El gran infierno verde (Green Inferno)

Antonio Climati is a man who will be remembered for one thing and one thing only: spectacularly contentious mondo films. During the 70s and early 80s, Climati produced a handful of some of the most unpleasant movies ever committed to celluloid, all in the name of "documentary". It was his 1976 film THIS VIOLENT WORLD that directly inspired some of the scenes in Deodato's exploitation classic CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, a film which dealt a critical blow to the mondo genre. With the similarities between mondo and the violent jungle travelogue approach of the classic cannibal movie, it seems only fitting that Climati would finally try his hand at it too. Ironically, his film has clearly been strongly influenced by CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, right down to the title...

Cannibal movie fans will immediately recognise the plot devices used in THE GREEN INFERNO from Deodato and Lenzi's past frolics in the jungle. However, it had one main difference- it was made ten years after the "golden era" of the genre. This is greatly reflected in the violence of the movie, which is enormously toned down. Whilst the "westerners captured by natives" plot remains perfectly in line with the most generic cannibal movie, there is no actual cannibalism in the picture and gore is kept to an absolute minimum. Similar to Deodato's CUT AND RUN, THE GREEN INFERNO treads the boards of a cannibal pictures whilst carefully avoiding cannibalism.

This isn't the only cannibal convention that has been sacrificed here. One of the most controversial aspects of the genre is the depiction of cruelty against and the killing of animals. Amazingly in THE GREEN INFERNO, these are replaced with scenes of COMPASSION towards animals! In one scene, a monkey is revived by the exploring party... and in total shades of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, at another point, a turtle is pulled out of a water tank, only to be replaced unharmed.

One has to wonder what Climati's intentions were. The awkward "anti-animal cruelty" stance that the movie seems to adopt would be easier to appreciate if one hadn't seen Climati's previous work. Movies such as SAVAGE MAN... SAVAGE BEAST positively reveled in horrifically drawn-out scenes of animal killing, so what could have changed in the meantime? In honesty, many of the animal scenes are still clearly cruel and putting the subjects under distress. This makes Climati's stance quite transparent. I honestly believe he was attempting to criticise the cannibal genre just as Deodato had damningly and directly criticised him in the past. This was also coupled with the chronological fact that audiences were simply less willing to watch animals being butchered with machetes by the time this flick was made.

As a movie, THE GREEN INFERNO is competently made yet somewhat forgettable. It has the same atmosphere as the earlier genre entries, but comes across as being rather watered down. The sound-track, photography and dialogue are all utterly perfunctory, and besides the animal issues mentioned already, a genre veteran can quite easily predict the entire plot after a few short minutes. However, in a way it is a fittingly odd end to an extremely strange genre of exploitation cinema- anaemic, bitter, and self-referentially critical.

Oh dear.

Firstly the dubbing is horrific! You can't take it seriously from the start. The characters are cheesy and typical 80's b-movie over the top.

The story and how it pans out is loose, random and boring. It's a bit like a kids treasure hunt. It flits from one thing to another with no depth or development.

It is completely unrealistic, silly, painful and pointless.

I'm having trouble classifying Natura Contro aka The Green Inferno from 1988 correctly. Was this an adventure movie meant for Indiana Jones fans? Or a Cannibal film for fans of Cannibal Holocaust?

There is a bit of both in it and that immediately means that you also have to love both to find this one working for you.

The plot summed up: a group of American adventurers takes a stolen plane into the South American jungle to find a professor and his discovery (a treasure in a jungle village). Along the way, they must capture Monkeys to buy gasoline for the plane, capture Anacondas to get a raft, and save an Indian village from Jungle Pirates who kidnap children to trade their organs for dollars!

What this film certainly has in common with Indiana Jones is its very Hollywood, simplistic view of the rest of the world. Indian tribes in South America, who I think probably can't even speak Spanish or Portuguese, turn out to be perfectly fluent in English. They let themselves be bribed with a tape recorder because the tape has a recording of Jungle Sounds (Yeah, you don't hear that often in the Jungle...) And the women walk around in monokini, but put on clothes when they go out with the Americans (because so the Americans wouldn't feel uncomfortable?). I think as a viewer it is best not to ask too many questions.

The lite, at times almost funny style of adventure (which seems to come from a children's film) is in stark contrast to the sometimes very cruel things that happen around. All the gore that should have made this a horror movie remains out of the picture, but castrating a man with a snake, for example, is still quite dramatic and serious. The characters lack the shock you would expect after seeing this happen.

So my biggest problem is the characters' lack of realism in relation to their condition. I'm not saying that the actors do a bad job, they just act like they're in a romantic comedy and not in a alive/dead situation. Weird! Another minor problem is that I suspect this too is a movie first filmed in Italian and then dubbed into English. As there is just a little something wrong with the lip syncro... I much prefer that movies just keep the Italian spoken and opt for subtitles. The masses, which this film probably aimed at in the US, will probably prefer a dub.

Other than that, the film isn't all that bad: the jungle is beautifully filmed and the plot, although a bit cheezy, is quite interesting and fun. I have the strong impression that they first wanted to make a Cannibal Horror film, and then they changed their mind. Scary scenes and gross was omitted and the characters became pranksters and young do-gooders. It just watered down to what it is.

How many points should I give to this film? Difficult! As Horror? Not even 3/10 because there is hardly anything left of it. As an adventure film? Actually, Natura Contro is not doing so badly: the film is adventurous and the characters know how to arouse the viewer's interest.

So 6/10, it's interesting for fans of 80s adventure movies but don't expect any horror!

Unfortunately, there are no "Cannibal", no "Holocaust" and actually no "II" in this movie. The story is something like BBC documentary supplied with poor and, in fact, unnecessary acting. It can't be compared to Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust", the title of the subject is just the exploitation of Deodato's movie success.

Even some rather natural and, frankly speaking, amazing scenes, for example, with strange fish crawling in aborigine's fundament or the reanimation of a monkey with the help of rubber tube can't save the movie from total failure, at least in my eyes.

And I am sure that it will be completely useless and pretty disappointing for all Italian (cannibal) horror movies fans and for all that violence-lovers. And, for certain, it is not a must see movie for true cinemaddicts.

Green Inferno (AKA Cannibal Holocaust II) is what you get if you suck all of the visceral power (and the cannibalism) out of Cannibal Holocaust. Like Deodato's infamous shocker, the film sees an intrepid female reporter and her team venture into the jungles of the Amazon to try and find a missing professor of anthropology. Unlike Deodato's film, it features no gruelling horror (unless you count the sight of a small carnivorous fish being extracted from a man's ass!), instead coming across like a National Geographic documentary crossed with a lame jungle adventure (with elements of humour). It certainly doesn't deserve to be associated with the king of all Italian cannibal movies.

Much of the film revolves around the protagonists stealing a plane and then trapping monkeys which they exchange for gas; this allows director Antonio Climati to include that genre staple -animal cruelty - but even these scenes lack the ability to shock or disgust (it's a wonder why he held back given his involvement with notorious mondo movies Africa Addio and Savage Man Savage Beast, both of which feature loads of animal violence). After successfully fuelling their stolen plane, the characters have a run in with angry natives that amounts to nothing, are attacked by bats, meet a topless jungle beauty, are captured by river pirates who are harvesting the organs of indigenous children, and eventually locate the missing professor, who is perfectly fine. No cannibalism involved whatsoever.