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Anthropophagus is a Filmirage presentation… that should give ya a clue to the Eurotrash that awaits. It's the movie that pops into my mind whenever I hear the term "video nasty". Finding it after years of combing through video store horror sections, it's not the film I had imagined it would be. It is still a tasty slice of Italian cheese and it has one hell of a mean streak. An accidentally broken camera allows Tisa Farrow (she of Zombie fame) to tag along with a group of vacationing friends on a boat tour. She needs to be dropped off along the way on an island where her friends have a summer home. They arrive on the island only to find the village a ghost town except for a mysterious woman who warns them to "go away". After exploring the vacant town and discovering a half-eaten corpse, they wisely decide it's time to leave. They are shit out of luck on that front because their boat has drifted away from land without any warning from the boat's captain or their pregnant friend who stayed aboard due to a sprained ankle. With no other option available, the group decides to spend the night inside the house of Farrow's absent friends. They discover the missing family's blind daughter hidden and in shock. She rambles on about a man who smells like blood but the group has no idea what this distressed girl is talking about. It turns out that a man from the island became marooned on a lifeboat with his wife and son. Madness set in and after accidentally stabbing his wife (she tried stopping him from eating their dead son) he lost it completely. He returned to the island, killed and ate everyone and now he's picking off the group one at a time. It may drag in some spots (they seem to spend a lot of time exploring) but Anthropophagus has a hell of a lot going for it. The soundtrack kicks ass. It's electronic and all over the place. It sounds like the composer just purchased a decked out keyboard, said "fuck it" and went insane. Music betrays the scene, music enhances the tension and sometimes music seems to be from another film altogether. It's wonderful. Another point in its favor is the splatter. There's a hatchet to the face, a scalping and, in the film's most infamous scene, a fetus is ripped out of the mother and eaten in front of the wounded father. This is why I often equate Anthropophagus to the term "video nasty". Reading about this scene conjured something quite horrific in my mind before I actually saw it play out. The special effect is obvious but still remains one of those "oh fuck" moments many films wish they had. Finally, the casting of George Eastman (or Luigi Montefiori) as the monster was perfect. His sudden appearance from behind a door, shadowed in darkness and lit up by lightning stands as one of the best killer introductions in slasher film history. He towers over the cast and makes for an imposing and terrifying killer. Anthropophagus will never live up to the movie I created in my head all those years ago when I first read about it. That is probably for the best. I'm sure that film would have been unwatchable. As it is, Anthropophagus is a perfectly adequate piece of exploitation and a remarkable deviation from the usual slasher hijinks. That most likely has everything to do with Italy and Filmirage being behind it. I recommend it.
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