The Encyclopedia of Cannibal Movies

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PACIFIC BANANA

aka Banana Airlines

John D. Lamond, The South Australian Film Corporation 1980 (Australia)

An Australian T&A film about a one-plane airline which flies between islands in the Pacific. The pilot is traumatized by the wife and daughters of his former employer, causing him to have a problem with impotence whenever he sneezes (and thus the double entendre of the title). In one of many attempts to get his banana a bit less pacific, he is taken to an island brothel which specializes in fantasy situations. When he opts for "missionary," he changes his mind when he sees that it involves a pot! Eventually he falls in love with one of the daughters who pursues him throughout the movie and regains his former powers.


PAPAYA, LOVE GODDESS OF THE CANNIBALS

aka Papaya, Queen of the Cannibals, Taste of the Cannibal, Papaya del Caraibi (original title)

Joe D'Amato, Mercury Cinematografica 1978

From the maker of "Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals" comes this tale of a caribbean seductress with an unusual taste in men. Papaya is the queen of a cannibal tribe that some geologists are attempting to remove from their island so that they can build a nuclear test site there. Papaya deals with the interlopers by seducing them, in a cannibal sort of way.

 

PARENTS

Bob Balaban, Great American Films Ltd. 1989

Being a kid in the fifties is scary enough, what with the red menace, McCarthyism, the bomb and rock and roll. But what do you do when you discover that your parents are cannibals, and you just ate your teacher!

 

THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS

Wes Craven, Universal Pictures 1991

This wasn't directed by David Lynch, but it does star Everett McGill and his crazy, one-eyed wife from the "Twin Peaks" television series. They're a psycho couple who imprison people in the basement and in passages between the walls of their large Victorian style house. They feed their prisoners on guests and unwanted visitors who happen to drop by. A young boy in the neighborhood befriends their young daughter who they keep locked up in a tower in the house. Together with an escaped prisoner, he tries to free the daughter and discover the secret of the whacky mom and dad. Everett McGill wears a studded leather outfit which completely covers his body, fires a shotgun into the walls and rips the liver out of a guy and eats it. A very weird movie.

 

THE PERILS OF GWENDOLINE IN THE LAND OF THE YIK YAK

aka Gwendoline

Just Jaeckin, Films de L'Alma 1984

This 1984 film was loosely based on the bondage erotica comic series, "The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline" by John Willey. Tawny Kitaen, who you may remember as Hercules' wife Daeonara on the "Hercules" television series and from the Whitesnake music videos, plays the title character in her pre-boobjob days. Other than that this is pretty much a standard "girl-looking-for-her-lost-father-in-the-jungle" adventure with only little bits of nudity and BDSM elements thrown in. In the movie, Gwendoline and her companions are captured by a tribe of cannibals (the Yik Yak) who ignore tham as potential menu items and instead decide to hunt them (naked, of course) through the jungle. Maybe they plan to eat them after they capture them, but that is not made apparent. The girls are rescued by a tribe of Amazone warrior women and made into pony girls. One of the Amazons does get eaten at one point by caged captive Yik Yak cannibals. An interesting film, yet disappointing in a great many ways. What do you expect from a guy named, "Just Jackin'?"

 

PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK

aka Il Profumo della Signora in Nero (original title)

Francesco Barilli, Euro International Film 1974

A hard to follow Italian "Giallo" (Italian for "yellow", a reference to the color of the paper they were advertised on) suspense film with lots of atmosphere and mystery. Somebody killed her husband. Maybe it was her. She ends up dead herself, and a bunch of people eat her. Was that the whole plan all along? Maybe you can figure it out.

 

THE PERVERSE COUNTESS

aka La Comtesse Perverse (original title)

Clifford Brown (Jess Franco), Comptoir Fancais du Film Producion 1974

Yet another Franco film, this one is about a couple of jet setters who live in a villa on their own private island. They like to invite over young girls who they chain up in their dungeon, have sex with, and then finally cook them in their big flame broiler. Lina Romay finds out what's going on and a naked hunt ensues. The movie is very hard core to the point of being pornographic, and I have a nagging feeling that the cannibalism subject and all of the oral sex featured are in some way "artistically" related. You can be your own judge but be forewarned: this movie can be found in French or Italian versions, neither of which has subtitles, and I think the thing would still be pretty hard to follow even if it did have subtitles. NEWS FLASH: Video Search of Miami has recently released an English subtitled French version, but most of the sex and cannibal scenes have been edited out of it.


Mutant cannibals have a guest for dinner in The Phantom Empire


THE PHANTOM EMPIRE

Fred Olen Ray, American Independent Productions 1988

This recent cheapie produced by Fred Olen Ray stars Sybil Danning as an Amazon from Outer Space, who needs diamonds and other precious gems to repair her damaged spaceship. She is found by a group of explorers on an expedition to look for the lost city of R'ylia, financed by a rich girl who wants the same diamonds. But first she gets captured by a bunch of mutant cannibals who strip her of her jeans and sweater but leave on her panties and undershirt while roasting her on a giant spit. Could be better in a great many ways, but the depiction of the cooking of a partially naked woman alive and without being butchered is pretty rare, and this does provide for decent mindless entertainment. Not to be confused with the Republic Serial "The Phantom Empire." On the whole, "Raw Force" is much better.

 

PIGSTY

aka Pigpen, Porchiere, Porcile

Paolo Piero Pasolini, I Film Dell'Orso 1969 (Italy)

Cannibalism is a popular device in the Italian cinema and Pasolini uses it effectively in this dark fantasy about soldiers who both kill and eat their enemies.

 

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Gore Verbinski, Walt Disney Pictures, 2006

The first of two sequels to Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Johhny Depp returns as Captain Jack Sparrow along with Kiera Knightly and Orlando Bloom reprising their roles. In one scene Captain Jack meets a tribe of cannibal Caribs who invite him to dinner as the main course. The film's release brought controversy over the portrayal of Carib indians as cannibals. Spanish explorers from as far back as Columbus branded the Caribs as cannibals (Carib is, in fact, the derivation of the word "cannibal"), a charge that modern day Carib descendents deny. One Carib chief is offended by Disney's portrayal of his people as cannibalistic savages, claiming that it was the Europeans who were the true savages.

 

PLANET DER KANNIBALEN

aka Planet of the Cannibals

Hans-Christoph Blumenberg, ARTE 2001 (Germany)

A German B-Grade scifi comedy made in Germany and released in English in Australia. This is about a television station in the future that does a reality show involving cannibal aliens, a Hannibal Lechter type character that gives an advice column and involves a murder mystery subplot. Sounds fun.

 

PLEASE DON'T EAT THE BABIES

Henri Char, Mars Productions 1983

Never released in the US, but available from european outlets, this movie is about a bunch of teenagers and their two pre-teen sisters (the "babies") on a scuba-diving expedition in the Bermuda Triangle. They fill their air tanks at Chubb Cay, a small island where misanthropic old man Jebadiah lives with Granny Moon, his half-witted son Junior, grandson Jimmer, a crazy cannibalistic ghoul (still can't figure out where he came from) and a bunch of flesh-eating giant bugs. To make matters even more confusing, the movie was re-released under the title Island Fury, supposedly a sequel, with one of the "babies" now grown up returning to the island. A good 90% of the movie is just the original movie with a few extra scenes cut it.

 

PLEASE DON'T EAT MY MOTHER

aka Hungry Pets, Glump, Sexpot Swingers

Carl Monson, Boxoffice International Pictures 1973

A great (originally) X-Rated version of Roger Corman's "Little Shop of Horrors" made in the early 70's (pre hard-core) featuring Buck Kartalian and Rene Bond. Buck is the voyeuristic Seymore Krelborne character who raises the carnivorous plant which develops a taste for pretty young girls. This is a real problem for Buck. Getting dates is hard enough without his pet plant eating them all! A funny and entertaining movie for what it is, and a decent spoof in any case.

 

This version of The Dorm That Dripped Blood gives away the ending

 

PRANKS

aka, The Dorm That Dripped Blood

Stephen Carpenter, Jeff Obrow Productions 1982

A typical early 1980's slasher horror flick more commonly known as The Dorm That Dripped Blood, this is about a killer stalking an old college dormatory. The killer saves the best for last, opting to have the lead character for dinner. Or, at least, to do the cooking.


PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

Burr Steers, Cross Creek Pictures 2016

This is pretty much what it appears to be: Pride and Prejudice with Zombies. Lily James (Downton Abbey) is Elizabeth Bennet. She and her sisters have been trained in Chinese martial arts. Mr. D'arcy is a zombie hunter trained in the Japanese arts. Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Lena Headey - Game of Thrones) is a legendary zombie hunter. They both look down their noses at the Chinese trained Bennet girls. Georgian England has become infected with a zombie plague and London is a walled off fortress. Mr. D'arcy hunts zombies in the country side while George Wickham tries to make an alliance with religious non-human eating zombies. Actually stays pretty true to the Jane Austen novel except for the, you know... zombies.

 

PRIME CUT

Michael Ritchie, Cinema Center Films 1972

This has been a long omission including this here. Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman star in a very whacky 70's gangster picture about a mobster cattle baron (Hackman) who grinds rival gang members into sausages and keeps a stable of young women sex-slaves literally like cattle in a stock yard. Lee Marvin with a machine gun is out to stop him with the help of Sissy Spacek, one of his stock-yard sex slave girls. Much strangeness ensues. One of the posters for this movie showed a nude girl with a USDA meat stamp on her hip.


PRIMITIVES

aka Primitif

Sisworo Gautama Putro, Rapi Films 1980

Basically, an Indochinese "Cannibal Holocaust" with lots of blood, guts, entrails, eye-gouging and real animal mutilations just like the Italian stuff. If you're up for more of the same check it out, just don't watch after a big meal.


aPipis Parlapipis tastes some jungle girl soup in Psilos Liignos Kai Pseftaros

PSILOS, LIGNOS KAI PSEFTAROS

Yiannis Hartomatzidis, Giorgios Karagiannis & Co. 1985 (Greece)

Pipis Parlapipis is a Greek teller of tall tales and liar to rival Baron Munchausen. His life, or at least his telling of it, has been made into a television series at the end of his life. In one of his stories he rescues a woman from being cooked in a pot by a tribe of cannibals. The film is available on video but only in Greek language without subtitles.

 

PSYCHOS IN LOVE

Gorman Bechard, Beyond Infinity 1987

A couple of grape-hating psycho killers pick up lovers and murder them. Their secret is discovered by a cannibal plumber who agrees to keep their secret if they agree to turn the bodies over to him. Otherwise, he tells them, he'll eat THEM after he cooks them using his new recipe involving GRAPES!


PULGARCITO

aka Tom Thumb, Tom Thumb American Version

Rene Cardona, Clasa Films Mundiales 1957 (Mexico)

One of several Mexican made films based on the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, this is the story of Tom Thumb, or "Pulgarcito" in Spanish. Diminutive Tom and his brothers are taken captive by an ogre that has a taste for boy meat. He takes them home to his wife and daughters and puts Tom in a bird cage. Tom and the boys teach the women about soap and grooming and the ogre is horrified to find them clean and pretty. The girls convince the ogre to let the boys go. Pulgarcito returned in another movie where he teams up with Little Red Riding Hood (Caperucita) against the Big Bad Wolf.


PURSUIT

John Parr, Kevron Entertainment 1991

An obscure Rambo rip-off action flick about a jungle mercenary who comes out of retirement to recover gold that has been stolen by revolutionary terrorists. He puts his team together from a dubious group of untrustworthy types. As they set out they are joined by a woman photojournalist who has a history with the leader. Not surprisingly, his group turns on him when the gold is found, and they set off through the jungle with the woman as hostage. When they are attacked by a local cannibal tribe, the photojournalist is taken captive and brought back to their village. Our hero, hot on the trail of his treacherous ex companions, rescues her far too easily. She's mad because he has interrupted the party and dance. "You're not the guest of honor," he tells her, "you're the main course!" The whole scene is kind of a waste. But, then again, the whole movie is a bit of a waste itself.