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Ruggero Deodato contributed the undeniably most brilliant film to the Cannibal sub-genre with his unequaled masterpiece "Cannibal Holocaust" of 1980. While "L'Ultimo Mondo Cannibale" aka. "Jungle Holocaust" of 1977 does not reach the brilliance of Deodato's masterpiece of three years later, this is still a highly atmospheric and at times stunning film that lovers of Italian cult cinema and sleaze should not miss. The aka. Title "The Last Cannibal World" is the correct translation of the original title and yet the title "Jungle Holocaust" fits the film very well. Like hardly another film, "Jungle Holocaust" accomplishes to show the jungle itself as hostile, unmerciful and menacing, and the film creates an atmosphere that is uniquely claustrophobic for a film entirely playing in nature. It is not only the cannibals here that are blood thirsty and primitive - the most grim thing in "Jungle Holocaust" is the pitiless jungle itself. While the film is of course ultra-violent and often disturbing, it is a bit tamer compared to other genre entries such as "Cannibal Holocaust" or "Cannibal Ferox", and often resembles a traditional adventure film - with the difference that this is filled with constant enormous sleaze and nauseating gore.
A group of four people have to land their plane somewhere in the middle of the Amazon jungle, one of them, a man called Robert (Massimo Foschi) is captured by a tribe of cannibals who still live like people in the stone age. His only hope to escape the savages, who eat human flesh, is a beautiful tribeswoman (Me Me Lai)...
The film makes a pretty good point about how a civilized man can be driven absolutely savage by being thrown into a world ruled by savagery. Even though the nauseating gore is not quite as omnipresent as it is the case with "Cannibal Holocaust" or Umberto Lenzi's "Cannibal Ferox" and "Mangiati Vivi", "Jungle Holocaust" is certainly not for the squeamish. The acts of violence are cruel and whenever gore is shown it is extremely nauseating. Bloodlust, mutilations, and, well... Cannibalism - it is all there and all shown in explicit detail. Animal protectors should also avoid the film, which arguably features more real animal killings than any other Cannibal movie. The sleaze level is also extremely high, Me Me Lai is the sexiest savage girl ever to appear on screen and she is naked throughout the movie (sometimes she's wearing a loincloth). Massimo Foschi delivers a very good leading performance, and the cast furthermore includes Italian Exploitation cult-actor Ivan Rassimov. As far as I am considered, this film is not nearly as memorable as "Cannibal Holocaust", which stands out as the unmatched masterpiece of the Italian Cannibal sub-genre, but "L'Ultimo Mondo Cannibale" is still an immensely atmospheric with some ingenious aspects that I highly recommend to all my fellow lovers of Italian Horror and exploitation cinema!
score 7/10
Witchfinder-General-666 2 May 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1867381/ |
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17-3-2021 00:05:08