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Film: In the Land of Cannibals (Nella terra dei cannibali)
Year: 2004
Director: Bruno Mattei
Writer: Bruno Mattei and Giovanni Paolucci
Starring: Claudio Morales, Lou Randall and Cindy Jelic Matic
Review:
This was a film I’m not entirely sure how I got turned on to. My only guess was that after I watched Cannibal Holocaust and added its sequels to my Netflix list, I sought out a couple more cannibal films as well. I did find it interesting now that my knowledge of the genre is deeper to see that Bruno Mattei made this film under one of his pseudonyms.
Synopsis: commandos head deep into the Amazon jungle to rescue a general’s daughter who has been kidnapped by a cannibal tribe.
To kick this one off, we see natives eating something around a fire and from the title of the film, it is people. We then shift to a group of soldiers as they land in Brazil. The leader of this unit is Lt. Wilson (Lou Randall). He meets with a military man from the country. They are informed they will be going into the jungle with the best guide to try to find the missing people, the most important one being Sara Armstrong (Cindy Jelić Matić).
The guide who takes them in is Romero (Claudio Morales) and his assistant. Romero tells the commandos, which include Vasquez (Ydalia Suarez), Sgt. Cameron (Silvio Jimenez) and Kruger (Sanit Larrauri), about the local customs and tribes of the Amazon they’ll more than likely meet. It isn’t safe and there are dangerous animals along the way. They happen upon an old campsite where Romero believes the group, they’re looking for set up. The tribe they’re searching for, no one has ever seen. If they have, they’ve never been able to tell the tale.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the character. I am keeping it rather short because to be honest, there isn’t much depth. I don’t mind that as with a film like this, I’m trying to see things go off the rails. I didn’t realize the father was a general, just that he was an official of sorts. I found it funny that this is from Italy and the key actors are as well. They’re pretending to be from the United States. It makes sense with the films that this is inspired by.
There was a much bigger issue I have though. It does feel like a combination of Cannibal Holocaust and Predator. I will admit that I probably wouldn’t have thought of the latter if I hadn’t seen the title screen when this starts up. With this second watch, I also noticed that it uses elements from Aliens and I’m guessing the other more successful cannibal movies. Examples here would be something like a pig being slaughtered on screen and the plot points to keep these characters going along their path from Cannibal Holocaust. Predator has these commandos just destroying this village to save the person they are going for. Vasquez is a character name from Aliens and there are lines of dialogue taken as well. This is a classic Mattei move.
Stemming from this is that it was boring. I understand from the cannibal films I’ve seen they normally need to be pretty graphic in nature to what we see or have a deeper allegory they’re conveying. This doesn’t do either, which is an issue. Part of this is hurt by coming out in the mid-2000s when the genre was created 30 years prior. The effects we get are tame and it doesn’t bring the emotional value, since we don’t flesh out the characters enough. I never connected with them and the stakes aren’t there. The ending I thought was fine, but it just doesn’t pull the weight needed.
There is an issue of realism it is lacking. This will take me to filmmaking. This was filmed in the Philippines. That is fine and I’m guessing it was for monetary reasons. Also, it was available. A nitpick is that the natives look Asian, not South American. I’ll still credit them for going to jungles to film so there is that. The cinematography was fine. The framing as well. They go for this gag repeatedly where something will be stabbed or shot off-screen, then we get a close up of characters where the blood splatters them in the face. It was fine the first couple times and then was over the top. There are decent things with the effects here with seeing the aftereffects of things. We just needed more and it fell short. The only other thing would be the soundtrack. It was cheesy and made me laugh. It doesn’t necessarily work though as it is generic. It did work at poking fun with the over the top ‘patriotic music’. It made me laugh.
All that is left then is acting which was subpar as well. I wonder how much of that is the writing and having paper thin characters as well. Morales was fitting for his role, but I think it is a weird move to have them almost treating this like a documentary film where he is just narrating the facts of the jungle and the tribes they encounter. That felt borrowed from Cannibal Holocaust. Randall was meh. It is funny that he’s supposed to be from Indiana and a West Point graduate. He is using backstory from Aliens with the leader of that operation. It feels ham-fisted there. Matić doesn’t show up until late and she isn’t given much to work with. We do see her mostly nude which seems to be the only reason she is here. The rest of the commandos are generic. The only ones I’ll give credit to are the tribes of natives we have. They got into their roles and I appreciated that.
In conclusion, this film wasn’t good. I’ll credit Mattei for getting a film made and there are things that work. Using the jungle, even if it isn’t the Amazon, is something that I appreciate. There isn’t a lot for this one to hang its hat on as it borrows from better films to do what it is here and doesn’t stand out. This isn’t one that I can recommend unless you are into low budget films or a fan of Mattei.
My Rating: 2.5 out of 10