Loathing , grim and unsettling Jesus Franco picture with plenty of nudism, blood , gore and guts. Dealing with a cruel indigenous cannibalistic tribe that worships a Devil God , it is filled with some genuine fright , horror and doom . A Vietnam veteran
named Peter Weston (Al Cliver) accompanied by another unsettling veteran (Robert Foster or Antonio Mayans) head to an island inhabited by cannibals to save a kidnapped cover-girl (gorgeous Ursula Buchfellner or Ursula Fellner) not only from her kidnappers (Gisela Hahn, Werner Pochat...) , but also from the cannibals' lurking Devil god (Bertrand Altmann with bug-eyes that were created with ping-pong balls which had tiny holes poked to let to see) . Hunted, raped, and tormented out of her mind... Where the natives are pleased to Meat you! Kidnapped by cannibals! Raised to eat her human flesh! . She grew up to be her sacrifice !. Now a Vietnam veteran is looking for her !.
A ruthless , barbaric , authentically disgusting flick packing inexplicable disturbing occurrences , nudism , shocks , thrills , suspense , chills , hair-rising events with horrible mangling and being really gory . It follows in the wake of the cannibalist films from Umbert Lenzi , and, especially , the really a brutal fake documentary : ¨Ruggiero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust¨ that resulted to be the mother of all cannibal films , the most savage , the most controversial movie ever made and the most horrific tale in modern history . It belongs to Eighties' terrible period in which Franco wrote or directed various Cannibal film , such as ¨Sexo Canníbal¨, ¨Terror cannibal¨ and ¨Mondo cannibale¨ . Adding other extremely gory films as ¨The Sadist of Notre Dame¨, ¨Oasis of the Living Dead¨, ¨Zombie Lake¨, ¨Bloody Moon¨, ¨Faceless¨ . El caníbal (1980) is a below average yarn with too much chilling scenes , filled with sleaziness and non-sense of style . It is filled with killings , naked girls , sexual violence , disfigured people, grisly murders by means of slashing , ripping to death , killings in cold blood executed by ominous cannibal , loathsome and loads of blood and gore . A mysoginist movie with plenty of nudism , sadistic frames , graphic cannibalism , explicit scenes of violence and made in extremely eerie style , no for squeamish . This Terror/Cannibal Movie displays lousy special effects with cutting , chopping , hacking , beheading , stomach ripped out and other cannibalistic frames .Stars a second-class cast with B-Italian actor Al Cliver and the beautiful ex-playboy girl Ursula Fellner. And involving some familiar faces from Jesús Franco's movies , such as : Muriel Montossé or Victoria Adams as Girl on Yacht , Lynn Mess as Cannibal Priestess , Werner Pochath and of course Antonio Mayans .
Mediocre cinematography by Juan Soler filmed on location in Benidorm, Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Archena, Murcia, Spain , Sintra, Lisbon, Monserrate Chapel, Palácio de Monserrate, Sintra, Serra de Sintra, Portugal , where Franco shot several films ; however , being faded by the odd colouring of the old VHS, I would like to see this get remastered on blu-ray . It contains anticlimatic musical score composed by Jesus Franco himself . A disconcerting horror movie with no much interest and badly made by Jesús Franco. He often used a lot of pseudonyms , among the aliases he used, apart from the names Jess Franco or Franco Manera, were Jess Frank, Robert Zimmerman, Frank Hollman, Clifford Brown, David Khune , Toni Falt, James P. Johnson, Charlie Christian, David Tough , among others. In many of the more than 180 films he's directed he has also worked as composer, writer, cinematographer and editor. Jesús's influence has been notable all over Europe . Jess was a Stajanovist, restless writer, producer, director who played and realized over 200 pictures. His career spans over 50 years with a few successes and lots of flops, making all . From his huge body of work we can deduce that Jesús Franco is one of the most restless directors of Spanish cinema and often releasing several titles at the same time. Many of his films have had problems in getting released, and others have been made directly for video. More than once his staunchest supporters have found his "new" films to contain much footage from one or more of his older films. Jesús Franco is a survivor in a time when most of his colleagues tried to please the government administration. He broke up with all that and got the independence he was seeking and getting , at times great eye for composition. He was a hard-working filmmaker, directing a lot of ridiculous movies. However, making some acceptable films , such as : ¨We are 18 years old¨, ¨The awful Dr Orloff¨, ¨The Bloody Judge¨ , ¨Count Dracula¨, ¨99 women¨, ¨Parxismus, ¨The Blood of Fumanchu¨, ¨Faceless¨ and a few others. He always went upstream in an ephemeral industry that fed opportunists and curbed the activity of many professionals. But time doesn't pass in vain, and Jesus' production diminished since the 90s , but he went on working until his death. This shocking and gory terror/adventure movie with lots of blood and guts has an inferior rating : 3.5/10 . Only for Jess Frank completists.
