The Encyclopedia of Cannibal Movies

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RABID GRANNIES

Emmanuel Kervyn, Stardust Pictures, TROMA 1988 (Belgium)

A TROMA film about grandmothers who turn into monsters and start killing their sons, daughters, grand-children, nieces and nephews. A decent gore-fest, but not much of a story.

 

THE RANCH

Club Dead

A 38 minute amateur-custom MPEG video short from Club Dead, this is probably one of their best efforts at cannibal themed erotic-horror. Most Club Dead videos concentrate on the killing of pretty women, but this one seems to concentrate mostly on the preparation and cooking of the sexy Janice, who is spotted while grocery shopping by two modern cannibals, themselves out grocery shopping. Taken in her own house, she is taken back to the mysterious Ranch where she is raped, stripped, tied to a metal frame and roasted alive on a turning rotisserie! Like most Club Dead models, Janice is really too skinny to be a believable cannibal feast, but despite that she is enormously sexy and is also probably one of the Club's best actresses.


RAPE ZOMBIE: LUST OF THE DEAD

Naoyuki Tomomatsu, Gensou haikyuu-sha Ltd. 2012 (Japan)

A nuclear attack turns men into sex-starved zombies hungry for the flesh of women. A group of nurses take refuge in a Shinto shrine and arm themselves to defend against the zombie hoard. The zombies seem more interested in raping than eating. Lots of nudity and blood. There were four sequels.


RAVENOUS

Antonia Bird, ETIC Films, Twentieth Century Fox 1999

Cannibalism on the American Frontier, but nowhere near as inspired as Parker and Stone's "Cannibal the Musical." Apparently combining the legends of Alferd Packer and the Donner Party, this is about a remote fort caught during a nasty winter and troubled by a lone maniac who develops a taste for man-flesh. The pressbook was done like a cookbook!


RAW

Julia Ducournau, Petit Film 2016 (France)

A horror movie for vegans, depicting what vegans seem to think will happen to them if they eat meat. A young girl from a vegetarian family and a devoted vegetarian herself is in her freshman year at a veterinary school along with her sister. The school has some bizarre hazing rituals, one of which involves blood and raw meat, which the girl refuses to eat. After her sister forces her to eat the raw meat, she develops a craving for meat, especially when it is raw and bloody. When her sister cuts off her own finger in an accident and faints, the girl picks up the severed finger and eats it. Things just spiral out of control after that. She and her sister cause an accident on a remote road and then eat the victims. It even gets to the point that eating raw human meat causes her to have an orgasm. After her sister kills and eats the girl's boyfriend she goes back home, to learn from her father why the family are vegetarians. This disturbing and unsettling film is quite a bit more than just the usual gory horror film and has won numerous accolades. At a screening at the Nuart Theater in Los Angeles, barf bags were passed out to viewers.

 

Cannibal Monks

Cannibal Monks chow down on some hot (roasted) stripper steak in Raw Force

 

RAW FORCE (Invaders of the Jade Tombs)

aka, Kung Fu Cannibals

Edward Murphy, Ansor International 1982

This movie is a difficult one to classify. It's a horror movie, an adventure movie, a martial arts movie, a sexploitation movie, and a cannibal movie. In fact, no matter what you like in the world of Psychotronic films, this one probably has something to satisfy you. A martial arts club from Los Angeles learns about a sect of monks on Warriors Island in the South Pacific, who stand guard over the graves of disgraced Ninja, Samurai and Kung Fu masters who go there to commit suicide. These monks it seems, have the power to raise the dead, and thus these dishonored dead can redeem themselves as zombie warriors. But, in order to maintain their reanimating powers, these monks must feast on the flesh of young women. An ex-nazi war criminal supplies them with kidnapped young babes in exchange for precious jade. Meanwhile, the LA group has chartered a cruise for Warriors Island, via Hong Kong, and they're taking their girlfriends with them! With some gore, lots of sex, and fat old monks drooling while slathering barbecue sauce over the bodies of beautiful, screaming girls, this movie is loads of fun.


RAW MEAT

aka Death Line

Gary Sherman, Harbor Ventures 1972

Actually a classic, this early 1970's horror film is about a small band of mutant descendants of the survivors of a mine disaster who now live in a London subway and survive as cannibals, preying on the city dwellers above. It is also about the search for love by one of these men when his wife dies and he needs to find a new mate among the groceries. Despite the suggestion of cannibalism, none actually occurs. Donald Pleasance stars in this very Hammer-esq production.

 

RED NECK ZOMBIES

Pericles Lewnes, Full Moon Pictures 1989

Cannibalistic red-necks on radioactive hooch? What an original idea (NOT!). The girl on the box poster and the cannibalism somehow never get worked into the story. I'd rather watch "Street Trash." Most everything that comes out of Full Moon Pictures is drek.

 

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

Dan O'Bannon, Cinema 84 1985

A horror-comic hommage to "Night of the Living Dead" this pretends to be a sequel, and to tell the "real story" about what happened. Seems it wasn't a satellite at all but a toxic chemical, and a couple of warehouse bozos have a bunch of it in their basement. When they accidentally open a canister all hell (literally) breaks loose! See Linnea Quigley as a punkette get eaten alive and then come back as a zombie! All in all, a pretty fun movie. Inspired by the classic Night of the Living Dead, which introduced cannibalistic zombies, this movie spawned a series of films and defined the "Brain Eating" Zombie genre.

 

Revenge of the Zombies poster

 

REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES

aka Black Magic II, Gou Hun Jiang Tou (original title)

Horace Menga, Run Run Shaw, Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest Company 1976 (Hong Kong)

A martial arts/horror/exploitation movie from the Shaw Brothers of Hong Kong. Michael Weldon talked about it in "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film," and mentioned cannibals among the many other weird things going on in the film. While the Zombies, wizards, alligators and all the other stuff is there, I never saw any cannibals. The Shaw brothers (Run Run and Runme) are also responsible for "The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula" (aka "The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires") made in cooperation with Hammer. This film, albeit rare, is available on videotape.

 

Turkish Poster, Italian Movie?

 

RIUSCIRANNO I NOSTRI EROI A RITROVARE l'AMICO MISTERIOSAMENTE SCOMPARSO IN AFRICA?

aka Iki Kafadar Vahsiler Diyarinda

Ettere Scola 1968 (Italy)

A 1968 Italian comedy translated as ""Will Our Heroes Be Able to Find Their Friend Who Has Mysteriously Disappeared in Africa?" Way too long a title if you ask me. Starring Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Bernard Blier and Erika Blanc. No other information available.

 

RIVER OF DEATH

Steve Carver, Breton Film Productions, Cannon International 1989

Robert Vaughn stars in one of his better recent bad movies as the evil Doctor Joseph Mengele. He's doing experiments on natives in the jungles of New Guinea. A rogue explorer leads an expedition into the jungle to find the doctor. His girlfriend was killed by the doctor's natives and he wants revenge. On the way, the expedition is captured by cannibals who pass over the strapping explorer and the young German beauty and butcher and eat one of the old and useless members of the party who was obviously there for this purpose.

 

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Foreign poster for Road To Zanzibar feature Hope and Crosby in a cannibal pot

ROAD TO ZANZIBAR

Victor Schertzinger, Paramount Pictures 1941

Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, together with Dorothy Lamour in the second of the famous "Road To" pictures. In this one, the boys meet Dorothy in Africa, and after being separated from her get captured by cannibals. Too bad Dorothy wasn't with them. In her prime, Miss Lamour was one of the most exotically beautiful women in films. A definite Cannibal Comedy Cliche classic.

 

ROADKILL: The Last Days of John Martin

Jim Van Bebber, Asmodeus Productions 1994

A sicko-gore short subject with enough rats, maggots and bloody human entrails to keep you puking through it's ten or fifteen some minute length. John Martin loses his last grip on his sanity (probably from eating too many rats and maggots) and goes on a road-trip. He picks up a young couple whose car has broken down. Within moments of getting them into the car he zaps the guy with some sort of powerdrill. In the next scene he's hoisting up the guy on a chain pulley and whacks him with a cleaver. He has the now-naked girl in a cage on top of his stove, when she wakes up and starts screaming he smacks his lips and turns on the burners. If you like 'em sick, this duds for you.

 

RYNDA'S SAFARI VACATION

Craig Mathieson, Lobster Films 1992

An obscure 1992 independent shot on Super-8mm. Comedienne Laura Kightlinger (Saturday Night Live) stars as a prostitute who gets tired of her job and goes on a safari vacation to get away from it all. She hooks up with her friend Robyn in Vacationland in Maine and everything seems fine unitl Robyn disappears and several people turn up dead. It seems some of the seemingly senile old tourists also on vacation are cannibals! Once available on video, this film is out of print and no longer being distributed by Lobster Films.