BY ADRIAN SMITH
Shameless has released the UK video debut of the 1978 cult film The Mountain of the Cannibal God as a Blu-ray special edition. (The film is also known as The Slave of the Cannibal God.) The plot is as follows: Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) and
her brother Manolo (Claudio Cassinelli), unable to get help from the New Guinea
authorities, hire former explorer Edward Foster (Stacy Keach) to help them find
her husband. He went missing months ago in the jungle whist on a quest to reach
the sacred mountain of Ra Ra Me. Susan clearly loves her husband and would do
anything to get him back. Foster agrees to take them, despite the obvious
difficulties ahead, not only from the dangerous animals, but also from the
legendary cannibal tribe said to be lurking within the darkness of the jungle canopy.
Along the way they find a cult-like village of local tribespeople watched over
by Father Moses (Franco Fantasia) and Arthur Weisser (Antonio Marsina), who is
also a jungle explorer. An affection seems to develop between Susan and Arthur,
despite her supposed devotion to her lost husband, and after some trouble in
the village when two locals are murdered by mysterious masked figures, they all
set off together to find the mountain. Along the way they experience Herzogian
levels of physical punishment as the game cast scramble down mountains, face an
eight-metre-long snake, and, in one astonishing sequence, attempt to climb up a
clearly deadly waterfall. It is a miracle that none of the cast were
hospitalised.
Of course, the title of the film giving
it away somewhat, the exhausted group eventually run into cannibals and all
hell breaks loose. Susan discovers the fate of her husband and is stripped,
tied up and oiled by the cannibals who then indulge in a frenzied orgy that
would have made Caligula blush; even the livestock are not left out of the sexually-charged
proceedings. This energetic display is just the primer however for a darker
appetite which will soon be satisfied…
With Ursula Andress being surrounded by
sex, nudity, graphic violence, real snakes and a devious dwarf, it is no wonder
The Mountain of the Cannibal God has
developed something of a reputation over the last forty years. The 1970s Italian
cannibal films are notorious for their use of real onscreen animal killings,
something which became popular as a result of Mondo Cane (1962) and its many sequels and rip-offs over the
preceding decade. The directors have always claimed that these scenes were
added at the insistence of financially-minded producers, and debates continue
to rage amongst fans and scholars as to whether new releases of the films
should still include the footage, or whether it should now be removed. In the
UK this decision tends to be in the hands of the BBFC, where all films released
have to conform to The Cinematograph Act of 1937. The Mountain of the Cannibal God originally included a scene of a
monkey fighting a losing battle with a snake, as well as another snake fighting
a bird of prey, and other assorted real-life animal slaughter, all of which no
doubt contributed to its inclusion on the Video Nasties list in 1984. Two
minutes of these scenes have now been removed for this new Blu-ray restoration,
although not all animals get through the film unscathed; we still see a
tarantula get impaled on a knife, a large lizard is gutted, skinned and eaten
alive, and in one frenzied scene, dozens of green water snakes are grabbed and
eaten by hungry cannibal tribesmen.
Purists need not worry however, as
previously cut scenes of rape, bestiality and masturbation have been put back
into the film, reportedly from the director’s own copy of the film, making this
new Shameless release one of the most complete versions of The Mountain of the Cannibal God available.
Also included on the Blu-ray is a new
interview with Sergio Martino where he explains how the unfortunate monkey met
his end (it was supposed to just be a brush with danger, not a fatality) and
why he is happy that the animal deaths have, for the most part, been cut. An
archival documentary, Cannibal Nightmare
– Return to the Mountain of the Cannibal God, has also been retained from a
previous DVD release, and is a fascinating exploration of the film from all
those involved. Martino’s stories of the perils of filming in the jungles of
Sri Lanka and Malaysia are hair-raising and fascinating, and he was
particularly in awe of Ursula Andress who was always game for anything,
including being draped with the aforementioned giant python. The fact that she
was over the age of forty and still willing to appear totally nude also
deserves some applause.
The
Mountain of the Cannibal God
follows a similar plot to many of the other Italian cannibal films, where a
group of white explorers enter the jungle to find a missing friend or explorer,
all of which owe a debt to Joseph Conrad’s Heart
of Darkness (1899) which set the template. The jungle reveals buried truths
about the explorer, not just about the ancient tribes they may be looking for,
and The Mountain of the Cannibal God
is not different, Susan’s quest for her husband causing her to confront her own
demons as well as those cave-dwelling cannibals who want to eat her.
Here is a list of the special edition bonus contents:
- Previously unseen footage of sex and gore, making this the longest ever UK version.
- Exclusive limited edition serial-numbered "O" card.
- "Cannibal Paradise", a "Snakes and Ladders"-inspired board game (on a card folded inside both the DVD and Blu-ray cases)
- Collector's reversible inlay sleeve with original poster artwork
- Introduction by director Sergio Martino
- Interviews with Martino about animal cruelty in the film
- "Making of" documentary
- Alternative credits
- Theatrical trailer