Top reviewer 
eddyw78
Nov 27, 2015
Cannibal Terror/Devil Hunter. Severin Blu ray reviewCult movie distributors Severin raid their DVD back catalogue to bring us a Blu ray double movie helping of repugnant French exploitation from the cheapjack film studios of Eurociné. Gracing this shiny new BD50 is a pair of ex-video nasties in the form of the hilariously so bad it's just bad "Cannibal Terror" and the surprisingly entertaining Jess Franco helmed "Devil Hunter". Both movies make their worldwide Blu ray debuts here presented completely uncut and uncensored and housed on one region free disc contained within a standard eco case. Synopsis: First up is the totally absurd 1981 French/Spanish co-production of "Cannibal Terror" directed by Alain Deruelle with what was his only horror movie in a career filled with pictures of a more ahem.....adult nature. The lack of real movie making experience is immediately apparent with "Cannibal Terror" in what can only be described as one of the most inane and infuriatingly poor movies around even by the decidedly low standards already set by Eurociné. Indeed fans of Euro schlock who have sat through atrocities such "Zombie Lake" or the similar Jess Franco flick "Cannibals" will have trouble not reaching for the fast forward during this incoherently edited and utterly trashy waste of 90 minutes of your life. The story for what it is worth concerns a pair incompetent criminal types and their unattractive moll who desperate for a big payday kidnap the 5 year old daughter of a millionaire luxury car tycoon whose irresponsible mother thinks it is fine to let her wander the streets alone whilst she has a manicure. Completely ommiting anything in the way of tense or exciting kidnapping scenes the film blandly cuts to the gangs flat where they hold the surprisingly calm child whilst they await instructions on how to get her across the border and set up the ransom demands. Very soon the group are away from the city and on the edge of the jungle (which looks painfully more like wasteland next to a Spanish town) where they find crossing the border is as easy as pie by just walking around the checkpoint whilst the dumbass guards oogle the thighs of a young lady driving a jeep. They eventually arrive at their hideout which is a country house owned by a friend of their big boss but tempers soon arise when one of the unscrupulous gang members rapes his attractive young wife (Pamela Stanford of Jess Franco's "Lorna the Exorcist") prompting him to throw them all out where they find themselves deep in the cannibal hunting grounds with the girls vengeful father and mother in hot pursuit. A totally incompetent and unashamedly crass slice of typical Eurociné junk plainly shot for next to nothing without even the pulling power of one of the studio's main directors at the helm. Production values are at an all time rock bottom here with gore effects that resemble left over butchers scraps masquerading as freshly disemboweled bodies and a collection of the worst looking indigenous tribespeople ever committed to celluloid. These guys are basicly white European non actors sporting bad face paint and even worse wigs who half the time look as if they're waiting for their cue whilst trying to hide sniggers of embarrassment. The locations also remove any sense belief from the movie with the wild jungles of an unnamed (presumably) South American country being substituted by a less than convincing and hardly tropical Spanish wood complete with a murky stream that never once looks like a tributary of the Amazon delta and a clearly visible (and busy)main road behind the far from dense forest. As to be expected all the usual Eurociné slip-ups are here in full force from the outrageously out-of sync foul mouthed dubbing, lazy continuity, pointless padding and disinterested cast members not to mention the bizarre trait of having an adult put on a squeaky voice to dub that of a child. I'm usually fairly forgiving when it comes to European horror movies but "Cannibal Terror" was something else and I also kind of feel insulted that the director and producers thought we would believe any of this nonsense. Appalling in every way. Regardless you could still look at this movie as an unintentionally funny piece of low-grade exploitation that lacks the real depravity of its T&A and gored fueled Italian brethrens but doesent rub your nose in animal death scenes or over inflated morals. Or you could just realise you have paid good money for this poorly produced insult to your intelligence which also happens to be taking up valuable shelf space in your ever expanding collection. The second movie in this set (and the one I actually purchased this Blu ray for) is Jess Franco's 1980 produced "Devil Hunter". Arguably a better film than it's on disc counterpart this does at least have stronger production values, more authentic (but still Spanish shot) locations and tribesmen who don't possess 70s sideburns and caucasian features. Again the main focus point of the story is a kidnapping this time of a pretty young 18 year old actress Laura Crawford (Ursula Buchfellner of Jess Franco's saucy "The Story of Linda" ) who is swiped from her swanky hotel room by a band of ruthless crooks and taken to the unihabited island of Puerto Santo with a ransom request being sent to her manager. Not wanting to pay out but also afraid for the starlets safety the manager seeks the services of tough guy mercenary Peter Weston (Lucio Fulci favourite Al Cliver) and his chopper pilot Jack (Antonio Mayans of other Eurociné fare including "Zombie Lake") with a plan of tricking the thugs and saving the girl. As to be expected the well laid plan goes awry with Weston antagonising the kidnappers resulting in a poorly staged gunfight where their helicopter gets shot down and Laura escapes into the surrounding jungle. Unfortunately the said jungle is also home to a tribe of superstitious locals who capture girls and sacrifice them to their god which turns out to be a huge naked black guy with odd ping-pong ball eyes who has the nasty habit of gutting and eating his sacrificial subjects. In the greatest King Kong style tradition Laura is captured by the tribe who believe this golden haired, fair skinned goddess to be the perfect present for their wandering cannibal god which means that it is down to Weston to save her whilst still having to contend with the now extremely disgruntled kidnappers. Released under multiple titles that have included "Mandingo Manhunter"(a sly cash in of the 70s Blaxsplotation favourite) and "Sexo Canibal" Jess Franco's picture is one of the better efforts by French production house Eurociné whilst at the same time still retaining all the annoying inconsistencies often associated with the studio. Scrappy dialogue, meandering narrative and long stretches of inactivity plague the movie as do inconsistent lighting and the requisite laughable dubbing. Nevertheless the appeal of "Devil Hunter is heightened thanks to generous helpings of T&A and the odd splash of gloopy (although admittedly fake looking) bloodshed. Fans of the spaghetti splatter flicks of Lucio Fulci will be happy to see his regular player Al Cliver in a mostly heroic leading role and the remainder of the cast are all fine for a production such as this although Antonio Mayans is saddled with a rather annoying and unfortunate hick accent. Thanks to the POV shots of the wandering devil god (complete with a grease smeared camera lense and heavy breathing filling the soundtrack) the film has a queasy off kilter surreal quality to it that is undeniably the work of jazzy Jess Franco and is in line with the veteran director's other work of the period. Unlike the other poor excuse of a movie that accompanies "Devil Hunter" on this disc the Spanish locations here could at least pass for a tropical island and disregarding one phenomenally white member of the village the tribe (who never actually partake in any cannibalism) look slightly more realistic in appearance despite the rather equal opportunities feel with what looks like a number of different races present. Despite "Devil Hunter's" entertaining but decidedly absurd premise this as with the vast majority of other European horror pictures is of an acquired taste and will no doubt leave those unaccustomed to the delights of Eurotrash shaking their heads in bewilderment as to what is unspooling before their eyes. For me "Devil Hunter" holds a kind of morbid fascination that goes way back to my video nasty collecting days when this sick little puppy was near impossible to locate in a watchable English friendly form and finding a copy felt like mana from heaven. Even though now it's widely available on DVD (even in the UK where it remained banned for a number of years) I still find myself strangely drawn to any new editions of this low grade guilty pleasure with the vague hope of finding the best possible presentation for my collection. Thankfully here it do believe i have found it. Picture: Arriving on a single BD50 Blu ray disc both of these questionable features are presented in AVC encoded MPEG 4 1080p transfers from the original camera negative and framed at around 1.66:1. "Cannibal Terror" is by far the worst movie of the two and frustratingly gets the best presentation with a strikingly strong image considering it's zero budget and complete lack of technical polish. Foregoing the ragged looking opening credits (which look to have been culled from a different and inferior print) detail is pleasingly strong with plenty of fine textures on display that unavoidably bring out the often haphazard nature of the production from the cheapo gore effects and poor cannibal make-up. There is some softness which I am sure would have been inherent in the original photography or maybe as a by-product of cheap film stock but depth and dimensionality are readily apparent and on the whole this is solid and lifelike. Colours are surprisingly vivid with primaries that genuinely pop from the robust blood reds and deep blue skies through to lush the greens of the surrounding flora and skin tones look as natural as they can. Black levels too are fine as is shadow detail and contrast is bright but well balanced. The opening credits not withstanding the print utilised here appears to be in pretty good shape with miniscule amounts of age related issues and the image retains a nice layer of naturally occurring film grain providing a pleasantly organic feel. "Devil Hunter" on the other hand appears noticeably weaker (with a lower bitrate to boot) with an often dark and murky looking transfer that is blighted by some variable contrast and poorly lit segments with the balance often shifting within the same scene. I would imagine all of these technical problems are the result of the cheap way in which this movie was shot and to be fair I have never seen this looking so good. Detail is better resolved with a much crisper appearance (obviously discounting the POV shots) even revealing complexities in clothing, faces, jungle foliage and stones of the ruin used as the hideout. This is flatter and less dimensional than "Cannibal Terror" with some density fluctuations but I still found the image to be far more than agreeable than what SD could relate. Colours are maybe a tad muted lacking the pop of the other transfer with an often brown tinge swamping the palette with reds that can look more pink or orange plus some slightly ruddy skin tones. Black levels are never going to be deep and inky but again are fine all things considered but I often felt that the contrast could have been better balanced with the image occasionally feeling unnaturally dark and overly subdued even in broad daylight. Again the print utilised seems to be in decent enough shape with a layer of filmic grain ever present. Yes look for age related damage and you will find it but it is never overly obvious and never once distracting. For both features the more European 1.66:1 widescreen framing appears accurate and despite there being two movies both with lossless audio and extras on one disc I didn't detect any nasty compression issues. Both of these are an upgrade from the previously available SD DVDs but as to whether you would want to see either of these with better resolution or believe that it is even worth it is down to viewer preference although I'm more than happy to upgrade "Devil Hunter". Audio: Both movies in this double feature come equipped with uncompressed two channel mono mixes delivered in 16bit LPCM in either the riotous English dubs or original French. Sadly the more natural sounding French tracks (which are also dubs) are wasted due to no English subtitles being provided which is a shame as i'm sure both of these movies would play out far more lyrically (especially "Cannibal Terror" ) without the colourful and vulgar language. As with the visuals "Cannibal Terror" is the smoother sounding of the two in terms of delivery. The dialogue as ridiculous as it is plays out clear enough with little to no damage and the overly percussive drum beats during the finalé and the jazzy disco noodling of the main score are reasonably dynamic. As to be expected environmental acoustics are very limited and narrow and foley effects lack anything in the way of realism but again this is often the case with these low budget European movies. "Devil Hunter" despite it's higher bitrate sounds alot harsher with the dialogue sounding louder and more pulled forward in the mix often detaching it from the onscreen action and even exhibiting slight clipping and distortion. The jazzy score sounds for the most part fine and as with it's companion feature the environmentals are very flat and mostly uninvolving with nothing that is going to immerse you in the acoustics of the jungle. Both tracks possess slight hiss but I didn't detect any real age related damage in the form of pops or cracks and for one brief scene "Devil Hunter" played out in Spanish only sadly without subtitles. Extras: In the extras department Severin port over all the pre-existing supplements whilst adding a couple of new and exclusive ones. New for this Blu ray premiere is "The Way of all Flesh" which is a 20 minute chat with the director of "Cannibal Terror" Alain Deruelle shot in what appears to a second hand movie stall. Presented in French with English subtitles this is a mostly interesting piece with the director talking about his career and in particular Cannibal Terror and how he got the gig. This is a nice addition and quite a surprising one at that as I'm sure many directors would want to forget any piece held in as such poor regard as this. Also new for this release is an interview with Bertrand Altmann, stuntman and actor who played the big naked devil dude in "Devil Hunter". Running around 11 minutes Bertrand talks about working on both of the movies at hand as well as his work on other Eurociné projects such as "Zombie Lake". Next up is as Severin bill it a "spicy deleted scene" which is a topless striptease with actress Pamela Stanford which I have no idea as to why was ever removed in the first place and to round things off is the original theatrical trailer. Carried over from the DVD release of "Devil Hunter" is a 17 minute interview with it's director Jess Franco who does seem amused by the film and admits he hated the cannibal sub genre. He also goes onto to talk about how he got on with the different cast members and how he avoided conventions if he knew they were to involve this movie or his earlier flesh eating flick "Cannibals". Strangely no theatrical trailer is included. Conclusion: This new two movie set from Severin is a release I find very hard to recommend. I bought this for one reason and that reason was "Devil Hunter" but for casual viewers there will be pretty much no value whatsoever in this disc from Severin. Truth be told both movies are pretty dire in almost all respects (one more so than the other) and only connoisseurs of Eurotrash or video nasty completists will want to own this. "Devil Hunter" is passable euroshlock with the added pull of Jess Franco at the helm and "Zombie" star Al Cliver in the lead role but "Cannibal Terror" is quite possibly the most inept horror movie of all time with nothing in the way of merit to report. That said both movies look far better than they have any right to with surprisingly robust high definition transfers that are a notable upgrade from Severin's DVD releases and the new extras are also worth a look for the inquisitive exploitation fan. Enter at your own peril and blind buyers be sure you know what your letting yourself in for. |
