Cannibal! The Musical (1996)

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

loved this movie. Watched it with a couple of buddies who are all big south park fans and we laughed our asses off! The songs are ridiculously funny and catchy as hell. The sense of humor was great, just as u'd expect from the south park crew and there was a little bit of gore as well! Trey parker and matt stone both star in this movie along with the little b!th from basketball. Some of the characters were pretty awesome too..."what you don't believe we indians? look at all the toupees". Man this stuff was great especially watching it 15 years after it was first released and seeing how far these great directors have gone since their first cult classic. The fact that it is a Troma release means that the DVD is packed with special features that makes the fun continue after the movie is over. Troma puts together some of the best special features i have ever seen and makes me want to buy more of their dvds just because of the extra content.

for all of you who mother's were elephants and fathers were Eskimos, you know already the weird and disturbing musical charm of this wildly funny Troma nightmare.i grew up watching musicals and my parents pushed musicals on us because they thought they were highbrow entertainment. i always preferred the 'B' and 'Z' horror movies, Three Stooges, and cheapo Disney Burbank studio stuff to the lofty pretensions of MGM and Broadway musical shows. i've spent years trying to erase the lyrics of these showtunes from my mind with little success. through no fault of my own i occasionally relive the lyrics to bile like "wouldn't it be loverly" and "if ever i would leave you" chiming in my memory much to my dismay and even worse threat to my sanity.don't get me wrong. i love musicals. in fact musicals are my favorite of the entertainment genres. i just disagree with the current and standard consensus of which musicals are good. i can't stand anything that falls into too much formula with say, the exception of Disney films. in the case of Disney, formula works. in the case of most everything else, formula breeds familiarity and contempt. that holds true for most Broadway and MGM musicals. too much formula and contrivance leads to boring familiarity which leads to mutinous contempt.that's why i like musicals post 'Rocky Horror'. just to survive musicals had to break formula and convention. instead of conventionally square, they often could be daring and willing to take chances. many of them became rather dark, or even violent, like in the case of 'Sweeney Todd' and 'Cannibal;The Musical'.even though 'Cannibal' never appeared on Broadway, it is actually more fresh and inspired than the majority of those productions. even though filmed on a very marginal budget, 'Cannibal' feels very much like legitimate musical theater comedy. so much so that it doubles both successfully in film and as a popular stage play. it also isn't really any more violent than say 'Sweeney Todd' which received Tony awards.i'm no stranger to musicals. my experience goes all the way back to the original B&W musicals by Busby Berkley (who i actually do like)and i have heard many Broadway track recordings even if i haven't seen those plays. and as someone who truly likes musicals, my criticism of mainstay musicals is probably more fair than by someone who doesn't care for musical theater.i love 'Cannibal;The Musical'. it's funny and tuneful and most of all, inspired. i love musicals, although if your average musical authority saw a list of my favorite musicals, they'd probably think i was warped. i mean i have Oingo Boingo's 'Forbidden Zone' on there.

Alfred Packer the musical aka Cannibal The Musical is the first full-length film by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.I am a very big South Park fan and I enjoy Troma movies such as Toxic Avenger, but I didn't like this as much as I thought I would.It had a few funny moments but I just didn't like it that much.The film takes place in the 1800's and its about Alfred Packer and a group of miners travelling to Colorado looking for gold.They meet many people on their journey but they all end up going crazy and killing each other! There are some good musical numbers and a few funny scenes, but overall, this is my least favorite Trey and Matt movie.

Saw this film while it was making the college circuit in 1999 on 35mm. I was a working with the University of Iowa's Bijou Theater (a premier venue for independent and art house style theater) when this film came in. Cannibal! The Musical is an ingenious effort for Trey Parker and the rest of his cast and crew. Parker leads the way from Provo, UT to Breckenridge, CO which provides the perfect journey for his motley cast to find out who they truly are. This film works on a number of different levels. First it is a send-up of the musical play and film, Oklahoma!, and with it, the entire Western genre. This, combined with a truly morbid plot line makes wonderful juxtaposition. Combine this with a self-assured independent film making style and some of the best and quirky one-liners and sight-gags and you have yourself a work of art.The film opens with a most bloody and comical rendition of 'how it happened' as told by the prosecuting attorney in Mr. Packer's trial. If you can't make it through the opening, you won't enjoy this film. The sequence is self-consciously over-the-top, and it gets better on the second viewing, since you will remember each lovable character. What I appreciate most about this film though, is the way in which the actors are truly encouraged to 'be themselves.' Each character is both a caricature of Western genre archetype intertwined with their modern counterpart, an actor or actress who has dreams and ambitions which may or may not be too far removed from those of the part they are playing. This dichotomy charges each actor as they can shift between the cardboard cut-out and the flesh and blood person that they are. In the end, Cannibal! The Musical, is a story of survival with a good moral lessons which must be delivered with proper doses of; dooming prophets, Nihonjin Indians, cyclops ranchers, villainous trappers, bar fights, public hangings, raging rivers, impenetrable mountains and a most deadly cold winter. Cannibal! The Musical should be seen by anyone interested in the film making business. Created by amateurs, it set the watermark mighty high for up and coming writers, directors, producers, and actors. So what are you waiting for, go order the film on Netflix, buy it at Walmart, or better yet, go get it from your local independent video store... (like Hut Video, or That's Rentertainment if you're in Iowa City).. and sit back and reclaim the little known history of these extraordinary Coloradinians and Americans.