Having derided Cannibal movies the other day what should i see tonight during the final throes of my Xena Warrior Princess box set run through but the episode The Abyss in which Xena and Gabrielle have to fight a tribe of cannibals.
It was fantastic. There was genuine threat involved, from both the bitter weather and the terrifying cannibals, one of whom stabbed Gabrielle who was close to death until the tribe took her and disinfected the wound. As she was told, the tribe don't want their food to go off.
They looked proper scary. Wearing head dresses and breast plates made from huge wart hog type creatures, they were truly frightening... unlike the cannibals in seventies gut munchers, the majority of whom seem to stand around looking bored and glancing at their watches.
Obviously being Xena there was no Lenzi esq butchering but the cannibals bit Xena and Gabrielle whilst fighting them and both had teeth marks on their flesh throughout, whilst the cannibals were seen eating human flesh off the bone of torsos being cooked.
Love the image below which is reminds of a scene from Prisoner of the Cannibal God as Gabrielle is covered with seasoning ready for the grill.
Season five was extremely disappointing. It was obvious to me from the first moments that Lucy Lawless was pregnant during filming as from her first scenes she was no longer wearing her famed leather outfit but a much longer affair that was reminiscent of watching Steven Seagal in his later films. The whole season up until the last three or four was pretty awful but in those final few it really stepped up several rungs as if everyone had a change of direction and suddenly the jokey bloodless fighting was gone to be replaced by gory swords, blood on breasts, impaled heads, people hung on crosses minus limbs etc and thankfully season six has stayed that way and is excellent. A shame i've only 11 episodes to go.
Weirdly another i've just watched titled Old Ares had a Farm was a fun episode which made me think of Russ Meyer films as Xena, Gabrielle and former God Ares make a farm for themselves. The old style skimpy farm costumes and amount of smut and down cleavage camera angles, well old Russ would have loved it.
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