Cannibals (1980)

(AKA: White Cannibal Queen - Mondo Canibale - The Cannibals)

My rating - 4/10

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While sailing along a jungle river a family are attacked by cannibals. The mother is eaten, the father loses his arm in the fight and their young daughter is taken. Years later the father assembles a small group to go back to the jungle to find out what happened to his daughter only to find she's now the tribes queen.

At the top of the cannibal movie genre you have the likes of Cannibal Holocaust and Last Cannibal World. At the opposite end you have the likes of Cannibal Terror and this Jess Franco insanity. The cannibals are just locals with painted faces, in one scene you can clearly see a gold wedding ring on one of them. The acting and dialogue are bad and the gore is cheap and hardly convincing. Even though Al Cliver's character is supposed to have lost his arm in some scenes you can clearly see it tied behind his back, especially during one fight scene in a river.

Director Jess Franco made it clear that he hated the cannibal genre and didn't want to make this film, and it shows. It's pretty lazy and you get the feeling a lot of stuff was done in one take as he just couldn't be bothered to do a sceond. Sabrina Siani is very pretty as the adult Lana, but she definitely wasn't hired for her acting skills. Honestly though, and despite not having much good to say about this one, I do find it strangely watchable. Maybe that's because I like looking for all the little mistakes it has to offer and I seem to find new ones on each viewing.

An awful film and one I definitely don't recommend unless you're a fan of bad Euro horror. If you've also seen Cannibal Terror then you'll notice that both films use the same locations and even some of the same scenes are edited into both movies to save money.

SCREEN SHOTS

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