Mountain of the Cannibal God

Rating:
Summary: Complete version of a B-movie classic..
Review: Let me start off by saying that I first saw this film many, many years ago. As a kid, I was blessed to have access to a tv station that held weekly horror and b-movie marathons, presenting many controversial films such as this one uncut and uncensored. So it was with fond memories that I sat down to watch this DVD that once again Anchor Bay has done a fine job with.
This film has been circulating with many different titles containing many different edits for several years known alternatively as Prisoner of the Cannibal God, Slave of the Cannibal God and Mountain of the Cannibal God. For hardcore cinephiles be advised that this is the most complete print containing many shocking scenes that were previously excised. This print is a full four minutes longer than the Slave of the Cannibal God print.
Now onto the film itself, I must agree with the majority of viewers in that I find the animal cruelty despicable and reprehensible, however even the most casual viewer of italian cannibal films knows that this is an unfortunate staple of these films starting with Umberto Lenzi's and Ruggero Deodato's epic cannibal films. Once you get past the horrible animal scenes in this film, you are left with a nicely crafted and reasonably well acted film that benefits greatly from the wonderful cinematography and exotic locales of Sri Lanka.
Though slow at times, the characters are interesting especially Andress and Keach, there is a good deal of action and intrigue and the gore and nudity is plentiful, though not as graphic as the softcore cannibal film Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals. This film is certainly more enjoyable and watchable than bottom of the barrel trash like Cannibal Ferox and Eaten Alive.
The plot is simple enough: A beautiful young woman is escorted through the jungles to search for her missing and presumed dead husband, instead the search party encounters a vicious cannibal clan long thought to be extinct.
Again, I must reiterate that these films are an acquired taste but for someone looking for a good, gory and somewhat sleazy b-movie this just might fit the bill.
Anchor Bay presents this film letterboxed with theatrical trailer, photo gallery and a documentary with the director reminiscing about his film and its stars.

Rating:
Summary: Complete version of a B-movie classic..
Review: Let me start off by saying that I first saw this film many, many years ago. As a kid, I was blessed to have access to a tv station that held weekly horror and b-movie marathons, presenting many controversial films such as this one uncut and uncensored. So it was with fond memories that I sat down to watch this DVD that once again Anchor Bay has done a fine job with.
This film has been circulating with many different titles containing many different edits for several years known alternatively as Prisoner of the Cannibal God, Slave of the Cannibal God and Mountain of the Cannibal God. For hardcore cinephiles be advised that this is the most complete print containing many shocking scenes that were previously excised. This print is a full four minutes longer than the Slave of the Cannibal God print.
Now onto the film itself, I must agree with the majority of viewers in that I find the animal cruelty despicable and reprehensible, however even the most casual viewer of italian cannibal films knows that this is an unfortunate staple of these films starting with Umberto Lenzi's and Ruggero Deodato's epic cannibal films. Once you get past the horrible animal scenes in this film, you are left with a nicely crafted and reasonably well acted film that benefits greatly from the wonderful cinematography and exotic locales of Sri Lanka.
Though slow at times, the characters are interesting especially Andress and Keach, there is a good deal of action and intrigue and the gore and nudity is plentiful, though not as graphic as the softcore cannibal film Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals. This film is certainly more enjoyable and watchable than bottom of the barrel trash like Cannibal Ferox and Eaten Alive.
The plot is simple enough: A beautiful young woman is escorted through the jungles to search for her missing and presumed dead husband, instead the search party encounters a vicious cannibal clan long thought to be extinct.
Again, I must reiterate that these films are an acquired taste but for someone looking for a good, gory and somewhat sleazy b-movie this just might fit the bill.
Anchor Bay presents this film letterboxed with theatrical trailer, photo gallery and a documentary with the director reminiscing about his film and its stars.

Rating:
Summary: The cannibal genre exposed!
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: OK for the price
Review: Not exactly the greatest thing I have ever seen, the biggest problem being that it is just plain boring, I found that it actually got more boring the further it went. The final twenty minutes or so are excruciating. Some good gore could have probably made it more interesting, but the effects are [junk]. The picture is actually pretty good, better than some full price releases(Anchor Bay's [poor] release of ZOMBIE comes to mind) and the mono soundtrack is OK too, strangely some surround effects suddenly appear in one scene for about five seconds and then disappear never to be heard again. There is plenty of animal butchery and animal against animal violence which is unpleasant to say the least, but the way it is inserted into some of the scenes is actually quite funny. As far as cannibal films go this is pretty average, but fairly watchable. The way the story pans out is actually very similar to a movie called PRIMATIVES if that means anything to anyone. Extra star for the price. The DVD case has the running time at 86 minutes, but it actually runs about 95.

Rating:
Summary: Cannibal feast
Review: Ok, I get started.

I saw the last 10 minutes of this flick on my local Tv and when I saw the lead girl I thought wow she's a beauty.

She was getting stripped and painted with blood to prepare her to be the cannibals godness and to sent her to her dead husband who she was looking.

When I saw that the flick was avaliable on Dvd I immediatly ordered.It has a good and reasonable prize and was full of extras and contains the restored version of the film uncut and uncensored.

Susan Stevenson(Andress) fly to New Guinea to find her missing husband who were on a expedition to find a sacred mountain full of cannibals and uranium.

The British consulate refuses helping her because of political issues,they led to a mysterious man Dr Edward Foster(a young Stacy Keach) a colleague of her husband and former expiditioner.

She convinces him to help her and organizes a expedition to find her husband.

When there they are attacked by animals,traps and loose all their men until they met Manolo and saves Susan from a cannibal.

In a helpful village they rested until another cannibal and former expeditioner kills a native girl and hurts Edward on his knee.

Instead of this flaw he decides to go further after the villagers expulse them from the village.

In the climb in the waterfalls Arthur doesn't help Edward and he feels down and dies.

When Manolo knows the true intentions of the mission they are captured by the cannibals.

The cannibals kills Arthur and eat all his flesh and keep Manolo tied up.

Finally they escaped via the river.

The flick contains graphic violence and sex equally given.

Rating:
Summary: OK Italian Cannibal feast
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Good for the novice
Review: 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.






Rating:
Summary: Jungle Exploration: A Cannibalistic Meat-N-Greet
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Slave of the Cannibal Gods Hungry Review
Review: This film is not for week-stomachs or queasy tendencies. It's one adventure after another and has some intense, suspensful moments. It's very raw and Ursula Andress' beauty is stunning. I enjoyed the many obstacles the characters encountered in the jungle and thought the Andress' role was very convincing. She was so graceful amongst the dangers of the jungle and shined like diamonds although she had been captured by the Cannibals. A key scene, I might add, where she is stripped down and forced to participate in cannibal acts! She is the ultimate survivor!

Rating:
Summary: PETA Members Alert!
Review: This is a typical piece of Italian "animal torture" garbage! Please avoid purchasing this at all costs so that DVD companies will not reproduce this type of sadistic trash. This film demonstrates acts of animal cruelty that would make a Nazi grin with glee.