“When the cannibals attack, I want you to kill me!” exclaims Sheila, making a doom-laden proposition to her jungle guide, Mark.
Although he is technically credited for launching the so-called ‘Italian cannibal film’ cycle with his gruesome if well-mounted jungle adventure THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER(1972), director Umberto Lenzi’s film – despite featuring a brief, gory bit of anthropophagy – is simply a copy of Elliot Silverstein’s A MAN CALLED HORSE (1970) which transposes that film’s Native American setting over to Southeast Asia instead, and like the Silverstein film, most of the primary promotional materials for Lenzi’s unofficial ‘remake’ likewise centered on its grisly initiation rituals. However, it was the success (or infamy?) of Ruggero Deodato’s LAST CANNIBAL WORLD (a.k.a. JUNGLE HOLOCAUST, 1977) and his harrowing CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979), which truly kicked-off this questionable ‘body horror’ subgenre, resulting in a number of inferior imitations, including Umberto Lenzi’s notorious CANNIBAL FEROX (a.k.a. MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, 1981) and the present EATEN ALIVE! (1980), one of the more shamelessly entertaining and completely bonkers films the genre had to offer, which even incorporated – and certainly tried to capitalize on – the notoriety of real-life fanatical cult leader Jim Jones and the tragic 1978 mass suicide / massacre he presided over in Jonestown, Guyana.
Following a series of baffling murders perpetrated by some low-level assassin by means of “tiny darts dipped in cobra venom” in both Niagara Falls and New York City, our blow-dart killer is, during a moment of panic, run-over by a garbage truck in midtown Manhattan. Soon after, Sheila Morris (Janet Agren), a “good ’ole Southern gal from Alabama”, is summoned to NYC because the police happen to find a canister of 8mm film in the murderer’s pocket (!) – yet another connection to CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST – featuring footage of Sheila’s sister Diana (Paola Senatore) participating in some sort of native ritual involving mondo-styled scenes of suspension piercing. More disconcerting still, though, is her involvement with Jonas (Ivan Rassimov), a “first-class nut”, who has set up camp somewhere in the wilds of New Guinea with his cult of worshippers, a bunch of “ecology freaks”. With the help of Professor Carter (a seriously slumming Mel Ferrer), Sheila heads to New Guinea, where she meets up with Mark (Robert Kerman / a.k.a. Richard Bolla), a Vietnam deserter, who begrudgingly agrees to help locate her sister and, in the midst of some shocking sights, promises the wide-eyed Sheila “you’ll see worse before this is over!”
Unbelievably crass, but highly entertaining, Lenzi’s first real cannibal film is a genre-hopping jungle romp, which features some form of indignity and/or gory set-piece every few minutes. However, unlike Deodato’s unforgivably harsh CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, Lenzi’s film is just so slapdash and preposterous that it’s hard to take seriously. Furthermore, Lenzi – rather brazenly – includes footage from a number of previous cannibal flicks, including Deodato’s aforementioned LAST CANNIBAL WORLD (a.k.a. JUNGLE HOLOCAUST, 1976), Sergio Martino’s upscale THE MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (a.k.a. SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD, 1978), and also from his very own THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER, which was undoubtedly done to pad the film out with as much gore for a modicum of the cost. Minus some of the film’s obligatory animal cruelty, most of the gory makeup effects are of the “H.G. Lewis” school, but at the same time, it’s hard to deny the effectiveness – and nastiness – of shots showing cannibals slowly eating people alive during one of the film’s climactic sequences, which is done without the use of any music whatsoever and is accompanied by sounds of the natives hungrily chewing on raw flesh, the victims’ dying breaths and birds chirping in the background. It’s certainly a grisly, unforgettable tableau. For the most part though, this is an enjoyable, fast-moving film, which also affords prominent porn-star Kerman / Bolla another leading man role following his turn in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, and who also gets to perform many of his own stunts; it’s too bad he wasn’t offered more non-adult roles over the course of his lengthy career. Usually cast as the heavy, veteran Eurocult star Ivan Rassimov really gets to chew on the scenery here as well, in what is undeniably, one of his more over-the-top roles as the Jim Jones-inspired (if that’s the right term!) Jonas, who is seen either barking orders, overseeing native sexual rituals or, in yet another one of the film’s more ‘notable’ eyebrow-raising scenes, gleefully participating in some ceremonial mumbo-jumbo involving a drugged Agren, who he seems to perceive as some sort of deity.
Briefly released theatrically by Continental in 1985 as DOOMED TO DIE, which also flaunted a “Banned in 38 Countries” moniker (that’s a whopping 7 more countries than Lenzi’s MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY!), Continental released it soon after on home video in 1986 as THE EMERALD JUNGLE (retitled once again to cash-in on John Boorman’s then-recent THE EMERALD FOREST [1985]), in a colourful, over-sized box, which housed an uncut copy of the film. In the early 2000s, a number of DVDs surfaced in Europe, but at the time, the best release came from Shriek Show in 2002, which included a solid transfer (albeit incorrectly framed at 1.78:1) of this low-budget film and a trio of interviews with Lenzi, Rassimov and Kerman. The film eventually surfaced on Blu-ray in 2018 thanks to Severin, and was most definitely a vast improvement, which included the film’s correct aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and a far more pleasing presentation. And despite the film’s low-budget origins, everything looked damn fine. Unbelievably, the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono also included English, Italian and Spanish options, and in a nice surprise, English subtitles were even included for the Italian audio track, which differs slightly and makes for a highly welcome inclusion. Closed Captions were also included for the English audio.
Extras included on Severin’s disc were also plentiful, and these began with Federico Caddeo’s Freak-O-Rama-produced Welcome to the Jungle (16m37s), an on-camera interview with the always enthusiastic Lenzi, who discusses one of his most popular and infamous phases in his long and varied career, beginning with THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER and that film’s inception; apparently it was based on some of Emmanuelle Arsan’s first-hand experiences in Myanmar and Thailand where, according to Lenzi “the nature was wild!” Of course, he goes on to discuss his later films, as well as his dissatisfaction with star Kerman (“…we didn’t have a relationship”), and also Agren’s professionalism. The second, most-substantial extra, was Me Me Lai Bites Back: Resurrection of the Cannibal Queen (79m55s), a feature-length documentary originally included with 88 Films’ THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER U.K. Blu-ray, which runs through her entire career while placing a particular emphasis on her Italian film work. In The Sect of the Purification (13m03s), yet another Freak-O-Rama production, veteran production / costume designer Massimo Antonello Geleng goes into detail about his time in Ceylon and his “instinctive” approach to his work, and how most of EATEN ALIVE!’s “raunchiest scenes” were filmed back at DEAR Studios in Rome. Culled from Shriek Show’s DVD, a pair of archive interviews (12m20s) with Kerman and Rassimov were also included, but were significantly improved upon thanks to some skilled editing. In the last extra, on September 21st, 2013, Lenzi attended a Q&A at the Manchester Festival of Fantastic Films (23m43s), where he discussed much of the same topics from the previous interviews, including his dislike for these cannibal films, but because they continue to bring in the royalties, he has no choice but to modestly declare them “masterpieces!” The original English-language export trailer (3m13s) finished-off the extras, and in a nice gesture, Severin also included the film’s soundtrack CD (35m40s, 14 tracks) as a bonus.
Given the film’s rather patchwork nature and Severin Films’ already impressive Blu-ray set, this didn’t seem like a contender for a UHD upgrade, but their new 2-disc UHD / Blu-ray combo edition manages to wring even more detail out their new transfer with details looking even sharper thanks to the uptick in resolution. The film’s occasionally bold colours (highlighted by the surrounding jungle fauna and glistening viscera) also burst off the screen with a vivacity missing from other disc releases, and while many of the ‘borrowed scenes’ do fluctuate in terms of overall picture quality, the rest of the transfer looks mighty impressive indeed. As with their earlier Blu-ray, Severin once again includes DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono options in both English and Italian with optional English subtitles for the latter track along with SDH subtitles for the English audio. However, the previously included Spanish language track has been left off their new disc.
Outside of the film’s soundtrack CD, Severin have thankfully ported over every extra from their excellent BD disc, but they have also included several new – and very worthy - special features beginning with an audio commentary by Troy Howarth (author of Make Them Die Slowly – The Kinetic Cinema of Umberto Lenzi [WK Books, 2022]) and Mondo Digital’s Nathaniel Thompson. From the very start, they are the first to admit that this picture is one of Lenzi’s “grubbiest films” but one that also has “major entertainment value,” which they consider a “big dividing line of Umberto Lenzi’s filmography.” Outside of discussing the film’s low-budget aesthetic, our commentators also touch on the film’s genesis and its producers Luciano Martino and Mino Loy (who also produced Lenzi’s CANNIBAL FEROX the following year), Lenzi’s “explosive temperament” on set, but a director who nonetheless always delivers a professional product, the large amount of borrowed stock footage from other cannibal films, the “pulpy quality” of the gore scenes, the condescending outlook of the “savage culture” portrayed in these films, and the film’s lively and exciting cast. Of course, they address Robert Kerman’s “dueling careers” between adult films and legit films, some of the other adult film actors who appear in the film such as Gerald Grant and Jack Teague, Me Me Lai’s fascinating career, the always “striking and intriguing” Janet Agren (“She’s one of the great ones!”), and Ivan Rassimov’s rather one-dimensional take of Jim Jones, who they usually regard as a very “compelling” actor. As can be deduced from the above description, this is another highly-entertaining and detailed listen, which nicely balances the minutiae related to the film itself, Lenzi’s long and varied career, and the rapidly changing Italian film industry at the time. It’s a great track and one that easily justifies a double-dip for those who already own Severin’s other Blu-ray.
Other extras include Deodato Meats Lenzi (13m33s), the only known interview where the two directors discuss their respective cannibal films. Recorded by Manlio Gomarasca in 2004 at the Joe D’Amato Horror Fest in Livorno, Italy, the two men discuss the trials and tribulations of working in genre cinema and how ANAC ((Associazione Nazionale Autori Cinematografici) favoured “so-called auteurs” while they essentially remained “freelancers” and underpaid with producers even blackmailing them into working for very little. Of course, they also discuss their cannibal pictures, beginning with “playboy” producer Giorgio Carlo Rossi and how THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER came together, which eventually led to Deodato directing LAST CANNIBAL WORLD, and how journalists created much of the hype regarding their rivalry. As for the other extras, several minutes of alternate footage (4m15) have been uncovered, which contain a never-before-seen HOLOCAUST 2 title card, and quite a few alternate, and shortened scenes, which may have been prepared for less permissive markets. And if that weren’t enough, Severin have also commissioned Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies’ Claire Donner to pen Eaten Alive! – The Primal Screams of Umberto Lenzi, a sharply written essay included in the nicely-illustrated 17-page liner notes booklet where she discusses Lenzi’s extensive career with obvious emphasis on his notorious gut-munchers.
As long physical media continues to thrive, this new 4K UHD will most certainly remain the ultimate edition of this Eurotrash classic. Order the 2-disc 4K UHD + Booklet w/Exclusive Slipcover directly from Severin Films.
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