Customer Reviews

La Montagna del dio cannibale

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

"Mountain of the Cannibal God", uncut and uncensored for first time on DVD. When Susan Stevenson's (Ursula Andress/the first Bond girl) goes to New Guinea to find her missing husband with the help of Dr. Edwards (Stacy Keach/TV's Mike Hammer. They along with her brother trek deep into the jungle, and come face to face with a cannibal tribe.

Andress was topless in one scene and totally nude in another. Her nudity is worth the price of this film alone. There are alos a cxouple scenes here that were edited out of previous copies of this film, includined here for the first time the scene with a tribalman having sex with a giant hog, while the hog continues to eat. A midly graphic masterbation scence from a tribal girl... It also contains a rather gruesome death scene of a monkey being eaten alive by a python. Director Martino claims that this scene with the monkey was an accident, but it seems that a frame by frame shot says that the monkey was perhaps pushed into the scene and filmed being eaten alive, this according to a 13 minute interview footage with Martino.

All in all, "Mountain" is a well photgraphed and acted "Cannibal" film. A very good entry into the genre. Andress and Keach give good performances in a rather bloody film at times...

A must see for genre fans, and anyone else that is curious...

After watching other classics such as Umberto Lenzi's "Cannibal Ferox" and Ruggero Deodato's "Jungle Holocaust", I decided to give this little flick a try and I've got to admit that I wasn't disappointed whatsoever! Sergio Martino's "Mountain of the Cannibal God" (AKA "Slave of the Cannibal God") is one of the best cannibal films ever made, despite the so-so acting and some weak dialogue thrown in here and there. It stars Ursula Andress (Who was also the very first Bond girl in "Dr. No" back in 1962) as beautiful Susan, who heads to New Guinea with her brother, Arthur (Antonio Marsina) in search of her husband who has been missing for three months.

With the help of anthropologist, Dr. Edward Foster (Stacy Keach) and explorer, Monolo (Claudio Cassinelli) they venture to the island of Roka, which is also the home to the Ra Ra Me. (TRANSLATION: Mountain of the Cannibal God) What they discover is the terrifying Puka, a cannibal tribe believed to have been extinct for many years. Along the way, they fall prey to all the dangerous booby-traps and cannibals lurking in the jungle in some of the most grotesque and shocking footage ever caught on film! (Who can forget the ambush and instant decapitation scene?) But when Susan and Monolo are captured by the Puka their only hope is escape, or risk becoming a sacrifice to the Cannibal God!

In my opinion, this is a VERY underrated Italian horror film and deserves more credit than what it is given. As I stated earlier, the acting is about average and the dialogue can drag here and there, but fans of the genre and gore buffs alike will definately get a kick out of the gory makeup and effects! However, as I also mentioned in my review for "Cannibal Ferox" this is absolutely NOT a movie for the faint of heart or those who are easily offended by such material! In addition, you'll also need a strong stomach to watch the whole movie and small children (Heaven forbid) should not view this film, or they may be forever traumatized! Everyone else: EAT UP! :)

Slave of the Cannibal God, a movie that I avoided for some unknown reason for quite a long time until picking it up in a movie four-pack (and then unedited) recently, was actually something of an entertainingly gruesome trek into the depths of South American jungle (especially in its strangely uncut version), dealing with not only cannibalism but also with cultural reasons as to why a person should never kill a spider around a native on a full stomach. Although I've yet to see a format of this movie that I would call beautiful, this one isn't that bad, drifting somewhere between a stored VHS tape and an older format DVD.

The movie itself revolves around the dubiously enchanting Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) and her strangely Germanic brother Arthur as they head for South America in search of her long lost, and presumably deceased, explorer/husband. Once there, they find the local police of little help and are instead prompted to enlist the help of the, in the words of one local official, "weird Dr. Edward Foster." After finding and speaking with him a bit - discovering that he and Arthur have a shady past together and that he does seem to have some higher brain-function disorder- he tells them that that Susan's husband had possibly not gone into the jungle itself but had instead headed to a little island which, roughly translated, houses The Mountain of the Cannibal God. He further tells them that this place is off limits because its believed to be cursed and that strange happenings do indeed go on there, some of which he knows a little too much about. Why her husband would go there, he cannot answer, but with a pout of the lips and a bit of sweet talk by a receptive wife, he's off to find the good doctor.

As any good jungle exploration movie would have it, he enlists the help of some locals along the way, all of which are obviously disposable, and all of whom provide some seriously bloody bait for the eyes to digest. Between traps that kill in some not-so-nice manners, cannibals that like to play with spears and knives before grabiing a meal and going, and the atypical fleeing that all smart natives do when the going gets though, we run through them rather quickly. Still, this problem is short-lived as our little group of miscreants finds themselves a fresh supply of innocents (at a mission, of all the places) to have butchered, and even pick up another explorer - with the help of a now sexually active, utterly receptive wife - to help them along their way. Then comes the real guessing game, the one that pits questionslike: what's actually going on, what motives lie hidden in these obviously convoluted minds, how bloody can the movie get before these fools turn back, how often will clothes find themselves discarded in a place filled with so many poisonous entities, and why the wife and her brother be carrying a Geiger counter? Yes, its a thrilling answer as to why one should stay home and only dream about jungle exploration.

Sergio Martino's "Slave of the Cannibal God" is this director's entry in what ranks as one of the most fascinating horror sub-genres to ever grace the screen: the Italian cannibal craze. Starting in the early 1970s and peaking towards the end of the decade, a slew of depraved, ultragory shockers emerged from the minds of such Italian filmmakers as Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi. "Cannibal Holocaust," Deodato's grindhouse shocker and a film still considered to be one of the sickest ever made, marked the apogee of the cannibal film, but other directors continued to churn out more product. I could, and probably am, wrong in saying this, but by the time Umberto Lenzi released "Eaten Alive" in 1980, the cannibal genre was declining. Watching these films proves one immutable truth about the 1970s: this decade truly was a time when filmmakers would try anything to shake audiences up. It's impossible to even conceive of a film like this being made today unless you take into consideration the plethora of super cheap shot on video junk, which I don't. These are films shot on film, and they are definitely something to see. If you like horror pictures, be sure to check a few of these gutmunchers out. Especially since most of them have gone to DVD in the past couple of years.

Martino's film stars Ursula Andress (!) as Susan Stevenson, the wife of an intrepid explorer who went in search of a tribe of cannibals and never returned. Stevenson, concerned for the safety of her husband, begins to organize a search party. She hires Doctor Edward Foster (Stacy Keach!) to guide the expedition into the jungles of New Guinea. Susan brings along her shady brother Arthur (Antonio Marsina) to help in the search, and the group sets off with the requisite number of local guides. What follows is, sadly, a rather boring series of scenes consisting of the group endlessly tramping their way through the foliage. In true cannibal movie fashion, we do get to see several scenes of real life animal death spliced into the film stock, but we must wait awhile to see the human characters perish under nasty circumstances. Between the snake attacks on monkeys and other such useless rubbish, Foster and Stevenson stumble over a village in the interior where the group meets a European priest running a mission, and learns about a dangerous tribe of cannibals called the Puka or Puki. Keach has a run in with a couple of these guys, so the party heads back into the jungle for another interminable jaunt until they arrive at the cannibal mountain.

Stevenson gets what she wants when her expedition runs smack dab into a tribe of masked cannibals atop this mountain. We see that her husband is here too, although he's quite dead and covered in some sort of weird jelly substance. It turns out that the tribe worships this corpse as a deity, probably due to the fact that he carried a Geiger counter when he stumbled over the cannibals. This tribe is so impressed with the machine that they mounted it in his chest, where it still clicks and clacks away all these months later. Since Susan's hubby carried a picture of her in his wallet, the cannibals think she's a god too. They strip her clothes off and tie her up just as they did her husband. Finally, we see a bit of the violence that are these films' stock and trade: one of the tribal members attempts to have his way with Goddess Ursula and pays an extreme price for his insolence. A dwarf has his brains dashed out on a rock, the cannibals sit around for some good old-fashioned eating, and startling revelations about Stevenson's reasons for coming to the mountain emerge before the film glides to a watery end.

"Slave of the Cannibal God" is bound to disappoint hardcore followers of the cannibal sub-genre due simply to the fact that Martino restrained himself in the gore department. If you've seen "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Eaten Alive," you won't believe how tame this film is by comparison. Nothing much happens except for animal violence and the flurry of activity at the end. Sure, we see a couple of native guys buy the farm during a leg of the trek, and dinnertime at the mountain took on decidedly queasy dimensions, but it's not enough to keep us gorehounds interested. I suspect with a cast including Andress and Keach, Martino felt he should throttle back on the extreme gore. Too bad and too sad. I did take pleasure in seeing Ursula bare her heart and soul in preparation for her deification ceremony, and I enjoyed seeing Keach turn in a solid performance. I also liked the beautiful shots of the jungle and that waterfall the expedition had to climb to get to the cannibal lair. "Slave of the Cannibal God" succeeded in one central element common to this sub-genre, namely that Europeans in the jungle are only there to engage in evil acts. I thought Martino pulled off this plot point--revealed in full at the end--quite nicely. But I must doggedly return to the central premise of an Italian cannibal picture: it should contain over the top gore, and Martino's effort failed in that area big time.

Surprisingly, the DVD edition of the film contained a thirteen-minute interview with Sergio Martino. The other extra was a poster and stills gallery. Picture and audio quality were sharp for a film this old. Ultimately, I must recommend that "Slave of the Cannibal God" is a film best suited for newcomers who wish to understand the general themes involved in these movies. Then move on to Deodato's and Lenzi's pukers. Since I already saw "Cannibal Holocaust," "Cannibal Ferox," and "Eaten Alive" before Martino's effort, this film left me wanting more.

Sergio Martino always delivers with his films. From the fast-paced action in After the Fall of New York to the mystery and shocking horror in Screamers. This film is no exception. It blends right in with Trap Them and Kill Them and Cannibal Ferox, yet another cheap but watchable Italian cannibal film. Lots of cheap gore, animal cruelty, and native exploitation, the usual fare. Aside from the awesome cast (Claudio Cassinelli, Ursula Andress, Antonio Marsina, and even STACEY KEACH!) this film has little to distinguish itself from the crop. I'd see Cannibal Holocaust instead. Keach's final scene is kinda funny in a way though, as is the ending which was completely ripped off by John Boorman's The Emerald Forest. If you've seen the cannibal "classics" such as Holocaust and Ferox, go ahead and give this one a whirl. It wont disappoint you, but wont really excite you either.

Another 70's cannibal flick, this is much better than expected. You've got the hot, scantily-clad Ursula Andress and her crew on a quest through the jungles of New Guinea. They get ambushed by some blood thirsty savages of course. This tribe looks extremely heinous. Their masks are what really stood out for me in this movie--some dirty, potato sack looking bags with holes cut out for the eyes. Freaky! When the maniacal tribe leader sees Ursula, he might develop a different kind of hunger.
You've got all your basic cannibal flick essentials--blood, gore, decapitations, nudity, violence with animals. The acting and dialogue are good enough not to hamper the story. It may not be extremely original, but hey, if it ain't broke...

Mountain of the Cannibal God, is basic, exploitation/sexploitation cannibal fare. It is an interesting story of sexy Ursula Andress, looking for her lost husband, and a trip she takes into the Amazon to find him, and the Uranium he was originally looking for. The safari party is eventually captured on the mountain (more like a cavern) by said cannibals, and Ursula is turned into a goddess, while the cannibals feast on human and reptile flesh. In this uncut version, there is a scene of sexual depravity on the first night of Ursula's capture that must be seen to be believed. First, Ursula is stripped, tied up, and sensuously painted by two native girls. Then we cut to a scene of a woman mastrubating while a native rapes a pig? Okay, I didnt write this stuff, I am only reviewing the film. Not exactly my cup of tea, I would have rather seen a love scene between Ursula and the male lead, but thats just me. Still, with a title like MOTCG, one cannot expect the memoirs of Emily Post.

This has to be, without question, one of the all time worst films ever made and as such, I have to give it ten out of ten. The acting is awful, the story is, well, recycled from a million other movies and the direction was, well, uh, was there any? And the extra footage taken from someone's vault will leave you picking your jaw up off the floor. If you're a serious film fan, avoid this, but if you love the very worst films of all time, as I do, don't miss it. An absolute hoot.

This Italian stinker is a wretched film despite the presence of the talented Stacy Keach as Professor Edward Foster, and the obvious assets of Ursula Andress as Susan Stevenson. The gist of the plot is that money-hungry Stevenson and her annoying brother hire Foster to help them find Stevenson's husband on a tropical island in New Guinea, which is the home to vicious cannibals, the Pukas. The rest of the film features lots of footage of scary things: alligators, cobras, tarantulas, cannibals, even a medicinal worm application in a highly unorthodox first aid setting. The expedition shapes up to be Foster, Stevenson and annoying brother, a bunch of natives, and Claudio Cassinelli as Manolo, the love interest for Stevenson.

The expedition does not start well when Foster kills a spider with a machete, spooking the natives. There is a whole lot of footage of the group walking around in the jungle, canoeing, and general unpleasantness in a hot, steamy jungle. Foster provides a lot of backstory about how he was once kidnapped by the Pukas, but they didn't eat him because he cured the chief's son of a disease. Foster clashes with the Stevenson party because he is an idealist (as is Manolo), while they just want the mineral rights to the island. Because of this conflict, they let Foster slide down an waterfall to his death, a turn of events (and the only one) that actually surprised me. Keach deserves an award for delivering his commands to tribesmen in a "native language" of some sort professionally and without laughing; the rest of the actors have accents so thick as to make ordinary interactions virtually indecipherable.

The party gets attacked by natives, and Ursula shows them a photo of her husband. They make her the new queen (you won't believe her outfit), as they have killed her husband and implanted his Geiger counter in his sternum and now worship him as a false god. There is a lot of chanting and dancing, some ritual disemboweling and cannibalism, and a budding relationship between Stevenson and Manolo as they make their escape from the cannibal isle. Watch especially for the annoying cannibal dwarf.

If I have made this seem fairly interesting or exciting, I apologize, because it isn't. Large swaths of the film are mere padding, the constant electronic music is extremely grating, the script is woeful, and the acting (except by Keach) is pitifully amateurish. The credits are long and undistinguished (you will be unsurprised to discover that the interiors were filmed in Rome), and despite the intrinsically titillating title, the only emotion possible at its conclusion is one of relief.

First I should say that the copy of this movie I received had a defective soundtrack which in parts was all but inaudible. That aside, if the movie was worth keeping I might have tried to get a replacement. I didn't bother.

Italian movies are usually very well made, regardless of budget and genre. Parts of this film meet that standard, but overall it is a mess. Eighty percent of the plot consists of people hiking through jungle or wading through rapids, occasionally pausing to react to intercut scenes of nature's cruelty: crocs eating lizards, lizards eating snakes, snakes eating monkeys or birds.

My guess is that the perverse nature footage was secured first, and the rest of the movie was written around it. Although it may have been shocking and explicit for its time, there are more thrills to be found any night on the Discovery Channel than in this flick.

Thankfully, Ursula Andress has a mighty fine body, and a lovely face which provides most of the production value for the first two acts. Stacy Keach must have split the lions share of the budget with her, he obviously didn't do it for the prestige.

There are several decent EFX scenes, mostly body parts being lopped off, but aside from a few brief and ineffective shocks, there is no suspense or real drama of any kind.

Although some interesting music is used in some sections, to describe it as a score would be too kind. Instead, it seems to float along on a parallel track, with little connection to the pace of the editing or the onscreen visuals. At its worse, it is a kind of empty-headed elevator music.

The most frustrating thing is that this could have been a cult classic, if only the script and the editing had been worked a little harder. The cannibals look cool, and the locations are beautiful. Had the repulsive displays of animal cruelty been the starting point, rather than the most dramatic elements of this production, it could have been a kick ass film.