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Cannibal Ferox aka Make them Die Slowly (1981)
There are many films out there in the cannibal genre that are worth seeing with Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 classic Cannibal Holocaust being the paragon of the genre. Although not as good as Cannibal Holocaust that’s not to say that Ferox doesn’t hold it’s own among the others. It may not have the message that Holocaust has behind it, but it certainly has it’s mean spirited nature and effective gore scenes. The movie starts out with members of the mob (one of them played by Perry Pirkanen who appears as Jack Anders in Cannibal Holocaust) shooting a friend of a man named Mike because he apparently ripped them off for $100,000. Then we see the police on the scene of the murder, in which Lt. Rizzo (Robert Kerman, also from Cannibal Holocaust) takes on the case. From there we shift into a group of two girls (Gloria and Pat) and a guy (Rudy) going into the amazon so that Gloria can do her dissertation on cannibalism and if it exists or not.
Ferox was made to capitalize off of the success of Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust by Italian director Umberto Lenzi (Man from Deep River and Eaten Alive). Although the film doesn’t match up to Cannibal Holocaust, it is however a nice companion piece to it. The gore is excellent and of course there’s the over the top additional Mondo footage of animals killing each other supplemented throughout the film. Even though this is the case, I would have to say that although unpleasant, most of it is pretty quick and painless. However there are scenes of extreme violence in the movie that are much more effective and they aren’t even real. Not to give anything away, there is a rather interesting effect (even rivaling the bicycle seat scene from Cannibal Holocaust) having to do with two hooks and a certain part of the female anatomy.
Technically I really don’t have too many complaints with this as the acting is solid, the story although rather inferential of Cannibal Holocaust still differentiates enough, and the gore is top notch. I would definitely recommend this one for fans of the cannibal genre and I would probably put it right behind Holocaust as one of the best in that genre’s history. Overall, I would have to recommend it for gorehounds and cannibal movie fans, but the general horror movie fan may want to look into it or at least see Cannibal Holocaust before delving into this one.
Rating - **½
-Ed Demko
