film is considerable - there's some meaty gore and there's even has a sequence where a motorcycle crashes into a department store, but the film as a whole shares the same bluesy sensibility of Romero's great 70's movies. The film's Atlanta locations are well chosen and watch how the terrain the vets make their way through becomes increasingly difficult, eventually winding up in the city's sewer system, a neat metaphor for the tunnel network used by the Viet Cong.

John Saxon heads up a very fine cast. Saxon himself turns in another great piece of work, his performance tinged with a palpable sense of melancholy, probably informed by the actor's own misgivings about the more exploitable elements of the screenplay. John Morghen plays another one of his doomed losers, and suffers yet another gruesome fate. Blaxploitation actor Tony King playing the third vet, brings real menace to the film, his character the most violent and unhinged of the group. Good stuff too from the minor players - there's some laughs from Wallace Wilkinson's cantankerous police captain, and Cinzia De Carolis, who appeared as Karl Malden's young niece in Cat O' Nine Tails some nine years previously, provides plenty of sizzle as a teenage tramp.

Image's US DVD of Cannibal Apocalypse is superb. The 1.66 transfer is crisp and colorful, once it gets past the slightly rough looking credits. Audio is very good for the most part, some of the dialogue loses a bit of detail when pitted against the score but it's generally fine. Extras include an excellent 50-min interview with Margheriti, John Saxon and John Morghen; a tour of the film's locations as they stand today, plus some trailers and an alternative credit sequence under the Invasion of the Flesh Hunters title. One of the few really essential Video Nasties, Cannibal Apocalypse is highly recommended.