31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 16 - Jungle Holocaust

Jungle Holocaust aka The Last Survivor aka The Last Cannibal World aka Ultimo Mondo Cannibale

88 mins.

Dir. Ruggero Deodato

1977/Italy

We are about the half way point so far, thanks to those that have stuck with me so far.  Hopefully you have watched some good movies you have not seen before.  So far we have seen plenty of gore, resurrected children, our childhood show bastardized, vampires, bigfoot, gothic horror and sea creatures.  With the two stand outs for me being Fragile and Shrew's Nest.  Tonight, if you dare, we head into the jungle with the Last Cannibal World.

Be forewarned, this is an Italian Cannibal film, so it is ugly and dirty and filled with scenes you most likely don’t want to see in the forms of animal cruelty.  Sadly most of those scenes were added in by the producer after the film was shot.  However, that is life amongst cannibals in the jungle.  This isn’t no safe Green Inferno type movie.

A small plane with four passengers crashes into the jungle of Mindanao.  As they get out to explore two of them are picked off by a cannibal tribe, leaving the only two white people, Rolf and Robert to find a way out of the jungle and avoid the cannibals.  After building a quite impressive raft they head down the river only to have the raft crash amongst the rapids and get separated.   The movie then mostly follows the exploits of Robert as he eats poisonous mushrooms and eventually gets captured by the cannibal tribe.

Striped naked and thrown in a cell for days or weeks, he is just waiting his time to be eaten while being abused by the young-ins in the cannibal tribe, who throw rocks at him and piss on him.  With the help of the most beautiful cannibal of all (Me Me Lai, who also starred in Eaten Alive and Sacrifice) he is able to make his escape.  Eventually they run into Rolf (played by Ivan Rassimov who starred in plenty Italian films like Eaten Alive, Emmanuelle Around the World, Shock, Emmanuelle in Bangkok, Sacrifice, All the Colors of the Dark and Planet of the Vampires) who has been surviving in a cave all this time with an injured leg.  Reunited once again, Rolf and Robert attempt to make their way back to the plane and escape.  Once again the Cannibal tribe catches up with them as they barely make it to the plane and take off, but at the expense of losing Me Me Lai, who suffers the worst fate and gets in eaten in much the same way she does in Eaten Alive.

Booby traps, guy gets his arm sliced up, then ants poured on it eating the flesh to the bone, a cannibal gives birth, bites the umbilical cord and then throws the baby in the river to get eaten by a stock footage crocodile, rape, decapitation, murder, cannibalism, this one packs a punch.  Despite all that it is still not as notorious as his follow up, Cannibal Holocaust.

And talk about acting, Massimo Foschi who plays Robert really had to endure a lot out in the jungle for the role.  Vomting green goo, being covered in mud and sweat, have your dick yanked on by a bunch of natives and pretend to eat someone’s guts that may have been made of who knows what.  All in a days work I guess.  And what is it about these Cannibal movies that they always have such a good soundtrack theme?  No social commentaries here, just one man’s survival in the wild jungle where he is on the run.  Oh and it’s a true story.  Not really, but they played it off that way to have more of an impact on the 70s audience.  Like Cannibal films?  Jungle Holocaust has everything you need to make this one a winner.