Cannibal Films - History

History

Movies similar to the cannibal genre certainly were not rare before the 1970s, as rain forest adventure films were often found popular in cinema (such as with the Tarzan movies of the 30s and 40s starring Johnny Weissmuller). Some of these films even included primitive, and in some cases, alleged cannibal tribes, and could be seen as the prototype for the modern cannibal film. One movie that can almost be definitively linked as the predecessor to the cannibal genre is Cornel Wilde's 1966 film The Naked Prey, which involved a white man being chased by a tribe of natives because his safari group offended their chief.

Another influential film on this genre was the 1970 Richard Harris western A Man Called Horse which, although it involved non-cannibalistic Native Americans, was about a civilized white man being captured by, and forced to live with, a tribe of savages, during which time he comes to respect, and strives to join, his captives. The basic plot of Man From Deep River is almost a scene-for-scene swipe from that film, merely substituting rain forest cannibals for the American Indians.

The sub genre as it is known today was officially started with Italian director Umberto Lenzi's 1972 film Man from Deep River. Man from Deep River was released in New York City as Sacrifice!, and was a 42nd street hit. This film inspired several other similar films to be made during the late 70s, a period identified by genre fans as the "cannibal boom". Included in these films are Ruggero Deodato's Last Cannibal World (Jungle Holocaust in the U.S.A.), Sergio Martino's The Mountain of the Cannibal God, and a few films by Joe D'Amato starring Laura Gemser.

A large number of cannibal films were made in 1980, making it the most successful year for the genre. In February 1980, Ruggero Deodato released Cannibal Holocaust, probably the best known cannibal film. Its graphic and unrelenting violence and exploitation is believed to have caused audiences to realize how repugnant most of these films really were, and inevitably, the popularity of the genre began to decline. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), Cannibal Holocaust was an enormous success; it is sometimes claimed to have accumulated a 200,000,000 USD worldwide box-office gross, though this has not been verified and the true gross may never be known. Lenzi would also contribute to the genre in 1980 with Mangiati Vivi (Eaten Alive), and again in 1981 with the notorious Cannibal Ferox (Make Them Die Slowly), but by then, however, the genre was beginning to fade, and only a few other obscurities were made until Mondo film director Antonio Climati was considered to have put an end to the genre in 1988 with the film Natura Contro, which is also known as an unofficial sequel to Cannibal Holocaust (it has an alternate title of Cannibal Holocaust II). Other similar films were made with a straight-to-video release afterward, most notably films by horror hack director Bruno Mattei.

The genre is heavily indebted to Mondo cinema, which similarly aimed to shock audiences with exotic customs and graphic violence. A common premise is of the cannibal films is that mondo filmmakers (as in Cannibal Holocaust) or anthropologists (in Cannibal Ferox) from a "civilized" country enter a jungle and runs afoul of cannibalistic natives. Ironically, many have an anti-imperialist slant to them, as in the films, the "civilized" Westerners are the first to perpetrate extreme cruelty and violence upon the natives. The cannibals, in turn, reap revenge by inflicting the same form of barbarism on the Westerners. A few are set in modern urban centers with cannibalism practiced secretly, as in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals and Zombie Holocaust (which was the first film to mix the cannibal genre with the then-popular "zombie film").