Broadly considered to be the 'Silver Award' of the Cannibal subgenre. There really isnt many Cannibal films out there that could legitimately be considered better than 'Cannibal Ferox' a poster child of the Video nasty era, It REALLY stressed the limits of taste and decency in its time, and even today would make many uncomfortble.
The plot follows a PHD student, working on her dissertation into the history of Cannibalism, with her main goal being to prove that its a myth. In particular, she intends to prove this by travelling to a remote tribe in the Amazon that have the strongest living evidence of Cannibalism. Her thinking is that if they get there and they either dont exist, or if they DO exist but arnt cannibalistic. Her theory will be proven correct and her work becomes justified.
However, things start to derail fairly quickly as while part way on their journey, their jeep gets stuck in the mud and they lose a large chunk of their survival equipment. Around the same time 2 other explorers emerge from the scrubland, badly hurt and talking about being attacked by cannibalistic tribes. Gloria (our PHD student) is sceptical. But decides to continue on her journey to see for herself. After several gory and unpleasent incidents of Animal cruelty, they arrive at the village, there's a frosty reception for them and it slowly becomes apparent that 'Mike' (one of our found explorers, an aggressive sod and a MASSIVE Cocaine fiend) MAY have done more than just 'fled from a cannibalistic tribe after an unprovoked meeting'...
I feel the best way to sum my feelings up on this one is 'Its like Cannibal Holocaust, but not as good'. It feels to me like they were making this film, Cannibal Holocaust came out, the film makers saw it, and decided to amp up the exploitation and hideousness.
The paralells with 'Holocaust' are many, in essence the plots share similar beats. Both films featrure horrible people upsetting predominantly passive tribes by being aggressive and violent towards them, and both films spend an elongated period of time showing EXACTLY what happens if you take part in that kind of behaviour or support anyone taking part in that kind of behaviour.
Ferox has a bit of a trade off on its hands...I dont think its *quite* as nasty as 'Holocaust' but it INSTEAD trades that, for being much MUCH crueller to our main cast. In 'Holocaust' the main characters were iredeemable...even the nicest member of their crew was bad. Which made it justifyable to the audience when they got punished.
Here, we have pretty squeaky clean people ultimately getting VERY badly punished. Mike and Pat as characters are obvious for the 'Cannibal Torture' treatment, because Mikes pretty awful throughout and does a LOT of drugs and Pat gets pulled into Mikes world, but Glorias only crime really is being arrogant about what she *thinks* she knows...and Rudy's only crime as far as I can recall was beating up Mike. yet EVERYONE gets punished...VERY harshly.
Holocaust has the edge in terms of more memorable scenarios and visuals. But Ferox 'feels' colder both in terms of its cast and how theyre treated.
The script on the whole is fine, we DO have a clean 3 act structure. Though its VERY saggy in the middle. the first acts relatively tight, but once they meet Mike and co, things slow down to a crawl as we spend a LOT of time wandering around the jungle until they find the village and then a LOT of time i the village while Gloria tries to piece things together...
Its slow and a bit trudging...and as someone who isnt entirely smitten with graphic violence towards animals. When that's the ONLY thing punctuating these long saggy breaks in the action...it was a bit dissapointing.
The 3rd act however does bring everything back up to a solid pace as we enter an act almost entirely focussed on Revenge. Leading to a wonderfully bleak ending that feels a little less natural than some of the Cannibal films...but otherwise ends things about as solidly as they could be ended.
I do have some gripes about the script, filming is split between New York and the Amazon. While I totally get using New York as a locational base for Gloria and her studies. Theres this weird B-plot that isnt really integrated all that well in which some cops in New York are looking for Mike, and they end up getting his landlady involved, and then the cops and the landlady end up heading to the Amazon to try and find him...It was really bizarre and honestly? apart from using it as an excuse to grab footage of New York landmarks...they seemed almost entirely pointless to the main drive of the film.
Also...as an aside, when they do get to the Amazon, the setup thats given to the audience is that the cops/landlady are going to find and possibly rescue our travellers...they have one scene in the Amazon and then they're literally never seen again.
Tonally this things bleak, NOT for the feint of heart, its oppressively dark for most of the runtime, and if utterly depressing cinema with largely unlikeable characters and HUGE amounts of unpleasent animal murder is your bag, you'll probably quite dig this one.
The direciton and cine are actually pretty gorgeous all things considered, we have Umberto Lenzi firing on all cylinder's here delivering a genuinely interesting piece. I dont feel like he *quite manages* the degree of emotional investment that 'Deodato' managed with 'Holocaust' but instead that cold distance that Lenzi puts between us and the horror helps ampliphy the feeling of isolation. Which I feel helps deliver a Cannibal picture that is of the 'ilk' of 'Holocaust' but strikes out very much to the beat of its own drum.
Compositionally this things lovely with some excellent 'on location' footage, colour use is rich and highly enjoyable. its a visual feast...if you happen to like nightmares. The editing is pretty rock solid, particularly for this genre which is known to struggle with coherent sequence building...id argue that it may even be the best edited Cannibal movie ive seen.
Its a creative picture in that sense that has a lot to offer somebody looking to see the more technically proficient side of the 'Video Nasties'.
The performances are all terrific, with a slight tinge of hamminess coming from the V/O crew and the onset cast its JUST the right tone to help give a little light to the darkness. they're all highly animated and absolutely NOT opposed to properly getting stuck into the blood, guts and oompska.
Add all this to an ASTOUNDING score which is arguably one of the best of the subgenre AND one of the best of Italian exploitation of the day. and you have the makings of a pretty solid production.
'Cannibal Ferox' absolutely wont be for everyone, nor would I want it to. While I personally feel that it lacks the emotional depth, pacing and authenticity of 'Holocaust'. What IS here is a wonderfully bleak production that manages, even now, to shock and immerse it's audience into its deeply unpleasent but beautifully shot world. I have a real soft spot for 'Ferox' its not perfect. But if your looking for 'good' examples of exploitation cinema or video nasties...you likely wont find better.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/cannibal-ferox/
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