Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali (1977)

... aka: Bloody Track
... aka: Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals
... aka: Emanuelle's Amazon Adventure
... aka: Trap Them and Kill Them

Directed by:
Joe D'Amato

Going undercover as a patient, New York Evening Post reporter Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) uses a camera hidden inside a doll to document proof of some unprofessional behavior going down in a mental asylum. One of the patients (Cindy Leadbetter), who was found crazed at the edge of a jungle, rips a nurse's breast off and eats it. As it turns out, the nurse is "well known for her homosexual inclinations" and has been sexually molesting patients. While going through pictures, Emanuelle notices a strange tattoo on the boob-eater's belly. The symbol is indicative of an ancient Amazonian cannibal tribe who were long thought to be extinct. Emanuelle's boss thinks this has the makings of a great story, so he sends Emanuelle to meet with famous anthropologist Mark Lester (Gabriele Tinti), who's now working as the curator of the American Natural History Museum. Mark invites Emanuelle out to lunch, then takes her back to his apartment to show her some black-and-white footage of African cannibals busy at work castrating, decapitating and consuming human flesh. Being the "free woman" she is, Emanuelle doesn't let visions of a native gnawing down on a penis deter her from immediately hopping into the sack with Mark.

Don't ask how (*wink*), but Emanuelle is able to quickly convince Mark to lead the expedition into the Amazonian jungle. The two fly down South, meet up with plantation owner Wilkes (Geoffrey Copleston) and then learn that Wilkes' blonde teenage daughter Isabelle (Mónica Zanchi) and her nun friend Sister Angela (Annamaria Clementi), will be headed into the jungle the following day to drop off supplies at a mission run by Father Morales. All four decide to go ahead and make the trip together. Along with guides Felipe and Manolo, the group load up their supplies, hop on a boat and travel down the river for a 5 to 6 day journey to the mission. On one stop, Emanuelle and Isabelle (who'd already spied on her guests having sex the night before) take their opportunity to scrub each other down in a lake while a chimpanzee goes through their things, smokes one of their cigarettes and tries on their sunglasses.

When evening starts to fall, they dock their boat and come ashore. Emanuelle is attacked by a boa constrictor and is saved by Donald McKenzie (Donald O'Brien), a big game hunter whose camp isn't far from there. He offers to let them stay at his camp but warns that the mission they were heading to has already been attacked by savages who killed everyone there. After meeting Donald's neglected wife Maggie ("Susan Scott" / Nieves Navarro), who's having an affair with their black guide Salvadore (Percy Hogan) because her husband is impotent, Mark decides it would be best if they head back. After all, he doesn't want to put Isabelle and Sister Angela in any danger. Before anyone can go anywhere, one of the Indians is found dead and gutted. Their boat also turns up missing, so there's no way back to civilization other than walking through the jungle, where they encounter snakes, leeches, quicksand and other dangers along the way.

Naturally, the cannibal tribe eventually catches up to them and even set up booby traps throughout the jungle. The other Indian guide is impaled by one. While wandering off into the brush, the nun is abducted. The cannibals strip her naked, cut off her nipple and eat it and then slice open her stomach and eat her guts. Because they're actually in the jungle trying to find a crashed airplane rumored to have been carrying diamonds, Donald and Maggie wander off from the group and end up running across the tribe, who spear him in the shoulder and drag her back to their village. The rest of the gang then must find the village and try to save Maggie before it's too late. They split up into two groups. The group of Donald, Isabelle and Salvadore doesn't do so hot as Salvadore is speared to death and the other two join Maggie at cannibal central. Donald gets pulled in two during a game of tug-o-war with a wire and his wife gets her organs passed around camp after getting slice from her vagina up to her torso. Probably because she's a blonde, Isabelle is drugged and gang raped by the entire tribe, who want to sacrifice her to their water goddess. In a last ditch effort to save her, Emanuelle strips nude, paints the water goddess symbol on her stomach and goes in the village to retrieve her "sacrifice."

Combining an Emanuelle soft-core flick with a jungle / cannibal horror-adventure was actually a great idea since these were both very popular in Europe at the time. This probably did pretty well in theaters, as it delivers precisely what one would expect of this particular combo. There's loads of nudity and sex (mostly confined to the first half) and plenty of bloody violence (mostly confined to the second half). The dubbing and dialogue are both terrible, mismatched stock footage is often used for the jungle and gators and there's an extremely annoying song ("Make Love on the Wing") that plays over and over again, but that's not gonna bother the target audience for this thing in the least.

It was originally released in the U.S. under the title Trap Them and Kill Them since the Emanuelle brand name wasn't much of a sell here in the States. It also used to play late night television as Emanuelle's Amazon Adventure. Both versions were missing some of the more graphic sex and violence. The Blue Underground DVD is uncut.

D'Amato, who also co-wrote and photographed, has a cameo as a psychiatrist in one of the first scenes. The end credits claim it was filmed in Brazil, but it was actually filmed entirely in New York City and Italy.

★★