Mountain of the Cannibal God

**Spoilers Included**

In 1978, a movie called Mountain of the Cannibal God was released, directed by Sergio Martino, written by Sergio Martino and Cesare Frugoni, and starring Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach. This is a movie of the "cannibal movie set in exotic locations with violence that doesn't add to the plot" type of movie.

This movie is an obscure movie from the Italian gore style of movie. The plot follows a woman (Ursula Andress) and her brother who recruit an adventurer (Stacy Keach) to help them find her lost husband in the jungle. The consensus is that the husband went into an island that is legendary for its cannibal islanders. As the story moves along, we find out that the adventurer had been abducted by the cannibal tribe and assimilated, but he had escaped and had watched the village be destroyed. They lose their help, but recruit another adventurer. The first adventurer starts to go crazy at the idea that the cannibals are not all dead, but actually following them. He ends up dying, but the remaining three find an area that is rich in uranium. It is revealed that the husband was going to exploit the mountain for its rich uranium and leave out the wife and her brother, but since they know where the uranium is, they can get rich on their own. One problem: that is the home of the cannibals, who kill the brother, take the second adventurer captive, and make the wife a queen. Why? Because her dead husband has been disfigured by the radioactivity and now has a Geiger reader in his chest that keeps bouncing, so they think he is eternal, and she will reign over them with the corpse. Naturally, the two remaining do escape.

So, now you don't have to watch the movie. And you have to be in a strange mood to even want to watch this movie. The violence against people is almost comical. The blood and the guts do not look real at all. When the first adventurer falls off the waterfall, it is obvious that it's a dummy. The human flesh the cannibals eat doesn't even look like meat, nor do the lizards they eat. But this movie has fills of animal violence which is real, and rather disturbing. They shot footage of animal violence while shooting the movie. There is a bird of prey against a snake, a crocodile against a large turtle, and most infamously a monkey against a python. The director claims the python had been following them during the shoot, and there were monkeys around and they happened to get the footage, but if you slow the movie, you can see the monkey is pushed toward the python who eats it alive slowly.

This movie is not for the faint of heart because the animal violence is real, but with all movies of this type the story is hollow and flimsy. There was no real reason for two adventurers unless they are starting out together, which they don't. A big problem I have is when the wife tells the second adventurer that she and her brother used him to find the uranium, he then rescues her from the cannibals instead of just escaping. Also, I find it odd that Stacy Keach's character dies about halfway through the movie. But my biggest complaint is the use of animal violence all the way through. It adds nothing to the plot and only shocks the audience. I thought the plot with its cannibals and human violence should do that, but of course those effects are crappy, so I guess they couldn't. The only good thing about it is you get to see the beautiful Ursula Andress naked.

Either way, this is a bad movie that could have been so much better. I don't recommend this for viewing unless you want to punish yourself.

Here is a link to the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMMJyNvQGRA