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Jungle Holocaust - aka "L' Ultimo Mondo Cannibale (1976)

Dir: Ruggero Deodato.

Made in 1976 (roughly 3 years before the pinnacle that would become "Cannibal Holocaust") this is Ruggero Deodato's brutal and unflinching take on the "Naked Prey", 'White men trapped in the jungle' film.

Deodato and screenwriter Gianfranco Clerici (who would later write "House on the Edge of the Park") have created a film that is basically a simple adventure story, but decorated it with some horrific, uncompromising scenes and an overpowering atmosphere of brutality.

Supposedly based on a true story, "Jungle" tells of two oil company workers, Robert ( Massimo Foschi) and Rolf (the late Ivan Rassimov), flying into the jungle to meet their expedition crew.
Upon landing they find the mutilated bodies of some of the expedition members.

Searching the jungle for survivors (tut tut, should have gone straight back home lads) the pilot is killed when he sets off a trap (a huge spiked ball skewers him), lost and panicked the two men flee into the 'Green Hell'. They come across some of the Cannibals tucking in to a bit of 'long pig' and, sickened, try to flee down river with a home made raft.
They soon hit rapids and Rolf is swept away, leaving Robert alone and lost.
After eating some mushrooms Robert proceeds to vomit green goo (known in the business as 'doing a Linda Blair') and passes out. He is revived by prodding by Cannibal spears, and is taken captive.......

 

Despite being overshadowed by the more famous "Cannibal Holocaust", "Jungle" is just as harsh and extreme. Deodato pushes our faces into the explicit gore and violence, showing us the ruthless life of the Cannibals with unapologetic clarity.
The Cannibals themselves are also nicely realistic looking. Filthy, unkempt, dressed in rough, basic fur and vine loin cloths or just naked. No 'designer Cannibal fashions' here!

The nudity is also explicit. Robert is stripped and prodded in such a manner that he does indeed become nothing more than livestock.. He is shown completely naked as the Cannibals, in close up, pull and scatch at his penis and then he is hung from the roof of a huge cavern and swung by a rope (because of the plane, the Cannibals think he can fly!) in full view of the lingering camera.
This uncompromising use of male nudity helps to give the film it's essential sense of reality. You would see it if you were there in real life...so you see it on the screen.
Foschi should be commended for his bravery in spending half the film completely, openly, naked. His body is covered in filth, his beard horribly matted. No flattering 'actor' shots here!

Me Me Lai, plays the 'nice' cannibal, who is attracted to Robert (in one scene she even masturbates him through the wooden bars of his 'cell') and whom becomes torn by her attraction to Robert and her loyalty to her tribe. Although Lai is a very pretty actress and a strong visual presence but, in the one move away from tribal reality by Deodato, is too attractive to be any kind of primative jungle dweller, even though she has mud covering her body and has matted hair. And even with this relationship between the girl and Robert Deodato ensures we are not under any 'nice' delusions, there is no 'love' here. In fact Robert, in one scene, beats and rapes her. There is nothing sympathetic or compromised about Deodato's approach. And in an almost completely mute performance, Lai is very good in her role.

This brings us to the gore. And extreme gore it is. The most infamous death is the dreadfully shocking 'butchery' sequence . To see a women turned into nothing more than meat, is a brutally effective hammer blow to the audiencer. In unflinching (there, that word again) close up, she is beheaded, gutted and has her torso cracked open (ribs and spine on show to us). The bloody cavity is then filled with hot coals and her body roasted and consumed. Extreme cinema indeed.

Praise must also go to Foschi for carrying almost the entire film as far as actimg goes. He gives an outstanding, raw, performance. His degeneration into a half mad, almost anima, l state is expertly handled by the actor. And it is hard not to be shocked, when, after killing a Cannibal, he cuts open the body (once again in extreme, gore, close-up) and proceeds to eat the man's liver. He does this to show the watching Cannibals that he is just as strong as they, that he can ,and will, do whatever it takes to survive.
The shot of him, wide eyed, crying out his horror with his mouth dripping bits of flesh, is a stand out scene. Completely uncompromising.

Rassimov is given little to do, but his reappearance later on, with a very nasty, rotting knee wound, is also well handled and Rassimov shows the character's loss of hope at escaping very well. His despair at one point is palpable in fact .

But we still have the animal snuff. and with the crocodile scene, it has perhaps never been so shocking. To see this noble creature being killed in such a drawn out, explicit fashion, is deeply sickening.
It must be stated though, that despite the footage that would appear in "Cannibal Holocaust", Deodato denies (and Foschi backs him up on this) that he shot any of the animal deaths and states that these were filmed by the Producer and inserted later.
Who can say. This is after all the world of Exploitation film making.

In conclusion, this is an extreemly good, exciting, brutal, unflinching, uncompromising, gore drenched horror/action film....and as nasty as Hell.