Grindhouse Weekly: ‘Cannibal Ferox’ (1981)

This week in the grindhouse we’ll be exploring one of the darkest and most deplorable sub-genres of exploitation known as the cannibal film. These sick little films were made popular with such entries as Cannibal Holocaust and the film we’re going to look at today, Cannibal Ferox. Known for being banned in many countries due to their extreme scenes of graphic violence, torture, and real animal killing, these films are among some of the hardest to watch, and nearly impossible to enjoy.

Cannibal Ferox was directed by Umberto Lenzi, and like many other cannibal films of the late 70s and early 80s, was an Italian production taking place in the Amazon. The premise is fairly simple: A group of white people head into the jungle to disprove the fact that cannibals exist only to find that cannibals do exist, however it’s our own civilization that makes them that way. Though there were similar themes in Cannibal Holocaust, this film makes everything much more overt and on the nose. There’s no room for subtext in this movie, just a ton of horrific imagery.

The issue many have with these types of films is that many scenes will be shocking just for the sake of shock. Unfortunately such is the case with Cannibal Ferox, which features more animal torture and killing than Ted Nugent’s house on a Sunday afternoon. While some may argue that the scenes featured are simply just “nature,” to me, there’s nothing about tying a mongoose to a stick and letting an anaconda slowly kill and eat it that screams “Hey, this should be on Nat Geo!”

Showing scenes like this add absolutely nothing to the story, and are only present in order to push the envelope further. That being said, the filmmakers certainly succeeded in what they were aiming to do, which was to shock, nauseate, and infuriate the audience. This resulted in a 31 country ban on the film, which of course, they touted in their marketing campaign.

Animal killing aside, while the violence is extreme, it’s nothing that most haven’t seen before. If everything wasn’t so poorly acted, some of the scenes would be truly disturbing, however the ridiculous dialogue and overacting will handily pull most viewers out of the film.

Where Cannibal Holocaust is the king of the cannibals, Cannibal Ferox is like the less accomplished son, constantly living in his father’s shadow. The one thing people may prefer in this one however, is that there is a more cohesive storyline. Rather than providing a fake documentary angle in order to make it seem more real, this film makes an attempt at establishing relationships and introducing a back-story for the characters. This isn’t done very well, however, and Holocaust still feels like the better movie.

It’s hard to recommend Cannibal Ferox to anyone for any reason. Like Faces of Death, it could be looked at as sort of a morbid curiosity, however it is a thoroughly unpleasant experience and not a very good movie either. If there was ever a doubt that movies have gone soft in recent years, this film (and others like it) will certainly put that to rest.