Eaten Alive, 1980.

Also released as Doomed to Die. Before we begin, I would like to offer a disclaimer regarding the first scene of the movie: when visiting the Canadian side of Niagra Falls, you are not liable to be assassinated by blowgun. This seems quite likely in NYC though. The film stars Varna from Red Sonja, one of the guys from Cannibal Holocaust, and made by the guy who directed Nightmare Beach. The fellow who plays the main antagonist kind of reminds me of Richard Ramirez. The film involves a girl goes looking for her missing sister in the South Pacific and she hires a mercenary to join her. Cannibal hijinks ensue.

This isn’t quite a mondo film but it does set out to shock the viewers with outlandish tribal practices. A non-exhaustive list of such events shall follow: body-mod hook-suspension fetishistic rituals, dancing on coals, decapitating a crocodile, rotting body parts galore, decapitation, naughty no-no sex, snake blood dildo, and a violent masectomy.

The film spices things up a bit by including a mad cult leader that has riled up all the cannibals sort of like a Kurtz-ian character. He has turned all the women into sex slaves so this movie ends up being a bizarre mix of Cannibal Holocaust, Heart of Darkness, and weird “Christian” polygamist cult. Very interesting mix. It allows for a bit more plot development than you’d normally be able to get in these types of movies which is a nice change of pace. It also allows for a tribute to Jonestown that is almost rudely interrupted by police helicopters. It would have been cool to see a seen of a cult vs cop shoot-out but that was probably far too much for the budget. Oh well.

Music isn’t bad. There’s a rockin’ disco track at the beginning, lots of tribal drum beats, a touch of fuzzed out guitar, and not one but TWO cheesy uses of Bach’s Toccata in D minor. Special effects are passable. I like the crocodile attack on the river – you get the briefest glimpse of each shot which offers a chaotic feel, just as the characters would be experiencing. Blood is the classic fake bright red and the body parts the cannibals feast upon look about as real as you’d expect. Not super cheap but it’s obviously not real.

(Lots of) Blood, Breasts, and Beasts! A perfect film. The beasts are a bit abstracted by taking the form of violent animals and cannibals but I’ll allow it. For the record there is also Bush, Butt, Man-Butt, and I think a Willy. This is far more tame than something like Cannibal Holocaust but that’s not super hard to do to be fair. I think I would have appreciated a few extra mercenaries being hired as then you could kill them off on the way to the initial contact, allowing the locals to be presented as more brutal and give some extra opportunities for some good special effects. All in all I probably wouldn’t recommend it. It’s ultimately forgettable. I shall give it the shameful Zero Thumbs Up Seal of Proval. In a years time I will not even remember that I have watched this.