aka Mondo Cannibale
There are a lot of people that hate Jess Franco’s movies, and the reason for the hate can be pinpointed to the fact that the man makes some really crappy movies. I for one, consider myself a fan of Jess Franco, regardless of his spotty filmography, but even I can’t defend him all the time. Although his trip into the “cannibal” genre, the brilliantly titled, CANNIBALS is without a doubt, a bad, bad movie; it's certainly not Franco's worst--which is scary. Poor lil’ Jesus, that rollie-pollie-Peter-Lorre-looking-bastard--why must he sucketh so? The weird part about Franco’s tainted film career is---the man is capable of making good movies…when he wants to. VENUS IN FURS and EUGENIE, are a few fine examples. CANNIBALS on the other hand, is a perfect example of why when Jess Franco’s name is mentioned by some movie fans, it’s usually accompanied with a look of disgust.
The story of CANNIBALS has plot holes so big, you could get lost in them—but it goes like this…
A scientist-type-guy played by Al Cliver (whom Franco admits in an interview on the Blue Underground DVD, is a bad actor but cheap), ventures into the jungles of deepest, darkest Idunno (actually Idunno where the fuck it's supposed to take place) with his wife and daughter, and gets attacked by some cannibals that look like members of a bad Kiss cover band—or I.C.P. fans. The cannibals cut off his arm, eat his wife alive, and keep his daughter. Our hero (lol) manages to escape (how does he escape? Fuck if I know), and walks around the rest of the movie trying to conceal his arm so it looks like it's gone—Acting! Brilliant!
Cliver’s character, for some reason has amnesia (I’m guessing here), but manages to snap out of it some years later, and remembers he had a daughter once upon a time. He tries to get funding from his employers to go back and find her, but they laugh at his cannibal story. Cut to cannibal land, where the guys daughter has grown up (played by Sabrina Siani, whom Franco calls one of the stupidest women he's ever worked with), and is now the White Goddess (and hot!), and rules over the Kiss Army—er, I mean Juggalos—doh, I mean cannibals.
The guy's employers eventually change their minds, and they decide to fund the mission because going on a cannibal hunt seems like a fun thing to do (did I mention every character in this film is a dumb asshole?). So Cliver’s scientist guy, and a group of snooty uppity-ups fly into the jungle, and search for the his missing daughter. Slowly---veeeeeery slowly, the cast drop like flies at the hand of cannibals shooting poison arrows, and whatever else it is that Jess Franco thinks cannibals do.
The movie drags and drags until the scientist guy has to fight one of the cannibals in hand-to-hand combat for possession of his daughter. The daughter actually wants to stay with the cannibals, and I’m not sure I blame her (hmmm, be a White Goddess or go back to America and work in a lab with a one-armed Dad that waited 10 years to finally come and rescue her? Tough choice). Let me tell you, watching Al Cliver try to conceal his arm, while in a river and fighting a cannibal was pretty hilarious.
This film reeks! Man, oh man was it a complete waste of fucking time. The dubbing (the only option on the disk) was atrocious, and the acting matched it. Then there are the cannibals that speak English!! How primitive can they be when they’ve been taught another fucking language? The cannibals go from speaking Ooga-booga in one scene, to English in the next....what-the-fuck? Plus, a 6th grader with autism could have written a better script. These are all things I can tolerate, but then you throw boring on top of all of that, it's just too much--game over, man, game over. The story can be bad, the acting can be bad, and the editing can be shit—but for fuck's sake--ENTERTAIN ME! Throw in more gore, nudity, sex, fight scenes, SOMETHING! Jess Franco could have came on screen, and lit a fart out of his ass with a zippo, and added more entertainment value to the film. By the way, Franco does have a cameo, and he is dubbed with a Cajun accent.
What was good? Well, the score wasn't half bad. It was fitting for a cannibal movie. Also, the scenes (2 of them) of the cannibals chowing down were kind of cool, although they're dragged out for far too long (I get it! They're cannibals!). That's about it for the positives.
The acting may be some of the worst I've seen in a while. Of course bad dubbing doesn't help, but bad acting is bad acting. Al Cliver was bad, but Shirly Knight and Lina Romay phoned this one in, in fact they seem like they were on something. Maybe they got paid in horse tranquilizers. It would explain a lot.
I'm giving CANNIBALS a score of 1 out of 5 because I'm a nice guy and because sitting and making fun it was kind of fun.
