Lucky 13 in our Video Nasties Project is Antonio Marghetti’s Cannibal Apocalypse, starring the legendary John Saxon and Giovanni Radice.
Amongst the horrors of the Vietnam War (courtesy of some pretty grainy stock footage) we find Norman Hopper (John Saxon) attempting to rescue fellow soldiers who have been taken captive. The captive pair, Bukowski and Thompson, are being held in a pit dug into the earth. As the rescue team invades their way into the Vietcong stronghold they torch everyone present. A burning body falls into the pit and the POW’s pounce upon it and start to devour its smouldering flesh. Hopper, revolted and confused, reaches down to help the men up and they lunge at him, tearing into his arm with their bared teeth.
And so begins Cannibal Apocalypse, a truly bizarre installment in both the cannibal and zombie sub-genres. The title was an attempt to cash in on both the relatively popular Cannibal movies of the time, which had found a significant marketplace in Japan, and also the resurgence of interest in the Vietnam conflict following the success of ‘Apocalypse Now’ (hence the less than subtle Hopper moniker). Saxon will be a familiar face to most horror fans as Nancy’s father from the Nightmare on Elm St series and Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much, which was one of the first films that would set the groundwork for what would become the Giallo feature. He stars alongside Giovanni Lombardo Radice (City of the Living Dead, House on the Edge of the Park, Cannibal Ferox) who plays a deranged veteran who has brought far more back from ‘Nam than psychological trauma.
In a hybrid of zombie, vampire and cannibal movies, ‘Apocalypse’ amalgamates so many different ideas and elements that it is hard to keep up at some points. The vampiric nature of the disease is evident in the fact that it is spread through biting and infected blood. Some victims will be completely devoured, but others will be subject to a slow transformation into bloodthirsty lunatics. There is a fantastic scene involving hostages and bike gangs (displaying a friendly, if familiar nod to preceding John Carpenter and George A Romero movies), and the section in the cinema is an absolute classic.
The recently released Bukowski (Radice) is watching a war movie whilst a couple in the seats directly in front of him begin to get hot, intimate and naked. As the girl leans back in the throes of passion Bukowski takes a substantial chunk out of her shoulder. It’s a scene which can only be taken in good humour, and there is a distinct tongue in cheek aura to this movie which stops it from falling into the levels of gruesome, visceral grimness that some of the other ‘Cannibal’ titles did.
The urban setting creates an unusual feel for an anthropophagic feature such as this and gives the whole thing more of a zombie flick atmosphere. There’s also a buddy comedy undertone with Hopper slowly coming around to understand Bukowski’s insatiable taste for human flesh. The Lolita sub-plot involving Hopper’s incredibly young neighbor is a tad unsettling given the extremity of her precociousness and aggressively predatory nature. While we are on that subject, it might be worth noting that the director Antonio Marghetti seems to have a penchant for thighs, with several biting incidents occurring to the upper, inner thigh of the victim. A peculiarity perhaps, but we’ve all got our foibles.
Cannibal Apocalypse is a silly movie, but it’s a thoroughly delightful silly movie. The gore is ridiculously over the top and, at times, wonderfully comedic. One scene in which rats get torched with a flamethrower seems a wholly unnecessary and doesn’t fit with the playful tone of the rest of the film. This was omitted from most recent releases of the film. The soundtrack is an absolutely ridiculous mixture of synth and disco, but it’s wonderful in equal measure. The climactic sewer shootout, which provides the VHS cover image, is both memorable and iconic in itself.
Saxon is charming and enigmatic as always, and despite his later claims to be less than fond of the final piece, succeeds in holding it all together very well indeed. Saxon proclaimed to have no idea what the filmmaker’s initial intentions were and was taken aback at the cannibalistic elements of the film. Radice plays the role at his creepy best, and carries off the portrayal of a deviant cannibal perfectly. We’ll be seeing more of him in our next review for Cannibal Ferox, which is an entirely different beast altogether.
(1:36:29) (original title: Apocalypse Domani — released with 2s cut in 2005)
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