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Cannibal ApocalypseRating:
Release Date: 19 March, 2002 Retail Price: $9.99 OUR Price: $9.99 You SAVE: $0.00! Cast: Complete Cast (11 total) |
Cannibal Apocalypse Reviews
Funny, but that's about it.
Cannibal Apocalypse (Antonio Margheriti, 1980)
Folks, I finally have the proof you need. Charles Bukowski may have been a drunk poet, but he was also... a flesh-eater!
Any film with a script by Dardano Sacchetti (Zombi 2) and directed by Antonio Margheriti (Andy Warhol's Dracula) is going to be either brilliant or brilliantly bad. While Cannibal Apocalypse does fall into the latter category, it's eminently watchable for the stupidity factor alone.
Poor John Saxon. He's made a lot of very, very bad movies over the years, but perhaps none have been so unmitigatedly awful as this. He plays an army sergeant who rescues two of his men from a Vietnamese POW camp, only to find they've turned into cannibals. Skip forward a few years. Saxon's character, Norman Hopper, is making horrible films like Atomic Cyborg and Hellmaster. No, wait; that was Saxon himself. Hopper is living in the suburbs with a trophy wife, Jane (Beyond the Door's Elizabeth Turner, in her final screen role), an even trophier girl next door, Mary, who wants to jump his bones (the stunning Cinzia de Carolis, of Virgin, Thy Name is Mary and Argento's The Cat o' Nine Tails), and a whole boxful of bad memories of Vietnam. One of the guys he rescued, Charlie Bukowski (Giovanni Radice, recently in Gangs of New York), has gotten out of the VA hospital on furlough and gives Hopper a ring to see if he wants to grab a beer. Hopper is in the midst of fending off Mary's advances, he goes into a flashback, interesting things happen that end up with Bukowski in a shootout with the cops and a biker gang in an auction house of the storefront variety. (No, folks, you can't make stuff like this up. You have to see it to believe it.)
Originally released in the US heavily cut under the title Invasion of the Flesh Hunters, Cannibal Apocalypse has finally made it to DVD in its original, uncut state. Okay, so in 1980 some of this may have been a little out there, but (still, as of 2004) banned in England? Sometimes I really have to wonder. It's not that extreme, certainly not in the same league as Cannibal Ferox. And I don't think being silly and stupid is considered a reason to ban movies yet.
And silly and stupid this thing is, but in the most fun way possible. Definitely worth it to watch John Saxon's wildly veering between overacting and underacting, and the predictable but pulled-off-with-aplomb minor plot twist in the final scene. Lots of fun, and probably a movie around which one could build a creditable drinking game. **
Preety good horror action movie.
Norman Hopper ( John Saxton from "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Enter the Dragon")is a former Vietnam vet living a normal life in Altanta Georgia with a wife. He still has painful memories with his times in Vietnam involving slaughtering some enemies and seeing cannibalism there, his war friend Charlie Bukowski ( John Morghen a.k.a. Giovanni Lombardo Radice from "City of the Living Dead" and " Cannibal Ferox")has been in the mental hospital for long and has been released. Charlie does have some kind of curse or virus in him still from Vietnam for a taste of human flesh as he unexpectedly takes a bite of flesh out of a person, now he is running from the authorities but suddenly the cannibalistic curse or virus also hits Hopper and another former vietnam vet named Tom are now on a campaign for cannibalism in the city to spread their disease.
Interesting and disgusting mix of horror and action from the director of Castle of Blood Antonio Margheriti. What makes it work is that there is some nasty gore scenes like the infamous shotgun wound scene and eating chunks out of human flesh, a cool if cheesy funk soundtrack with a war theme that almost sounds like the theme to "G.I. Joe", a grisly twist in the end and the film is also a metaphore on how the horrors of vietnam can affect a soldier and this is one of Quentin Taratino's personal faves.
The DVD has some very good extras like a documentary with the cast and director discussing about the film, two trailers, a video tour on the locations in Atlanta where the movie was filmed, cast and crew filmographies, a booklet, poster and still gallery and a text essay on the censorship of this movie when it came out here in the U.S. plus there is a hidden easter egg in the extras menu if you hit left on the word menu to see a trailer to the notorious cannibal epic "Cannibal Holocaust" which should come on R1 DVD sometime this year.
Also recommended: " Cannibal Ferox" ( a.k.a. Make Them Die Slowly), " Demons", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Dawn of the Dead" ( 1978 and 2004 versions), " Day of the Dead", " Jungle Holocaust", " Deep River Savages", " Caligula", " House By The Cemetery", "Rambo Trilogy", "Black Hawk Down", " Saving Private Ryan", " Platoon", " Apocalypse Now", "Nightmare City" ( a.k.a. City of the Walking Dead)", " Eaten Alive!", " Bad Boys 1 & 2", " Die Hard Trilogy", " The New York Ripper", "Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky", "Rabid Grannies", " The Toxic Avenger", " Maniac ( 1980)", "Scanners", "Videodrome", " The Crazies", "Outbreak", " Stephen King's The Stand", " Re-Animator", " Resident Evil", "Resident Evil Apocalypse", "Hell of the Living Dead" ( a.k.a. Night of the Zombies), and " The Beyond" ( a.k.a. 7 Doors of Death).
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