Invasion of the Flesh Hunters (1981)

Too much of everything

Lack of good storyline.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

A cannibal-movie that actually tries and succeeds to be different. This movie transcends the cannibal genre and becomes something else. You'll have to get past the silly & inept Vietnam opening-scene, but then this movie turns into an urban tale of virus-outbreak. A cannibal-virus, that is. There's some violence, there's some drama, there's some nudity, there's some very nice gore and there are four cannibal-fugitives on the run. Awesome mixture that works! Add to that a satisfying ending, and we've got a hit! A hit with John Saxon in it, no less. "Cannibal Apocalypse" indeed feels, at times, a bit like Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), but the one movie that kept coming to my mind was David Cronenberg's "Rabid" (1977). So if you're tired of all those "half naked cannibals eating human flesh and slaughtering animals in the jungle"-flicks, and if Umberto Lenzi's "Nightmare City" (1980) just made you laugh instead of anything else, then go watch Antonio Margheriti's "Cannibal Apocalypse" (aka "Invasion of the Flesh Hunters"). And make 100% sure you get a hold of the uncut version.

Cannibal Apocalypse (1980) ** (out of 4) Italian mixture of horror and action has John Saxon playing a Vietnam vet still suffering from memories of a mission, which sent him back to the jungles to rescue two of his men who had been turned into cannibals. Years later back in Atlanta one of the rescued men (John Morghen) bites down on a woman and soon the cannibal virus is running wild. If you're expecting non-stop gore then you're going to get some but this film isn't as wild or over the top as you might expect since it does have a social message about vets. Overall the film isn't too bad but it's certainly not as entertaining as some of the genre's better movies. One big plus is the performance of Saxon who's really, really strong here. Morghen, best known for his role in Cannibal Ferox, is also fun in the over the top way that only he can do. The rest of the cast members are rather lame and don't add too much to the film. The biggest problem with the film is that at 96-minutes it runs too long and at times gets very slow and boring. I'm not sure what the point was of going for a social message in this type of movie especially when it was sold as exploitation but it wasn't needed. The action scenes are all cheap looking but they do have that certain charm that only an Italian B movie can have.

Vietnam vet Norman Hopper (John Saxon) has suddenly begun to relive the nightmare of war in his dreams. He receives a phone call from an old army friend, Charlie Buckowski, that he rescued in Nam, Buckowski and another man Tom Thompson had been found in a Viet Cong prison with a craving for human flesh and both had since been in a mental hospital for psychological analysis. Hopper turns down the offer of meeting his old mate as he is struggling with demons of his own, he believes his wife may be an adulteress, he is also attracted to the very young girl next door and more importantly he is stressed at his increasing craving for raw meat and blood. Buckowski goes on a shooting rampage and kills a few people and is locked up again, but then escapes along with Thompson and he urges Hopper to help them escape the city. Saxon a fluent Italian speaker and a veteran of many Italian films, jumped at the chance of working with the great Margheriti and was immediately impressed by the directors rapport with actors and his talent behind the camera, Saxon was also attracted by the seemingly novel idea that war might be spread by a virus, he was shocked though when during filming he suddenly realised that the virus was a cannibalistic one and he refused to be in any of the scenes containing such acts. For those who like the adventure aspect of a jungle set Cannibal film, this might disappoint slightly, except for a few flashbacks this is entirely set in Atlanta and plays more like a Nam Vet action film with some gore on the side. Still though, the characters are interesting and time is given to their development, Saxon impresses as the troubled Hopper, which is hardly surprising, but he may have been helped somewhat by his depression at the time, due primarily to financial problems he had after the break-up of his marriage. His fellow actors including John Morghen recount that he was rather aloof and distant and not much fun during filming. Margheriti was renowned for his period set Gothic costume dramas and Cannibal Apocalypse was a big change of style for him, gone are all his trademark stylings and in come the more appropriate washed out colours and a steely grey look of the city. The gore is for the most part pretty tame by genre standards but its still effective. The faux disco score was tacky as hell and at times seemed inappropriate to the visuals, but this is still a fun film, and is recommend to fans of the genre

I think the best about this movie is the title, i mean, "Apocalypse domani"(Apocalypse Tomorrow)like a spoof-reference to the big hit Apocalypse Now, and both about Vietnam in some different ways. Well, that the title is the best of this movie doesn't mean the movie is bad. Its a good Italian action-horror movie, but i think it lacks in some entertainment value. I believe the movie takes itself too serious and thats a minus in this kind of Italian gore-fest(well, this one ain't a gore fest but have a decent amount of blood and some cool gore). Worth a look but don't expect a great, non-stop Italian gore fest. PS: The image quality of the DVD is superb. 6/10.