Just a few scares and some other titillations today. Last night I took in a double feature, starting with Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (aka Trap Them and Kill Them) (1977) a bloody Italian sexploitation romp from one of the of gurus of the style, Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'Amato). I'd heard of its cult reputation from this book and sought out a copy. It manages to straddle the fence between a couple of other films on that list: the 70s gauzy "softcore porn in exotic locales" of Emmanuelle (1974) -- yeah, right down to cribbing the name -- and the low-budget, stomach-churning savagery of Cannibal Holocaust, which actually came along a couple years later in 1979.
For better or worse, depending on your tastes, Last Cannibals leans heavily toward pornyness until the final somewhat gruesome 30 minutes or so. The story involves a supermodel/"journalist" and her dashing anthropologist-cum-inamorato who think they may have rediscovered what was thought to be an extinct tribe of cannibals in the Amazon jungle. They decide it would be very smart to trek into the jungle and...I don't really know...make the cannibals try some spicy pad thai with tofu? It doesn't really matter, we know they're probably going to die, right?
Along the way Emanuelle and her beau encounter a "virginal" missionary's daughter, a token black guide who is perpetually shirtless, and a horny husband and wife roughing it out in the jungle, among others. Basically they are all thrown together and go deep into the bush -- yes, that means two things -- until they finally meet the natives and people start getting picked off in grisly fashion.
On of my favorite moments comes when the hunter, McKenzie, and his sluttish wife sneak away from the rapidly-dwindling group with ulterior motives in mind. Note the awesomely cheesy music and the bonerrific sound effects when they make their discovery:
Surprisingly, finding jewels in the jungle next to aircraft wreckage is one of the least silly reasons that the characters find to remove their clothes. Not that I'm complaining. Again, this has Italian B-Movie sexploitation written all over it
Things really pick up around that point and there are plenty of not-for-the-faint-of-heart moments at the end. If you're going down this path and looking for bloodthirsty barbarism you'll find a fair share here, but you're better off turning to Cannibal Holocaust. It is a much more frightening film, with a much better setup presented around the idea of "Is it real?!" found footage, making it a spiritual precursor to The Blair Witch Project. However, it also suffers by going perhaps a bit too over the top. While all of the human violence is (thankfully) staged, a number of animals were actually slaughtered while the cameras were rolling, including very gruesome end for a large river turtle. Either film would provide a fair bit of stomach-churning viewing this month, but with Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals you're getting a lot more banging for your buck.
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