"GATOR ATE MY BABY!"
Before he made arguably he most beautiful film 'Cannibal Holocaust', Ruggero Deodato began to test the waters of the mondo cannibal genre, and 'Jungle Holocaust' very much feels like that, someone testing the waters and feeling out what they can and cant getaway with.
Im convinced i've seen this film before, but for the life of me I cant remember when or where. Which means the most likely answer is I saw it when I was in university while VERY much under the influences...Which is probably the best way to watch these kinds of Cannibal movies honestly...
The plots simple enough, a group of business people are flying over a remote region to have a meeting with their partners for a rigging proposition when their plane encounters trouble and has a rough landing, while the planes being repaired the gang decide to explore the crash site and almost immediately half the crew are killed, and the other half are split up with our lead 'Robert Harper' being seized by the cannibals and taken to a cave where he's stripped, tormented and dumped in a pit/cell.
And...the bulk of the rest of the movie is pretty much Robert being tortured, escaping with one of the tribes women, encountering all manner of horrible things such as extreme animal mutilation, cannibalistic tendancies and a scene that made me laugh for how blunt it is, in which a woman gives birth on a river bank unaided, sees that it's a girl and just...casually tosses her into the river where a gator eats it.
The actual plotting of the films fine enough, but this is a lot more of a slow burn than 'Holocaust' with the middle act sagging awfully. Theres plenty of 'shock' moments, but nothing as intense as what would come after it. This was really the early days of the mondo cannibal flick however, so it still needed a fair bit of time to warm up.
I do feel that the film somewhat overstays its welcome, at 91 minutes, this could have easily been an 80 minute feature and been better for it. The animal mutilation, while not as graphic as Holocaust is still quite unpleasent and is likely to put a lot of people off.
the dialogue (by which I mean the dub) is fine enough, a bit dull honestly, the Voice actors are playing things relatively straight, and most of the dialogues basic, and once the gang get split up its pretty much grunts from then on till the end credits.
visually, its a bit flat too. Deodato seems to be feeling out his style within the genre here and while there are absolutely some genius moments on display (pretty much everything inside the cannibals cave lair is VERY well handled and feels quite unsettling) the location work when they're out in the open is a bit incoherent and frustrating. And not in a 'Oh! it makes you feel what the characters are feeling! confusion and uncertainty!' kind of way...in a; 'Im pretty sure they're recycling footage at this point, and everything looks samey' kind of way.
Composition is rough around the edges. I feel like this style is used to its best effort when Deodato turned to faux documentary. Because with a linear narrative feature like this, it just feels a bit rushed, messy and unpleasent. Composition is quite hit or miss, and I dont feel they got the best out of the wonderful colours of the jungle either...Not to mention the edit, which. is. ROUGH. with sound that drops in and out infrequently awkward cuts and shocking pacing on sequence structuring. This isnt a polished product. it feels like a 'best job possible givent he circumstances' edit, rather than one that was planned.
The performances are all actually not to bad for low budget italian films of the time. Massimo Foschi as Robert gets a LOT of range to work with and for the most part pretty much nails EXACTLY what was required for the role, really pushing himself and not being afraid to get dirty if needs be. Me Me Lai as 'Pulan' the tribeswoman who helps robert escape in someways had the hardest job of this shoot because she had to look fairly glam (this IS an Italian exploitation film...there HAD to be a glam italian cannibal girl...thats just how these things work) while being entirely limited to grunts, groans and screams. Shes superb here really knocking it out of the park and arguably even outshining Massimo in some scenes.
The rest of the cast more than fit the bill, given how low quality these Cannibal movies can and will get from this point onwards, I think they're actually pretty above average all things considered. and the speaking supporting cast, while shortlived here, I feel do more than an adiquate job, I really cant flaw them.
While the soundtrack is unremarkable, its not offensive...so thats a good thing, though the quality of the audio recording here is a bit problematic in places. Again; its no as bad as I know these films CAN get...but its not great.
For me (and to keep it simple) This ones better than a LOT of the Cannibal exploitation films that were pumped out between the mid 70s and mid 80s...but I wouldnt class it as 'one of the best' its definitely in the uper half of quality, with an interesting and (for the time) unique plotline, some genuinely unpleasent sequences. Good, solid acting. and direction and cine that...while a bit hit and miss at times, does deliver a reasonable amount.
Its a slow burner, so do be prepared to clock watch after a while, with better pacing and maybe a little contrast in tone, this could have been great. As it stands, its just 'good' which is a shame...but folks, we all gotta start somewhere!
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/last-cannibal-world/
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