The Mountain of the Cannibal God
Sergio Martino’s infamous cannibal movie begins with an intertitle explaining how, perhaps in an effort to begin proceedings with an air of authenticity, all events are set in an area of the world in which cannibalism is still practised. In today’s world of the Internet and travel documentaries where there are barely any areas of the world which carry such mystery, such a plot device would be an instant failure, but in 1978, I guess some people would happily leave such nonsense. Anyway, the action begins with (of all things) a plane from Pakistan International Airlines landing (maybe it was an unusual US-Pakistan-Papua New Guinea flight) and introducing us to Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) and her step brother, Arthur, whose brother, Henry, has gone missing
The unlikely duo team up with local explorer Dr. Edward Foster (Stacey Keach) who agrees to help them. As Martino happily admits in the accompanying Raro Video featurette ‘Cannibal Nightmare’, it’s a film of two halves: the first sees people wandering around a jungle and encountering all manner of exotic horrors, though thankfully not most of the footage of the monitor lizard being stabbed and gutted, nor the monkey being eaten alive, before we find the truth about Dr. Foster, where they are going and what has likely happened to Arthur Stephenson.
This doesn’t have the narrative audacity of Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, nor the outright repugnance of Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox, films that remain interesting because they because of their structure and gratuitous violence, though Lenzi’s film isn’t as structurally challenging as Deodato’s film. Compared to them, it’s fairly tame in terms of its violence, both that inflicted on humans and animals, but the locations and characters make it compelling enough for a watch with fairly modern and jaded eyes, particularly ones which were glad not to see the worst excesses of the animal violence. However, it was particularly strange to sit through ‘Cannibal Nightmare’ and see scene in which the lizard is butchered in its entirety, a sequence significantly trimmed for the main feature.
The Shameless release looks and sounds superb thanks to the 2K remaster and the inclusion of the 46 minute featurette, part of which comprises the brief Sergio Martino on Animal Cruelty feature, in which he describes how the monkey met its unfortunate demise, something he profoundly regrets. If you have any interest in the jungle-set cannibal films, whether it’s a genuine liking of them, or morbid curiosity, this is a reasonable entry and a fine package of the film.
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