[Dr.Kelvinstein]

Italian exploitation is my favorite sub-genre and I've watched all this crap for its historical importance in spaghetti horror, but the cannibal movies are an all-time low. You can make a movie as violent or sexually graphic as you want (I even urge you to do so, dammit!) but killing for "art" (if cutting up a turtle can even loosely be considered as art) is crossing a line that should NEVER be crossed. I would say the same about the films of Sam Peckinpah, and he is my favorite director of all time.

That said, Cannibal Holocaust is easily the best of the genre. Why isn't it on DVD? The most sickening is Slave of the Cannibal God in which we see the fear-stricken eyes of a monkey in loving close-up as it is slowly crushed to death by a boa constrictor. Who the hell thought this was entertainment? Sergio Martino, the director? Probably not. He probably had such contempt for horror fans that he thought we were all a bunch of raving lunatics who wanted to see a real snuff film. Even Ursula Andress nekkid cannot save this movie (especially sinche she's probably ten years past the point when anyone wanted to see her naked to begin with). And what the hell was Stacy Keach doing there in the first place?

And how about Emanuelle in America? Did Joe D'Amato think we would really be so turned on by animal mutilation that we would be amped for the sex scenes? I just don't get this genre.

I must admit that at moments the cannibal film does unsettle, and I don't mean through the gimmicky use of real-life animal mutilation. At times the films do pack an eerie sense of doom and dread--even if they are generally directed by the biggest hacks in Italain exploitation.