CANNIBAL FEROX

aka MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY
aka WOMAN FROM DEEP RIVER

Directed & Written by Umberto Lenzi
Produced by Antonio Crescenzi
Cinematography by Giovanni Bergamini
Special FX by Gino De Rossi
Music by Budy Maglione (aka Maria Fiamma Maglione)
Cast: John Morghen (aka Giovanni Lombardo Radice), Lorraine De Selle, Bryan Redford (aka Danilo Mattei), Zora Kerova (aka Zora Keslerova), Walter Loyd (aka Walter Lucchini & Meg Flemming

1981/93 mins/Color/2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo
1.78:1 anamorphic/English/Italy/PAL Region 2

Review from the Sazuma Ultrabit Edition DVD

Gloria, her brother Rudy and her dumb blonde friend Pat are travelling into the deep of the Amazon to see for themselves if cannibalism actually exist or not. It is the subject of Gloria's doctorial thesis. She is convinced that cannibalism does not exist. It doesn't take long before they get lost in the deep of the jungle. But soon enough they meet two young American, Mike (everyone's favorite John Morghen) and his badly hurt buddy Joe. Mike tells them about the horrorfying events that supposedly took place in a native village near. They make the very logical move of going back to the village, there Gloria and her friends learns the truth behind Mike' story and will die slowly.

Banned in 31 countries. This was all I needed to know when I first wanted to see this movie back in the days. At the height of the cannibal subgenre, Umberto Lenzi released upon the world a movie that would go on to become just as infamous as Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. CANNIBAL FEROX (from the Latin for "fierce") became one of the most sought after movie for gorehounds around the world. Gino De Rossi's amazing fx such as the castration of Giovanni Lombardo Radice or Zora Keslerova's breast attached on hooks and suspended in the air are still something worth seeing today. Unfortunately like most of these movies, many poor animals were kill for no other reason then to "entertain" or disgust the viewer. Lenzi claims that they would later be eaten but it doesn't take anything away from the useless cruelty that took place. Its interesting to note that CANNIBAL FEROX wasn't Lenzi first film into this subgenre, he pretty much started it all a few years earlier with THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER.

Sazuma has given Umberto Lenzi's infamous cannibalistic horror flick the royal Ultrabit treatment! I own their previous edition of this movie on DVD and trust me the Ultrabit version looks much better! First of all, the movie is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio whereas the other edition was sporting a 1.66:1 ratio. The movie is enhanced for 16x9 television. This is the complete uncut version of the film running at 93 minutes, all the blood, gore, decapitation, castrations and useless animals killing is in there. As far as I remember this movie never looked this good, the colors are a little washed out compared to today's movies but they are far more rich and well saturated then the previous releases. The English 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo audio track sounds good and its as good as its ever going to be for that movie. And yes, this is the unintentionaly hilarious English dubbed version we've all came to love. There is optional English, Dutch, Finnish and Swedish subtitles.

As far as extras goes, we get the complete Umberto Lenzi filmography with some bio notes, trailers for the film in English, German or Italian. We get 8 postcards featuring scenes from the film which are very remiscent of the lobby cards of the time. The movie is separated in 16 chapters, feature static menus with music and comes in a transparent skip case inside a nice oversized metalic collector's tin. It has no booklet or inlay, unlike their previous release which featured a very nice 16 pages booklet. This edition is limited to 3 333 copies around the world. There's also the trailers for the upcoming Sazuma release for SUBCONCIOUS CRUELTY and DIVIDED INTO ZERO. Overall its a very nice edition from Sazuma.

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Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2005. ©