JUNGLE HOLOCAUST (a.k.a. The Last Cannibal World) ***** Italy 1977 Dir: Ruggero Deodato. 97 mins
Ruggero Deodato’s cult Cannibal film see’s an oil prospector escape from capture by a primitive cannibal tribe in the Philippine rain forest and heads out to locate his missing companion and their plane to return home.
A small passenger plane carrying a tour guide, his daughter, Robert Harper (Massimo Foschi), and his buddy Rolf (Ivan Rassimov), crash land in the jungle in New Guinea.
Nightfall comes round quick and the guides daughter needs to vacate the plane to go to the toilet, they wait until daylight and go looking for her. The guide is killed by a tribe of cannibals, and the two men run for their lives from cannibals. One of the men is captured by a primitive tribe, subjected to weeks of torture and slowly driven to madness.
Tribe woman (played by actress Me Me Lai) forms an unlikely bond to Robert, and they manage to escape the clutches of the tribe. Robert keeps the tribal woman prisoner but soon they form a even stronger friendship, an untimely bond, and together they hunt for the other survivor and find the plane to try and escape the jungle with the odds against them, as they are hunted by blood thirsty cannibals and primitive tribes.
Ruggero Deodato went on to direct one of the most brutal and horrific horror films, and one, if not the first found footage horror film ever made “Cannibal Holocaust”. The cult classic video nasty Jungle Holocaust set the foundations for the masterpiece that is Cannibal Holocaust.
Jungle Holocaust shows off director Ruggero Deodato’s skills as a visionary director. No, Jungle Holocaust isn’t as good as “Cannibal Holocaust” as that film is one of the best films ever to grace the cinematic screen, but this is a very good and thrilling piece of celluloid that will keep you gripped to the back of your seat to the very end!
This film is pure grindhouse heaven. It’s brutal, it’s shocking, seeing guts and intestines ripped from the body, new born babies being thrown to alligators for food and full frontal nudity. I mean this really is all out balls 70’s exploitation right here!
If you are a fan of Mondo style films and like your horror with grotesque gore, you will love this timeless horrific exploitation/thriller!
Review by Tony Newton
JUNGLE HOLOCAUST (a.k.a. The Last Cannibal World) is available on Amazon