Nudo e selvaggio (1985)

... aka: Amazonas (Amazon)

... aka: Cannibal Ferox II

... aka: Cannibal Inferno

... aka: Dinosauruslaakson tuho (Destruction of Dinosaur Valley)

... aka: Massacre in Dinosaur Valley

... aka: Naked and Wild

... aka: Prisonnières de la vallée des dinosaures (Prisoners of Dinosaur Valley)

... aka: Stranded in Dinosaur Valley

... aka: Valle sangriento (Bloody Valley)

... aka: Zagubieni w dolinie dinozaurów (Lost in the Valley of Dinosaurs)

Directed by:

"Michael E. Lemick" (Michele Massimo Tarantini)

Part of the problem with trying to watch, label and file away films into certain subgenres is that we have a tendency to take a minor trend or faint blip on the horror radar and expand it into something much larger than what it actually is. A good example of this is the Italian giallo. There are supposedly specific qualifiers a film has to meet to even be considered a giallo, yet if you look at a list of these films from genre "experts" you'll find tons of entries that don't fit the established criteria at all. Stretching too far beyond the parameters of a defined term, or ignoring them altogether, in an effort to exaggerate the relevance of something only succeeds in making the term lose all meaning. Some subgenres really are just small!

As a result of the above, we now have endless people running around calling every single Italian film that has mystery, thriller, crime and / or horror elements a giallo. If that's not annoying enough already, these same folks have expanded their scope to include basically all of Europe, and sometimes even North America and Asia, in a never ending quest to broaden that small subgenre. The major issue I have with this is that it can be a huge disservice to certain films, which are frequently panned not because they're bad but because they fail to meet viewer expectations due to being improperly categorized.

Another example is the zombie film. Just like Mario Bava had laid down the template for giallo back in the early 60s, George Romero did the same for the modern zombie film. I don't know about you, but when I sit down to watch one of these types of films, I want to see multiple flesh-eating revived corpses; preferably a large, threatening mob of them, and I want primary focus to be put on them. I don't want to pluck a title off a list only for it have one zombie featured in a scene or two. Movies like that should not be grouped together with the likes of DAWN OF THE DEAD and THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. It's not the same thing!

And that brings us back around to the, again mostly Italian, jungle cannibal film. This was a tiny little subgenre that emerged in the 70s and extended into the 80s (there have also been a handful of more recent revival attempts) that became popular due to their high levels of exploitative nudity, gore and real animal killings. To be considered, these films should, at the very least, prominently feature jungle cannibal tribes. In other words, a film concerning a family of human-meat consumers living in the suburbs doesn't count. Nor does a film like Massacre at Dinosaur Valley, which features a jungle tribe for all of 20 minutes and, here's the real kicker, has no scenes of cannibalism in it unless one counts a single brief shot of a native biting into a human heart.

Despite a few similarities, Massacre really shouldn't be in the same company as Italian gut-munchers like Cannibal Holocaust and Eaten Alive. The fact it usually is creates expectations that the film doesn't, and shouldn't have to (it didn't mis-categorize itself), meet. Distributors certainly haven't helped matters in this regard either, releasing this under numerous alternate titles like Cannibal Inferno and Cannibal Ferox II.

What we really have here is a mishmash of genres and tropes popular at this time, only done in a breezy, trashy, bloody and ultra-exploitative way. There's a little Indiana Jones, a little Romancing the Stone and a little surviving-the-elements adventure, with pinches of crime, prison and animal attack movies and, yes, a little bit of jungle tribe terror. Usually, the tone is lighthearted and campy, and there's plenty of goofy, good-natured humor. At other times it's incredibly sleazy, brutal, violent and mean-spirited. Don't ask me how, but it works if we're just talking pure brainless entertainment. It's also refreshing to see a movie with "massacre" in the title that, ya know, actually has a massacre and a high body count.

Things open at a hotel / bar in São Sebastião, Brazil where various characters arrive hoping to catch a small plane headed toward Manaus the following morning. There's paleontology professor and author Pedro Ibañez (Leonidas Bayer) and his lovely, strong-willed daughter, Eva (Suzane Carvalho), who are hoping to check out the famed "Valley of the Dinosaurs" while they're in the area. And then there's glamour photographer Robert (Andy Silas) and his two models; the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Belinda, played by Naomi Watts look-a-like Susan Hahn, and the brunette, dark-skinned beauty Monica, played by Mary Reis, in apparently her only film role - a shame!

Adding some hilarious moments to the mix are a miserable, always-bickering middle-aged couple who hate each other's guts. Captain John Heinz (Milton "Morris" / Rodríguez) is a 'Nam vet whose impotency has turned him into a volatile, controlling, hot-tempered asshole. His boozy wife, Betty (Marta Anderson), runs around dressed like Marilyn Monroe and doesn't help her husband's mental state any by constantly picking at his scabs, publicly humiliating him and brazenly flirting with other men. And what would our movie be without an intrepid, resourceful hero? We get one, a pretty good one at that, in Kevin Hall (Michael Sopkiw - AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK), a broke, unshaven "gringo" paleontologist and fossil hunter there to collect and study dinosaur bones. Though amiable, Kevin's the type whose smart mouth always gets him into trouble. He's even black and blue from a bar fight before facing any of this film's myriad horrors!

While flying over the Amazon jungle, where a vicious tribe called the Acuara are said to live, there's engine trouble and the plane is forced to crash land. Everyone is killed except for Kevin, Eva, John, Betty, Belinda and Rob, who are then forced to make their way by foot through the dangerous jungle. Perils they face along the way include leeches, snakes, piranha, crocodiles, quicksand, broken high heels and John's increasingly unhinged behavior. And yes, also the Acuaras, who eventually show up to slaughter some of the group (blowgun darts, arrows, heart cut out), and then kidnap Eva and Belinda, drag them back to their village, drug them, strip them and dress them in beaded loincloths and headbands. A witch doctor then perform a ceremony to summon their God, who shows up with a brontosaurus skull head and green clawed hands! Using gunpowder from shotgun shells as a distraction, Kevin manages to rescue the ladies before they can be sacrificed.

You'd think having to deal with a jungle full of deadly critters, a psycho war vet desperate to relive the good ole days of blastin' "gooks," a bloodthirsty tribe and some monstrous demigod would be enough for one film, but not this one! Kevin, Eva and Belinda are then discovered by China (Carlos Imperial), who lures them back to his emerald mining camp and then holds them hostage. They're beaten, tortured and tied up, but China promises if they behave themselves, he might show them mercy and put them to work as slaves. In the meantime, Kevin is tied up in a pig pen and the ladies are constantly threatened with rape, by both China and his sadistic lesbian henchwoman, Mayara (Gloria Cristal). Can Kevin mastermind a way to get them out of this predicament? And, if he does, will flying saucers then suddenly emerge from the sky and abduct he and his companions?

I've seen this a couple of times now and have always enjoyed it. It's not intended to change the world, it's intended to entertain with briskly-paced action, blood, gore, laughs and copious amount of female flesh. It provides all of that and does so with a knowing wink, while also having acceptable production values (nice locations, sets, props, costumes, etc.), decent cinematography, an enthusiastic cast and a rousing score, some of which was ported over from the previous year's Blastfighter. All of that makes this one of the better Italian trash flicks from this time.

I didn't find any evidence of a U.S. theatrical release, so most people probably first saw this when it popped up on VHS, courtesy of Lightning Video, in 1986. Its U. S. DVD debut came in 2004 via Media Blasters, who included an interview with, and a commentary track by, Sopkiw, as well as an interview with the director. The 2020 Blu-ray from Severin includes new interviews with Sopkiw and co-writer Dardano Sacchetti, as well as roughly ten minutes of deleted scenes. 88 Films out of the UK have also released it on Blu-ray, though their release is slightly cut. Though not credited, the busy Luciano Martino was one of the producers.

★★★

Island, The (1980)

... aka: Dødens farvann (Waters of Death)

... aka: Freibeuter des Todes (Privateer of Death)

... aka: Fruktans ö (Island of Fear)

... aka: Het Eiland der Verschrikking (The Island of Terror)

... aka: Les zombies de l'île sanglante (Zombies of the Bleeding Island)

... aka: L'île sanglante (The Bloody Island)

... aka: Rémségek szigete (Island of Horrors)

Directed by:

Michael Ritchie

Big things were expected from The Island back in 1980. For starters, it was another terror-on-the-high-seas concept based on a best-selling novel by Peter Benchley, whose previous novel Jaws became the basis for the #1 highest grossing film of the entire previous decade. Jaws producers David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck returned and Benchley was even able to adapt his own book. Second, The Island had a production budget of 22 million dollars. While that sounds like peanuts for a major studio release these days, it was quite a large budget back then, equivalent to over 90 million dollars when adjusted for inflation. For a reference point, consider the budget of The Empire Strikes Back, the top grossing film of 1980, was 18 million dollars, and the budget of The Shining, which rather famously took forever to be planned, cast and filmed due to Kubrick's meticulous nature and demand for massive sets to be constructed, was 19 million. Throw in a director who'd made several surprise hits the previous decade, a score from the ever-reliable Ennio Morricone, a well-known cast headlined by Michael Caine and a plot touching on the then-topical Bermuda Triangle myth and what do you get? Well, in this case, a financial bomb that received scathing reviews and the worst kind of press imaginable.

Upon release, The Island debuted at #4 at the box office and sunk pretty quickly after that. Critics lambasted the acting, the plot, the often-laughable dialogue, the bloated production and (most especially) the level of violence. Several of the actors (including Caine) refused to discuss the movie or help promote it. The film was also included in the very first Razzie Awards ceremony, receiving nominations for Worst Actor and Worst Director. And, in some strange way, already knowing much of the above going in and setting my expectations accordingly actually helped my enjoyment of this one somewhat.

A boat full of old rich guys get slaughtered somewhere in the Caribbean but there's no sign of the boat, wreckage or any bodies later. If this were an isolated incident, New York newspaper columnist Blair Maynard (Caine) probably wouldn't think much of it but, in just three years' time, 600 ships and several thousand people have vanished in the same area according to Coast Guard records. When John asks for funds from his editor to go to Florida to investigate, he's greeted with skepticism ("Bermuda Triangle bullshit!") but manages to talk him into it. Afterward, Maynard learns that his ex-wife has slipped town with her new boyfriend and left their 12-year-old son, Justin (Jeffrey Frank), in his care for the weekend. Maynard decides to take Justin along with him to Florida, figuring after he asks a few questions and snoops around they may have time to swing over to Disney World.

Upon arrival in Miami, Maynard charters a plane from the sketchy Stark (Brad Sullivan), whose half-burnt face red flags how successfully he's pulled off his previous flights, to get them to the barely-populated island of Navidad located deep within "the asshole of the Western world." Stark manages to get them there... barely. The plane blows up soon after skidding down the runway with the wheels still up, prompting local cop Westcott (Zakes Mokae) to arrest the pilot until he can be compensated for the damages. The following morning, Maynard and Justin are able to charter a boat from Dr. Windsor (Frank Middlemass) to go fishing. While out on the ocean, the two run across a young girl floating in the water and, next thing they know, they're being attacked, knocked out and awakening somewhere else entirely.

The island of the title is an uncharted one lost in a sea of over 1200 others that's populated by a fairly large group of dirty, rotten-toothed buccaneers who have somehow managed to avoid civilization for the past 300+ years. Of course, they're also the ones who've been responsible for the rash of disappearances; attacking various boats, pillaging their goods, killing most of the adults and kidnapping the children to add to their ranks. Due to the amount of inbreeding over the years, most of the pirate population is infertile, so they must replenish their numbers by kidnapping whatever children they can get their hands on, as well as some of the more youthful adult females to use as "breeding stock."

The pirates (played almost exclusively by British character actors) speak broken, sometimes incoherent English with some Spanish words and some seemingly made-up words sprinkled throughout their banter, often making their gibberish a real headache to get through. The society has a majority-rule democratic governance of sorts, as well as a guide book of laws they call "Covenant". The book claims that that "A child shall lead" them and pirate chieftain John David Nau (David Warner) starts to suspect that child may be Justin because he shares a last name with the man who killed Blackbeard and thus may be one of his descendants. Justin is promptly separated from his father and goes through a torture / brainwashing regime conducted by Hizzoner (Colin Jeavons).

Meanwhile, Caine's character has to make amends for his past actions. Prior to blacking out, he had shot and killed one of the pirate men and is now required to take that man's place. That also means taking over husbandly duties and impregnating the now-widowed Beth (Angela Punch McGregor). After he's nursed back to health, Caine is shackled in the woman's hut, walked around on a chain like a dog on a leash, gets a Vaseline handjob (!) and is basically treated like a sex slave. Maynard, a Korean War vet who possesses some survivalist skills, attempts several unsuccessful escapes and somehow manages to avoid being executed despite constant threats of such. Developing feelings for him, Beth becomes somewhat of an ally and helps save him multiple times, but will he be able to escape and find a way to deprogram his son, who has now been turned against him?

I've seen some cinematic tonal nightmares in my day, but this about takes the cake! Part of the time it feels like a kid's adventure movie. The entire set-up of a busy career man and his estranged son trying to reconnect over holiday, which takes up most of the first half hour, has been used a number of times in various family movies. In addition, quite a bit of focus is put on the juvenile characters, there are dumb gags involving things like stinky feet, cartoon-like scalawags constantly acting goofy and mugging for the camera and out-of-left-field attempts at humor, including an embarrassing scene where the pirates attack a schooner transporting cocaine and have to do battle with some martial artist who makes kung fu movie "hee-ya!" noises as he fights (!)

Needless to say, none of the above blends well with the more adult-oriented content. There's nudity, sex, a high body count, slasher-style gore murders with hatchets going into heads, throats being slashed and an bloody axe disembowelment, kidnapping, drugs, and even jellyfish nipple torture. Sometimes the film seems like it wants to be taken seriously, at other times it doesn't, and there are many scenes where you have no clue what kind of tone they were even shooting for. That's especially obvious in a bit where the pirates slaughter an entire Coast Guard crew, which is set to heroic-sounding swashbuckling music and - I think - was supposed to be funny. I'm also not sure if the finale, featuring Caine mowing down nearly the entire supporting cast with a machine gun Rambo-style, is supposed to be hilarious or not, though it is.

On the plus side, the Antigua and Barbuda locations are nicely-photographed by Henri Decaë, the production values are lavish and the art direction, costumes (from Ann Roth, who'd later win two Oscars), props and such are all good. The action scenes are proficiently directed and edited and the cast (also including Don Henderson, Dudley Sutton and Reg Evans as pirates) isn't terrible. So while this can certainly be considered a misfire, it's at least not a boring one.

As is the case with most other major studio films, this has been well-distributed on the global home video market ever since its 1981 VHS debut on the MCA label. Universal gave the film a DVD release in 2011 as part of their "Vault Series" and that was followed by a 2012 Blu-ray release from Shout! Factory. Both of these releases are bare bones with no notable special features, which I suppose is to be expected when it comes to a bastard stepchild movie that most of the key players would rather forget.

★★