I'm not entirely sure if I should take this film seriously or not...usually I can figure that out within 15-20 minutes of the beginning. Did the creators of Cannibal Ferox intend for this to be a real thriller or just a schlocky film for gory fun? As a real thriller, it fails completely. It's story about a group of students who travel to the Amazon (which has mysteriously teleported to Paraguay) to discover whether or not cannibalism is real or not is completely contrived an unbelievable. There's no build-up or tension, either. There are just scenes with gore and scenes without gore. If the film-makers wanted to make a fun exploitation film, why did they insist on killing so many real animals on-screen? I can appreciate gore for gore's sake. But REAL gore, REAL killing crosses the line from exploitation to snuff. I can't condone or support the killing of real animals in a film, but I can sympathize with it in films that are trying to unnerve and scare. Cannibal Ferox doesn't seem to be trying to scare anybody, though. It's just killing for the sake of killing. But that's exploitation cinema, I guess. If judged from an exploitative standpoint, the film is deftly crafted and entertaining in a way that makes my superego shudder. Viscerally, it's thrilling. But in every other respect, it seems pointless and meaningless.
5/10
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