Anthropophagus
Italy 1980. Director: Joe D'Amato
Cast: George Eastman, Tisa Farrow, Zora Kerova, Serena Grandi
Aka: The Grim Reaper

This is Joe D'Amatos most infamous movie. Some people I know even consider it to be the director's best film. Strange that. It's almost worthless.

A couple of young kids (yea, right) are on vacation outside Greece, when they decide to spend the night in a big solitary castle on a seemingly deserted island. Not a good idea. Soon they become victims of a bloodthirsty cannibal (George Eastman). This cannibal used to be a man who many years ago was stuck in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean and was forced to eat his wife and kid to survive. After this traumatic experience the cannibal now wanders around the island in search for more human flesh. And to his luck, a couple of lousy actors just arrived at lunch time.

Opportunistic hacker D'Amato must have forgotten half of his equipment back home in Rome as the film both look and sound awful. But that doesn't really matter. What matters is the many provocative and bloody effects. Oh yea, this is the deal. Like when the cannibal rips out the foetus from a pregnant Serena Grandi. And eats it. It's painfully close to bad taste even by D'Amato's standards. Serena Grandi (here using the pseudonym Vanessa Steiger), later became a popular supermodel and I'm sure this her cinematic début is carefully erased from her CV. Another highlight is when the cannibal is ripped open by a spear and starts to eat his own intestines. And then we haven't yet mentioned the scalpings and the people having their eyes poked out by sharp sticks. It's all impressively creative, but in the end the film is like the character of the title. Brutal, primitive and pretty damn ugly.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.