Cannibal Ferox (AKA Make Them Die Slowly)

Director: Umberto Lenzi
Starring: John Morghen, Lorraine de Salle, Zora Kerova, and Robert Kerman
Region 2 limited to 3,333 copies.
Out Now

The human mind can play tricks on the horror movie fan. I remember seeing Cannibal Ferox some years ago and had always considered it one of the more sickening entries into the Italian Cannibal sub-genre. Then I picked up this recent Ultrabit version of the movie released by Sazuma Trading for the Dutch market. Watching it again confirms its nastiness, but also reveals that it is nowhere near as extreme as my mind had me thinking it was.

This is not to say that Ferox is tame though, the violent scenes are nasty, but not that frequent, and the majority of effects are showing their age, thus nowhere near as shocking as they were 20 years ago. Along with the similarly censor-worrying Cannibal Holocaust, Ferox is infamous for its animal killings, of which the majority are similar to modern day Discovery channel style footage. The ones that aren’t obviously have no place in the film (or society) and are thankfully very, very brief.

Brief is also a word that describes the plot. An anthropology student, her brother and their friend travel to the Amazon to disprove that cannibalism exists. There they meet Mike and Joe, a drug dealer and his pal who had recruited the local tribe to help them find emeralds. When the emeralds failed to turn up, Mike tortured and killed some tribe’s people. The tribe then turns on Mike, Joe and their unfortunate new friends.

Many laughable moments come courtesy of the clunky script (Rudy: There’s something I can’t figure out. Gloria: What’s that? Rudy: I don’t know) and the acting is up to the usual Italian horror quality. The cast list is a bit of a roll call of genre stars though. First up there is Giovanni Radice, better known as John Morghen, the man the Italian’s call when they need a desperately need an on-screen victim. John plays Mike and does so with so much teeth mashing and wild-eyed abandonment, it’s impossible not to give him full marks for effort. Lorraine de Salle, Zora Kerova and porn star Robert Kerman (aka Richard Bolla) also add to the horror party atmosphere.

The film was shot on location in the Amazon and in New York City (for the pointless cop sequences) and Lenzi makes decent use of them. If anything, he could have given us a bit more of the Amazon to really get his money’s worth, as it must have been a nightmare to shoot there. Hands down the best thing about Cannibal Ferox is the soundtrack. Take a bit of cheesy 70s disco and add some orchestral horror for the jungle sequences and you have music that is so foot-tappingly good, it’s actually better than the film deserves.

Forget the half-hearted ‘the westerners are the real primitives’ message (leave that to Holocaust), make sure you don’t take it seriously at all and Ferox can be watched without too much concern. Treat it with kid gloves if you are easily offended though as it still has enough power to shock the unwary. It’s never going to be a good, enjoyable or endlessly re-watchable movie, but as an example of Italian exploitation, it does what it promises.

Sazuma Trading get half marks for this release. The packaging is good; the disc comes in a thin case along with an envelope containing several postcard size stills from the movie, all contained inside a sturdy silver tin. The re-mastered picture quality of the film is outstanding and the stereo soundtrack is excellent too. It is an anamorphic presentation in 1.78:1 and is naturally fully uncut with a runtime of 93 minutes. This great start is let down by only having a few trailers and a small bio and filmography for Umberto Lenzi as extra’s. A shame that nothing else could have been dug up.

Cannibal Ferox is for the most part poorly acted and scripted, it has some moments that are pure exploitation and some gruesome gore sequences. As a film it has almost no redeeming features except for the soundtrack. Ferox will also offend some viewers with almost every other minute of footage, so if you feel you fall into the ‘easily offended’ category, believe me, Lenzi’s opus is not for you.

If all this does not put you off and you still want to see it, then you can expect a few laughs, a few ‘yucks’ and the question ‘why am I watching this’ reverberating inside your head.