This movie was released with at least a dozen different titles.
There is gore. Much more gore than you expect in a Franco movie.
This is one of the movies that Franco made because he needed the pay cheque. He disliked the cannibal movies intensely which is probably why this film doesn’t really quite belong to that sub-genre.
Laura Crawford (Ursula Buchfellner) is an up-and-coming movie star. She’s being groomed to be the biggest star of the 80s. Then she gets kidnapped. The kidnappers demand a ransom of six million dollars.
For reasons which are never explained the kidnappers decide to take Laura to a remote island off the coast of South America. They possibly should have done a little research on the island first. Things like finding out if the locals are friendly. It turns out the locals are very unfriendly indeed. They’re cannibals. They don’t actually eat people, not entirely, but their god (a guy with amazing popping eyes) likes to eat the hearts of pretty young girls. He rapes them first. So the island is not exactly what you’d call a safe refuge.
Laura’s manager hires Peter Weston (Al Cliver) to deliver the ransom money. If possibly Peter is to bring back both Laura and the money. It’s not clear what Peter Weston usually does for a living but he’s a seriously tough dude. He sets off for the island by helicopter, the helicopter being piloted by Vietnam vet Jack. Unfortunately Jack is one of those Vietnam vets who has never recovered. He has flashbacks and he’s jumpy.
The exchange of the money for the girl goes badly wrong. This sets up the main action of the movie. Laura is wandering about the jungle on her own, having escaped from the kidnappers. The kidnappers are hunting Laura. The cannibals are hunting Laura. Peter is trying to find Laura before either the kidnappers or the cannibals find her. Peter is hunting the kidnappers. The kidnappers are hunting Peter. The cannibals are hunting everybody.
There’s also the nude girl on the boat. What nude girl and what boat? The boat the kidnappers used to reach the island. They left the nude girl to guard it.
One of the kidnappers is a glamorous blonde, Jane (Gisela Hahn).
Of course the cannibals are hunting for any women they can find.
The kidnappers are a nasty bunch but they don’t realise that they should forget the six million dollars and Laura and just try to get off this island of death. But they’re too greedy to do that. They have lots of guns but guns are only useful against enemies you can see. And the cannibals know the island better than they do, and they have the island riddled with fiendish traps.
Franco apparently felt that some of his ideas from this movie were stolen for the movie Predator. And he definitely had a point.
Al Cliver makes a fine square-jawed action hero type. Antônio do Cabo is creepy as Thomas, the leader of the kidnappers. Most of the acting is OK, with both Jack and a couple of the kidnappers played as highly strung types who are not good in a crisis, especially a crisis involving cannibals.
Ursula Buchfellner was Playboy magazine's October 1979 Playmate of the Month and later posed for Penthouse as well. You would expect her to be stunningly beautiful, and she is. Having been a nude model you’d expect her to be OK with the idea of taking her clothes off and this was obviously the case since she’s totally naked for most of the movie. The lovely Muriel Montossé plays the nude girl on the boat. She made quite a few appearances in Franco’s movies. She spends all of her limited screen time naked.
The setup offers the opportunity for action and suspense. Action and suspense were not exactly the things we associate with Jess Franco. Franco’s strength was his ability to create hypnotic dreamscapes. He had little interesting in taut storytelling. He didn’t mind if the narrative was all over the place and he didn’t even care if there was no discernible straightforward linear narrative. This is a movie that needed a much stronger narrative drive. He was simply not the right director for such a movie.
By the standards of cannibal movies it’s not particularly gory but it does have some gross-out moments. Gore was something Franco wasn’t interested in and wasn’t good at.
Severin’s DVD (released some years ago) has an oddly washed-out look with very weak contrast. Given Severin’s track record of superb transfers this is presumably the result of problems with the source material. Severin subsequently released his movie on Blu-Ray and I’m told the transfer was considerably upgraded. The only significant extra is a brief interview with the director.
There are a few Franco touches and it does have that characteristic Franco fever dream feel. Franco completists will find just enough here to keep them interested but it’s not one of Franco’s better efforts.
There is gore. Much more gore than you expect in a Franco movie.
This is one of the movies that Franco made because he needed the pay cheque. He disliked the cannibal movies intensely which is probably why this film doesn’t really quite belong to that sub-genre.
Laura Crawford (Ursula Buchfellner) is an up-and-coming movie star. She’s being groomed to be the biggest star of the 80s. Then she gets kidnapped. The kidnappers demand a ransom of six million dollars.
For reasons which are never explained the kidnappers decide to take Laura to a remote island off the coast of South America. They possibly should have done a little research on the island first. Things like finding out if the locals are friendly. It turns out the locals are very unfriendly indeed. They’re cannibals. They don’t actually eat people, not entirely, but their god (a guy with amazing popping eyes) likes to eat the hearts of pretty young girls. He rapes them first. So the island is not exactly what you’d call a safe refuge.
Laura’s manager hires Peter Weston (Al Cliver) to deliver the ransom money. If possibly Peter is to bring back both Laura and the money. It’s not clear what Peter Weston usually does for a living but he’s a seriously tough dude. He sets off for the island by helicopter, the helicopter being piloted by Vietnam vet Jack. Unfortunately Jack is one of those Vietnam vets who has never recovered. He has flashbacks and he’s jumpy.
The exchange of the money for the girl goes badly wrong. This sets up the main action of the movie. Laura is wandering about the jungle on her own, having escaped from the kidnappers. The kidnappers are hunting Laura. The cannibals are hunting Laura. Peter is trying to find Laura before either the kidnappers or the cannibals find her. Peter is hunting the kidnappers. The kidnappers are hunting Peter. The cannibals are hunting everybody.
There’s also the nude girl on the boat. What nude girl and what boat? The boat the kidnappers used to reach the island. They left the nude girl to guard it.
One of the kidnappers is a glamorous blonde, Jane (Gisela Hahn).
Of course the cannibals are hunting for any women they can find.
The kidnappers are a nasty bunch but they don’t realise that they should forget the six million dollars and Laura and just try to get off this island of death. But they’re too greedy to do that. They have lots of guns but guns are only useful against enemies you can see. And the cannibals know the island better than they do, and they have the island riddled with fiendish traps.
Franco apparently felt that some of his ideas from this movie were stolen for the movie Predator. And he definitely had a point.
Al Cliver makes a fine square-jawed action hero type. Antônio do Cabo is creepy as Thomas, the leader of the kidnappers. Most of the acting is OK, with both Jack and a couple of the kidnappers played as highly strung types who are not good in a crisis, especially a crisis involving cannibals.
Ursula Buchfellner was Playboy magazine's October 1979 Playmate of the Month and later posed for Penthouse as well. You would expect her to be stunningly beautiful, and she is. Having been a nude model you’d expect her to be OK with the idea of taking her clothes off and this was obviously the case since she’s totally naked for most of the movie. The lovely Muriel Montossé plays the nude girl on the boat. She made quite a few appearances in Franco’s movies. She spends all of her limited screen time naked.
The setup offers the opportunity for action and suspense. Action and suspense were not exactly the things we associate with Jess Franco. Franco’s strength was his ability to create hypnotic dreamscapes. He had little interesting in taut storytelling. He didn’t mind if the narrative was all over the place and he didn’t even care if there was no discernible straightforward linear narrative. This is a movie that needed a much stronger narrative drive. He was simply not the right director for such a movie.
By the standards of cannibal movies it’s not particularly gory but it does have some gross-out moments. Gore was something Franco wasn’t interested in and wasn’t good at.
Severin’s DVD (released some years ago) has an oddly washed-out look with very weak contrast. Given Severin’s track record of superb transfers this is presumably the result of problems with the source material. Severin subsequently released his movie on Blu-Ray and I’m told the transfer was considerably upgraded. The only significant extra is a brief interview with the director.
There are a few Franco touches and it does have that characteristic Franco fever dream feel. Franco completists will find just enough here to keep them interested but it’s not one of Franco’s better efforts.
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