Cannibals

When DVD began delivering exiled entertainment from the vaults of heretofore uninterested distributors, several forgotten names in the annals of exploitation prospered. Such noted grindhousers as Herschell Gordon Lewis, David F. Friedman, Andy Milligan, Radley Metzger and Joe Sarno saw their names go from footnotes to forefathers, especially in the minds of the uninitiated and the aesthetically open minded. Yet no name has become more shockingly celebrated than Jesus “Jess” Franco. The mad monk of the foreign quickie has a creative canon that’s as large – and as loopy - as the list of pseudonyms he’s used over the years. And now thanks to the new digital medium, he’s being distinguished as a groundbreaker. Sadly, he’s nothing but a soul stealer, if wretched works like Cannibals is any indication of his overall output.

Our silly story begins when Jeremy Taylor travels to the Amazon on a vague expedition. One night, his boat is seized by local cannibals. They kill the captain, eat Taylor’s wife, and kidnap his young daughter. Barely making it out alive (they cut off his arm as a souvenir), Taylor returns to New York and rapidly ages. About ten years go by, and our hero is still hankering for his offspring. He contacts a rich witch and her old man boyfriend, hoping she will fund a return trip. Through factual flip flops too pointless to mention, an entire party of possible entrees heads out into the bush. There, they discover that little Lana has grown up to become the White Goddess, topless Queen of the legendary long pig lovers. She’s also in love with the equally Caucasian chief’s son (no explanation for his WASPishness). A few people die. Some organs are consumed. Dad kicks his daughter’s boyfriend’s butt. Former human eating gal goes back to civilization where she belongs. The end.

So repetitive it feels like a rap hook and lacking anything remotely resembling the greatness of goona-goona movies past, Cannibals (original title: Mondo Cannibale) is Franco’s unflattering response to such brilliant jungle atrocities as Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox. As part of the new DVD release from Blue Underground, the director admits that this entire enterprise is nothing more than a reaction to the “repugnant” kind of taboo-busting title that made the subgenre famous. But instead of delivering something novel, Franco just farts around. Substituting cultural shortcuts and pasty faced hippies for actual native flesh fiends, and the standard softcore paradigm that has come to cloud all his films, this is skin snacking for dullards. We are never once scared by the boring travelogue feel of the film, and once mouths start munching on people, it’s all slow motion sickness and fake red rummaging.

The story also makes no sense. When we first meet Taylor (essayed by Italian horror staple Al Cliver) he goes on a long jag about how dangerous this part of the world is. He warns of marauding bands of baddies, and their proclivity towards people pâté. Within seconds, his shrewish wife shows up, and our hero explains her presence this way – “she wouldn’t take ‘NO’ for an answer”. Hey buddy – next time try using the facts of ancient headhunter practices on the little lady. Maybe that will dissuade her from using the South American jungles as a family outing. Then, after the Missus is munched on and Lana is lost, it takes Taylor several years before he can get funding to make a return expedition. Apparently, back in the early ‘80s, little girls grabbed by local tribesmen didn’t warrant a rescue mission. Even when he’s begging for help, rich folks scoff at him for such parental overreacting. Right.

When we move into the humid tropical rain forest setting, Franco’s failings as a filmmaker become even more apparent. We get endless scenes of hiking, monotonous dialogue involving “man, is it hot” declarations, and the single whiniest woman to ever trudge through the underbrush. She gives spoiled rotten divas a permanent black eye. Luckily, she doesn’t last long, and this allows Franco to revisit the same cannibalism footage he provided the first few times. While fairly gory, there is no menace to this mastication. The clown-faced fiends eat. People scream, then they die. Ta-da! It results in the kind of mindless moviemaking that makes the rest of the narrative pointless. We don’t care who lives or who dies. We aren’t interesting if Taylor saves his daughter. The last act fisticuffs are laughable, and the lack of anything remotely interesting renders any entertainment value inert. Sadly, it’s a similar sentiment that one can express about any Franco film.

Indeed, the man’s biggest crime is how horribly hackneyed everything he attempts turns out. Instead of hiring extras who resemble South American inhabitants, he finds a bunch of Woodstock rejects, smears on the grease paints, and let’s them boogie like Canned Heat has taken the main stage. When our natives break out the weaponry and start attacking, the arsenal appears forged out of random sticks and tree bark (bent shapes and ancillary twigs left intact), and while our heroes carry guns, they can’t be bothered to actually fire them. Franco is so disturbingly cheap that he can’t even come up with realistic local color. He believes, quite incorrectly, that filming in areas with lots of trees, and tossing in occasional shots of monkeys and alligators will render his backdrop believable. All it does is make us wonder why we never see these wildlife elements at any other time in the film – even when a character dies in a (supposedly) reptile infested swamp.

While diehard Franco-philes probably have a creative response to every one of the flaws mentioned before, only the certifiably insane would find Cannibals recommendable. Clearly the Big Blue U didn’t think it worthy of a full blown special edition. Aside from the director defending himself, the only other bonus feature is a goofy French trailer (stuff ported over from when Anchor Bay owned the rights). It’s not any more mindnumbing than the movie proper. DVD can be commended for a lot of things. But if there is one byproduct that they’re required to take to their eventual format change grave, it’s resurrecting the career of this cinematic incompetent. Jess Franco is, perhaps the worst moviemaking of all time. Uwe Boll and Ed Wood can rest now.