“My movies are like a soft drink—sparkling, unaffected products for mass consumption.” So claimed Italy’s Sergio Martino, whose magnum opus was 1978’s MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (LA MONTAGNA DEL DIO CANNIBAL)—also known, in cut form, as SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD.
It may be the most ambitious film to emerge from the Italian cannibal movie cycle of the late 1970s and 80s (falling between Ruggero Deodato’s JUNGLE HOLOCAUST/ Ultimo mondo cannibal and Umberto Lenzi’s EATEN ALIVE! / Mangiati vivi! chronologically), boasting a healthy budget and two international stars: Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach, both of whom were considered gets in the world of 1970s cinema. The pic is also (as Martino was always the first to admit) unalloyed trash.
It may be the most ambitious film to emerge from the Italian cannibal movie cycle of the late 1970s and 80s…
New Guinea (actually Sri Lanka), as an opening title informs us, is “perhaps the last region on Earth which still contains immense unexplored areas, shrouded in mystery, where life has remained at its primordial level.” It’s there that Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) and her neurotic brother Arthur (Antonio Marsina) embark, in search of Susan’s anthropologist husband, who vanished in the New Guinea jungle—specifically a mystically-imbued mountain—three months earlier. Dr. Edward Foster (Stacey Keach), an American adventurer, leads the trek to said mountain.
The pic is also (as Martino was always the first to admit) unalloyed trash.
Shortly after the expedition begins a trio of native travel companions are killed by a ravenous alligator, a deadly trap and local cannibals. The latter become more prominent as Susan, Arthur and Edward, joined by the intrepid Manolo (Claudio Casinelli), advance through dangerous rapids and rocky terrain. Eventually they reach the mountain, where mud-caked cannibals hold sway and the embalmed corpse of Susan’s husband (still wearing his wedding ring) is worshipped. She’s promptly strung up and prepared for a ritual sacrifice as the cannibals go into a frenzy of sexualized aggression…
Sergio Martino has claimed that his primary aim here was to create an adventure in the mold of H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs (MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD being the first entry in a similarly oriented trilogy that came to include THE ISLAND OF THE FISH MEN/ L’isola degli uomini pesce and THE GREAT ALLIGATOR/ Il fiume del grande caimano). The horrific elements, Martino insists, were added at the behest of his distributors (as “What the distributor wants, the distributor gets”). That includes, apparently, the scenes of real-life animal slaughter, an ugly mainstay of the cannibal movie cycle; included is an iguana getting disemboweled, a python devouring a monkey and snakes being skinned alive.
That’s in addition to the head lopping, penis chopping, intestine pulling, exposed brain matter, copious full frontal nudity by Andress (in scenes that were a reported inspiration on 1981’s TARZAN, THE APE MAN, directed by Andress’ ex-husband John Derek) and sexual content that pushes the boundaries of the R-rating. Nearly all those things occur in the outrageously offensive final 20 minutes, which nonetheless work far better than the preceding 83.
The action-adventure business of the early scenes falls flat, with uninspired visuals by cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrando (a frequent Martino collaborator) and a river set sequence that drags on far too long (sluggish editing being a complaint that tends to recur with Martino). Furthermore, none of the characters are very compelling, and nor are the actors portraying them, which renders a “shocking” third act reveal, when a seemingly upstanding protagonist is shown to be a cynical opportunist, uninspiring and pointless.
Vital Statistics
MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (LA MONTAGNA DEL DIO CANNIBAL)
Dania Film/Meduza Distribuzione
Director: Sergio Martino
Producer: Luciano Martino
Screenplay: Cesare Frugoni, Sergio Martino
Cinematography: Giancarlo Ferrando
Editing: Eugenio Alabiso
Cast: Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach, Claudio Cassinelli, Antonio Marsina, Franco Fantasia, Lanfranco Spinola, Carlo Longhi, Luigina Rocchi, Akushula Selayah, Dudley Wanaguru