A documentary film crew, in the South American jungle hoping to film cannibals are reported missing and a New York anthropologist, undertakes to find them. Professor Monroe returns with several reels of their undeveloped film, which he views when back in the US. They reveal the crew staging their footage by terrorizing and torturing the tribes people and their subsequent fate.Ruggero Deodato's infamous 'video nasty' was banned in several countries, due to its graphic depiction of gore, sexual violence, and gratuitous animal killings. Shockingly it manages to looks good and is well made, but it betrays it's exploitation roots with the slaughter, sexual torture and news footage of actual executions. Some see this film as a social commentary, but I see better targets for social commentary than South American cannibals! To me it tries to shock for shocks sake, hiding under a vaneer of being something better than it is. What does the prolonged scene of the killing and dismemberment of a turtle actually add to the film? Is the director trying to make a point about the inhumanity of man, or just adding shocking footage just to shock? To me it's the latter. A truly shocking film, sometimes for the right reasons, but mostly for all the wrong reasons.
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