Man from Deep River (1973)

Too much of everything

Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Not the worst of this genre of horror films I have seen. There is not much cannibal action in this but to me that is a good thing as it was always very cheaply and sadly done and I also am not really into the blood and gore stuff. Story is OK with surprisingly decent acting.

Ivan Rassimov plays American photographer John Bradley, on vacation in Thailand. He and his guide end up deep in the jungle, where he is abducted by a primitive tribe. They put him into a variety of tortures and trials, until finally accepting him as one of their own. He finds adjusting to this new life to be surprisingly agreeable, especially when he becomes smitten with Maraya (Me Me Lai), the lovely daughter of the tribes' leader.Considered to the vanguard film in that jungle / cannibal genre popularized by the Italians, this is definitely a trail blazer, but people who've already seen more famous entries in the genre may be caught off guard with this one. It's more of a straight drama (heavily influenced by Elliot Silversteins' Western "A Man Called Horse") with touches of horror than a body munching / body count / exploitation feature. In reality, despite the presence of a hostile cannibal tribe in the film, only one person ever gets turned into a feast."Sacrifice!", a.k.a. "The Man from the Deep River", isn't without its gory pleasures, however. It benefits from excellent location shooting and utterly convincing local color. It's wonderfully shot, and scored, and is overall quite appealing and engaging. It's not to all tastes, though, because it includes some brief moments of animal cruelty that will turn off some members of the audience. This, of course, has only become one of the elements that recurs throughout many an Italian jungle adventure.Rassimov is good as the hero. The intoxicatingly gorgeous Me Me Lai, who went on to appear in "Jungle Holocaust" and "Eaten Alive!" as well, is very easy to watch. (Viewers should be quite content with the amount of female nudity that is present.) The other performances are quite effective.This is as good a story of both the beauty and savagery of nature as one could see.Eight out of 10.

Though not particularly well versed, I'd consider myself to currently be a big fan of Italian horror, and "Sacrifice!" is officially the first cannibal title I've seen, and let me say this wasn't 100% what I was expecting.The plot is simple enough, a British photographer while exploring the Thai/Burmese jungle gets captured by a native tribe and slowly starts to become absorbed into it. Now I say native tribe because it is not a cannibal tribe, and the actual cannibals in the movie only account for less than five minutes of screen time, so this technically isn't a movie about cannibals, but kind of an examination of an "undeveloped," (shall I say) tribe. First the positives. The sudo documentary opening is quite excellent. The rugged, dirty, and even rough Asian city contrasts nicely with the small village, and our lead's stories of London. Also, the story is quite effective. You get to know the characters, and grow to feel for them. This film was obviously concerned with telling a story with characters. And from what I've seen, the later cannibal films forgot about his aspect. And once again, Italian horror movies have to have an excellent score, and this is no exception. Everything fits the mood, and is another fine example of Italian horror scores. Now, the moderates. Though there is story and characters, this is still also an exploitation film. We're treated to many fine shots of naked Me Me Lai, and a few other girls, while basically minimizing the amount of male nudity. And as for the violence, while I would say the human element is fine. There aren't too many gory scenes, too which one is actually an effective cannibal scene, and all are quite effective, and even shocking even by toady's standards. And while there's also a bit of minor stuff, such as people getting shot with darts, both poisonous and non poisonous,I now have to address the main issue with this movie, which perpetuates the whole genre. The absolute negative aspect of this movie is the real animal killings. Though I fully acknowledge that these are all ways of tribal life, but watching animals die simply for shock value is unacceptable. It doesn't help that the animal abuse is a recurring thing through the movie. It just comes of as tasteless and sickening, especially when the footage could be cut and nothing would be lost."Sacrifice!" is only really notorious for starting the Italian cannibal boom. And despite the animal abuse, it is still a well executed film. This is only something for the strongest of the strong. No exceptions.

This is a earlier film directed by Umberto Lenzi in 1972. This is also considered to be the first of a series of many cannibal films. Although, this film dosen't necessarily focus on the cannibalism but more on character development and story.Basically, a man goes into the amazon and is captured by a vicious tribe. It isn't until he kills one of their own that he is excepted into the tribe.I just saw this movie and I thought it was a decent film. Nothing to spectacular but enjoyable nonetheless. The main problems with this film is it tends to drag at many points and the gore is very limited. Another problem with this film is (just like almost all other cannibal films) the fact that they have real animals being slaughtered. Just like in my review of Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox, I just don't understand the use in killing animals on the screen for shock value.Altogether, this isn't a bad film but nowhere near as good as some of Lenzi's later work. 6/10 stars