Italian Horror Blogathon: Anthropophagus (aka Antropophagus, Anthropophagous: The Beast, The Grim Reaper, Man Eater, The Savage Island)

Directed by the infamous Aristide Massaccesi (better known as Joe D’Amato, which is the name I will refer to throughout the rest of this piece) and containing a gleefully maniacal performance from Luigi Montefiori (better known as George Eastman; again, the name I will use throughout this piece), Anthropophagus is one of the most notorious Italian horror films. Unfortunately, it’s not very good. When one sees “Directed by Joe D’Amato” at the beginning of the film, the expectations drop, and everything from that point on becomes, “okay, that’s not so bad…I mean, it is Joe D’Amato.” Anthropophagus is no different. The film is excruciatingly boring, but for a Joe D’Amato film it’s nice that the film isn’t littered with awful sex scenes. There’s a lot of wandering around by the characters, but for a Joe D’Amato film, it’s nice that the characters are walking around surrounded by a moody atmosphere instead of spouting off horrid dialogue. Anthropophagus – despite its reputation as being one of the nastiest of the “Video Nasty” films – is quite tame throughout save for two scenes as it is more about tone than visceral gore. If there’s one thing I can say about Anthropophagus, it’s that at least old Joe is trying here. But even when the man is trying, his films are still chores to get through.

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Italian Horror: A Primer

Now that I’m on my third year of hosting this-here blogathon, I figured now would be as good a time as any to write up a proper introduction to the subgenre I love so much. I have invited many people to participate in this humble project the last couple of years, and one of the things I love hearing most is that people were introduce to Italian horror through this blogathon. I hear quite often that people were always apprehensive to try out Italian horror because they knew so little about it (aside from the fact that narrative structure was meaningless). Inevitably, whenever I hear from or read something by someone that encounters Italian horror for the first time, it’s almost always in the vein of, “Wow, that looked really great – it was illogical and frustrating at times – but it sure was nice to look at.” So, on the week before the blogathon, I thought I would throw up on the blog this little primer about the history of Italian horror, where one might want to start, what one should expect from an Italian horror film, and some of its major contributors. Remember, the blogathon begins next week on October 24, so if you’re still on the fence about contributing or what to write about, maybe this will help.

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Italian Horror Blogathon: Cannibal Apocalypse (aka Apocalypse domani)

Released a year after Cannibal Holocaust and a year before Cannibal Ferox (Jess Franco’s Cannibals was in there, too) it’s safe to say that the‘70s and early ‘80s belonged to the cannibal subgenre. Antonio Margheriti – working under the oft-used pseudonym Anthony Dawson – never had much use for the horror genre as this was his only foray into visceral, exploitation horror film. He was more of a Gothic horror filmmaker with one of his most well known films being the 1964 film Castle of Blood (It's also much rumored that he directed Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and not Paul Morrisey). He was more of a genre filmmaker who specialized in those great Italian action films that were just knockoffs of more popular American films. Marghertiti – who cut his teeth working as an assistant with Sergio Leone – isn’t up to the tricks that Deodato and Lenzi used in their cannibal films; in fact, the word ‘cannibal’ in the title is a bit of misnomer as Cannibal Apocalypse doesn’t contain any of the racial insensitivity or cruelty to animals (or gut munching) that those infamous cannibal film have. It’s a nice, underrated film, and one that I am completely baffled by the DPP’s inclusion of it on their Video Nasty list.  Cannibal Apocalypse is an interesting amalgam of cannibal movie, Vietnam movie (its Italian title translates to “Apocalypse Tomorrow”), and Euro crime picture; it’s a sneaky-good Italian horror movie that more people need to see.  

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