"Slave of the Cannibal God" is a cannibal film. This genre followed the "Mondo" craze of the '60s, which were basically a series of mostly Italian pretend-documentaries that purported to show the cruelty and depravity of nature, and the barbarism of native peoples, but instead only demonstrated the ruthlessness and greed of the filmmakers, staging as they did horrifying acts of animal cruelty and sacrifice for the cameras.
The cannibal film basically took all those aspects but threw away the pretence of documentary. They were fictional films that did perhaps introduce new standards for the realism of graphic violence in film, and tastelessness/racism in the depiction of foreign cultures. They would be entertaining exploitation movies if not for the fact that they just would not do away with the animal cruelty. Maybe a couple of them did, but by and large, cannibal film and actual animal death go hand in hand, for no better reason than perhaps that the "Mondo" films had demonstrated that they could get away with it.
Take "Slave of the Cannibal God", for example. In one scene we see (if we can manage to keep watching) a snake slowly encircling and crushing to death a small monkey. Oh, how cruel mother nature can be. Except of course for the fact that you can clearly see the mechanism used to launch the monkey into the snake's grasp. They probably angled it to make absolutely sure the monkey couldn't possibly escape. It probably took them several tries to get it right. But that monkey HAD to die, right? And in a horrible way? You're marked for death, our little friend. The filmmakers say so. Like I said, actual animal death/cruelty goes hand-in-hand with cannibal films.
Other than that, "Cannibal God" is an absolutely run-of-the-mill cannibal flick. You know the deal: clueless whites go to some jungle someplace to disprove rumours that cannibals exist there. They meet a surprisingly friendly tribe... but the real cannibals lurk just around the corner, they get kidnapped, some graphic violence happens, they escape, the end.
What the hell was Stacy Keach, a great actor, doing in this drivel? Shame on him, but mostly - shame on the filmmakers.
The cannibal film basically took all those aspects but threw away the pretence of documentary. They were fictional films that did perhaps introduce new standards for the realism of graphic violence in film, and tastelessness/racism in the depiction of foreign cultures. They would be entertaining exploitation movies if not for the fact that they just would not do away with the animal cruelty. Maybe a couple of them did, but by and large, cannibal film and actual animal death go hand in hand, for no better reason than perhaps that the "Mondo" films had demonstrated that they could get away with it.
Take "Slave of the Cannibal God", for example. In one scene we see (if we can manage to keep watching) a snake slowly encircling and crushing to death a small monkey. Oh, how cruel mother nature can be. Except of course for the fact that you can clearly see the mechanism used to launch the monkey into the snake's grasp. They probably angled it to make absolutely sure the monkey couldn't possibly escape. It probably took them several tries to get it right. But that monkey HAD to die, right? And in a horrible way? You're marked for death, our little friend. The filmmakers say so. Like I said, actual animal death/cruelty goes hand-in-hand with cannibal films.
Other than that, "Cannibal God" is an absolutely run-of-the-mill cannibal flick. You know the deal: clueless whites go to some jungle someplace to disprove rumours that cannibals exist there. They meet a surprisingly friendly tribe... but the real cannibals lurk just around the corner, they get kidnapped, some graphic violence happens, they escape, the end.
What the hell was Stacy Keach, a great actor, doing in this drivel? Shame on him, but mostly - shame on the filmmakers.