Retro Review: Anthropophagous (1980)

Severin Films is getting ready to release a couple of interesting films.  Anthropophagous and Absurd.  Anthropophagous has been sitting on my brother in-law’s horror collection for a good 13 years or so.  He bought the movie based on the cover art and why not.  What looks like a zombie eating its own guts.

Synopsis:

A group of tourists become stranded on an uninhabited island where they are stalked by an insane, violent, and grotesque killer that slaughtered the town’s former residents.

The movie is slow, It begins with a couple taking along walk to the beach with their dog, I think it is their dog.  It was strange watching the scene, they were speaking German and we thought there was something wrong with the dubbing.  They are offed, the man’s death was a good on, clever to the skull, gotta love it.  Tisa Farrow from Lucio Fulci’s Zombie meets some people on some on the way to an island where only few live.  This the same island from the opening scene with the Germans.  When they arrive, it is pretty much empty.  They explore a little and find a blind girl hiding in the basement of a house.  While that is happening, the boat they arrived on drifts away from the island and one of the men is upset because his prego wife may be on the boat, nope she was dragged off.

I will be honest here I didn’t know what to think of the killer in this movie.  He was huge, his make-up suggests zombie, but the movie actually plays like a slasher.  I have read that he is a cannibal, so not a zombie, cannibal slasher, who is super fast.  There is a scene were Tisa Farrow and the blind girl are being chased by the killer in this giant house castle, they reach the attic and he cannot get in.  Suddenly the roof rips open and he pulled the blind girl through the roof, ripping into her head.  Luckily Tia Farrow picks up the pick ax near and slams it into his leg.  The Killer falls very far into a well.  Then, the killer eventually eats his own guts, which the cover art kills the climax of the movie, doesn’t really matter.  My favorite scene happens in a crypt, so enjoy that.

There is something to be said about the score, simply lovely.

I am at a loss with this one, it was super slow at the beginning, but shit happens, the island is wonderful to look at, the characters are fun.  I am not very seasoned in Joe D’Mato movies, but it feels like a good ole Fulci film.  So, I am now interested in seeing more D’Mato films.  I do have Absurd and Beyond the Darkness to look forward to, I guess if I really wanted to, I could watch all of the Emmanuelle movies, which I remember being all about nudity back in the day.

Remember Severin as Anthropophagous coming Sept 25th, along with Absurd in the Maneater bundle.

IMDB,com has a rating of 5.4

My rating is much higher, I give it 7.0, I really enjoyed the Anthropophagous

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About Ray Marek III 699 Articles
I have been watching horror films since I was 6 years old. The story, one Saturday night, my mom and I were watching movies and she fell asleep on the couch. We had the channel set on HBO and the movie we were watching ended and the next one, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. This was some time in 1986. I watched then entire film, I was sitting on the edge of my seat. When my mom woke, she asked me what just ended and I told her, “Freddy”. That was all I talked about for weeks and finally she broke down and rented more horror films for me. She rented, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2, Re-Animator, Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives and Halloween II. I watched all and fell in love with horror films forever. 5 Horror Films to Watch Inferno (1980) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) The Beyond (1981) Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives (1986) Horror of Dracula (1958)