First thing I note is the music. It's nothing as amazing as Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust's haunting theme or the masterpiece waltz from A Tale of Two Sisters, but I don't let that stop me so early in the film.
One must assume that the woman researching her hypothesis for her PHd dissertation that cannibalism as a organized practice has never existed, one would think they must take into the consideration that they are wrong and prepare for the trip accordingly right? Or why go at all if you already believe the hypothesis to be true before even being tested? That's fairly unbelievably ignorant and makes the movie seem that much more unrealistic and badly scripted.
That actually is similar to the Ruggero Deodato's film, just totally ill-prepared. No guns, no decent hiking clothing, just nonsense through and through.
People don't go on trips like this for college without months of planning and preparation.
But I digress...
Things don't get off to a very good start for our brave yet stupid adventurers as they swerve to miss a jaywalking iguana, and their decoy pet ferret falls out of the truck nearly to it's demise, then to fall into a mud hole, well I guess it's time to walk.
Okay then they flip a coin to see whether they keep going or forget the whole thing. How does that scene even make any sense? All their conviction rests on the flip of a coin? After they must've spent time, and money, and preparation just getting out there. This just keeps getting worse. Defiinitely some of the worst acting and scripting and music ever concocted for the film industry.
Mike talks about how he and his friend's were captured by the cannibals and put into cages in mud pits with 3 inch long leeches sucking on their blood. I found that interesting because if you remember the first cannibal they run into in the jungle, a man they mistake as a simple native, is sitting on the ground eating such leeches... wonder if they are the same ones? Really though this movie is just terrible because the script is horrible and the acting is emotionless considering the content. They just agree to off themselves rather then get eaten by cannibals like it's no big decision.
Obviously Mike is insane, but just like in the first movie they treat the natives with such terrible behavior it's simply unrealistic.
Ruggero Deodato's movie easily feels the Americans got what they deserved, while in this movie one can hardly blame the natives for what befalls the Americans yet again.
And because of that the movie feels somewhat pointless. We already got the point from the first movie, so why was the sequel made? The lieutenant's name is Rizzo?! Could it get any worse? Oftentimes with movies such as these when you look up the cast you find they haven't really acted in much other films and their bios are all but non existent, so you can imagine I was surprised to find Giovanni Lombardo Radice in this movie who was in Scorsese's Gangs of New York. Now Lt. Rizzo looked familiar and I found he was in the 2002 movie Spiderman as a very tiny role as a tugboat captain. Reminds me of how William Shatner went from being the admiral on the USS Enterprise to a cop in a car. Irony, sometimes irony works out. Shatner never could get the music right until his recent album "Has Been" which is really good, just like Bono of U2 never could get a haircut right, and Dan Marino never could win no Superbowls.
Sometimes irony is just sad, like Christopher Reeve, Superman can't walk irony. The man will always be a legend though because he was such a great guy, I digress yet again though.
At this point you can tell I'm fairly bored of even discussing Cannibal Ferox.
Cannibal Holocaust's message was about who are the real savages and what is truly evil? What the savages do in natural living unknown to our moral records, or what we do to others with malicious intent? Cannibal Ferox's message seems to be 'Be careful what you go looking for, for you just might find it.' I will say this for Cannibal Ferox. When Gloria comes back and writes her dissertation, asserting that Cannibalism does NOT exist, she saves others who would be curious and go where angels fear tread, but overall this movie was really bad.
***/10