Cannibal
Massacre in Dinosaur Valley
Cannibals!
Cannibals, cannibals, cannibals! A-biting and a-chomping! Snackin’ on Human flesh!
For all that we might weave outrageous fantasies of Vampires and Were-wolves, of Aliens and Ghouls, of the half-dead and the undead and all manner of imaginary beasties, there’s nothing quite as shocking as the atrocities and horrors enacted upon people by… Other People! From the Nazis to Human Centipedes, many of the most threatening films feature the cruelties of humans.
Somewhere within this tradition is the, now somewhat passé, strand of Cannibal films that excited 70s and 80s audiences. Some of these films, mostly Italian, clawed their way to notoriety, even infamy - I’m thinking Cannibal Holocaust… - whilst others drifted along in (mostly deserved) obscurity. Their sad drawback, as the 21st century viewer can’t fail to notice, is that the exciting, blood-curdling thrilling tales of Amazonian savages exacting bloody acts of cruelty upon (mostly buxom and nubile) Europeans tend to extensively racist… The ‘White man’s burden’ in this case is usually some civilizing mission to the Amazon rainforest, where civilizing usually involves (with a degree of historical accuracy) slaughtering the ‘savages’ they encountered.
That said, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is obviously aware of this racist subcurrent and is careful to balance the acts of Native savagery with a good deal of Caucasian savagery too. It is, of course, sexist from start to finish but… well… it was made in Italy in the 70s…
After a spot of messing around in a Brazilian bar, a plane carrying a professor and his (beautiful) daughter, a young paleontologist, a US army vet and his alcoholic wife and a photographer and his two (beautiful) models crashes in… Dinosaur Valley! We lose a couple of the characters in the plane crash but the rest of the party set out into the jungle in a bid to escape to civilization. The story is, despite being utterly predictable, crass and unimaginative, astonishingly good fun from start to finish. As expected, we lose several of the characters along the way as they fall victim to jungle dangers such as piranhas and quicksand, until our remaining three - the brave young paleontologist, the professor’s daughter and one of the models - find themselves caught up in the natives’ tribal rituals, which involve dinosaur masks, claws and… gratuitous nudity! Hurrah!
Mostly unscathed, our heroes escape downriver and fall into the clutches of some rather unpleasant gem miners, who lock up the man and cart the women off to their bedrooms. Thankfully, predictably, all turns out more or less OK, as the baddies get their come-uppance and the good guy gets the girl as all her feminist leanings melt into nothing in the face of his rugged, heroic masculinity… (Hmmm)
As you should have worked out by now, Massacre In Dinosaur Valley is nothing if not trash but it is supremely enjoyable trash. It’s poorly acted, poorly scripted and never really surprises but it does everything with such unabashed enthusiasm that, for a b-movie fan, it’s very hard to sneer at it. Great fun!
Microwave Massacre
Oh dear, here we go again. I definitely don’t plan to make this the norm, but I’m afraid that this is my second spoiler filled post. I think I can justify it again though. With Underwater City, I didn’t feel to bad about giving spoilers as 1)You will probably never see it 2)If the opportunity does arise, you should probably turn it down. Forewarned is forearmed, afterall, and Underwater City isn’t a particularly attractive prospect.
Here, it’s a somewhat different case, as Microwave Massacre is really an awful lot of fun. I think I can still get away with spoilers though as 1)You will probably never see it (it’s out-of-print, though copies are floating around on ebay) and 2)Knowing what happens really won’t spoil your enjoyment of this great-fun low-budget cannibalistic slasher.
So here we go. This post will be somewhat heavier on pictures than words as they really do most of the talking for themselves. Infact, this is less of a review than just telling the story. I’m sorry. But I can promise that telling the story will make you want to watch it far more than a review ever could!
The story revolves around Donald, a middle-aged construction worker. Poor Donald is just an average guy really; he likes the simple things - he works, he has a beer and then he goes home to his wife for some good ol’ home-cooked American food. Except, just his wife, since buying a super new microwave only wants to cook exotic foreign dishes. Stand-up rows over “food you can’t pronounce” ensue and Donald gets more and more miserable.
So far, so normal. At this stage the film really is showing very little promise. The dialogue is clunky to say the least and nothing much is happening. Donald’s exchanges with his (younger, hipper) co-workers are fairly funny but nothing much to shout about. They do slip in a brilliant visual gag though… as Donald’s work-mates get out their humble foil-wrapped sandwhiches, Donald fishes in his cool-box for the lunch his wife has prepared him: an entire crab in a massive bap!
With tension rising, you just know something’s going to break, and break it does. After getting perhaps a little too drunk, Donald returns home in a rage and drunkenly kills his wife. Whoops.
At this point the movie is still distinctly so-so. We’re a good chunk through and there’s no hint of a massacre, the microwave is only lurking in the corner and you could perhaps feel a little cheated. But persevere! as things are about to get a whole lot better.
Being a little bit inexperienced at this murdering lark, Donald cuts her up into pieces, sticks her in the fridge and is content to forget about her for a bit.
Completely by accident however, Donald mixes up the left-over food from the fridge and finds himself munching on a piece of his late wife. Even more surprising is that she tastes pretty good! Once over his initial revulsion, Donald tucks in quite happily and soon begins eating her for every meal …. including lunch at work.
Donald’s co-workers agree that the meat is pretty good; by this point the film’s great fun. Watching Donald and his work-mates tucking into chunks of human flesh is begining to give us something of what the film promised. Still not really a massacre though….
Oh wait, here we go! Running low on surplies and very conscious that his wife is rather tough as meat goes, Donald soon begins to solicit girls on the street and bring them home. Once there, they all seem a little puzzled by how little desire he shows for them. What they don’t realise until too late is that it’s not so much their bodies that Donald is interested in as their flesh! He chops, slices, dices and microwaves. Then shares it with his - now much friendlier - work-mates.
I shall leave the (slightly lacklustre) ending not entirely spoiled; although I think you know by now more or less what you’re in for.
It’s a fun film and, at 76 minutes, I’d recommend it unreservedly. Although a little slow to get going and boasting some astonishingly wooden acting, this film is a lot of fun - and be honest: you’re not going to let bad acting put you off low-budget campy horror are you? Sometimes, when watching decidedly low-brow, low-budget films there is a tendency to wonder “how did it ever seem a good idea to make this?”. By the end of Microwave Massacres though, I’m sure you’ll be wondering how it could ever seem like a good idea NOT to make this. Flawed, cheap and trashy, Microwave Massacres is a triumph of b-movie cinema.
The trailer here happily labels it the “worst horror film ever”!
(I tell a lie: it isn’t entirely out of print and is infact available from Anthem DVD in the USA, looks like there was never a Region 2 DVD though)
Death Line a.k.a. Raw Meat
This poster bears stunningly little resemblence to the film. How puzzling.
For a long while, the disused stations of the London Underground have interested me; despite being closed, many years out of service, they’re still…. there. They sit, lurking under city streets, completely forgotten by the people who walk past their once-entrances or sit on trains that rush past their once-platforms. Some of them can still be seen from trains, some of them were converted to war-time bunkers and still have propaganda posters on the walls, some them house plague-ridden cannibals, tucked well away from the city’s lights.
Ok, so the very last bit may not be strictly true, but it’s the central premise of this film.
Hopping cautiously from the train
You can smoke on the tube! Right from the start you know this film is pretty old
Death Line is a horror-thriller with some pretty funny bits, some pretty creepy bits and one bit that’ll definitely make you jump. It’s not an excellent story, admittedly, but suspend your disbelief for a second and follow me down the rabbit hole escalator and into Russell Square station…
JUst along from Russell Square is an abandoned half-finished station, called Museum. Whilst there was really a British Museum station once-upon-a-time (closed 1933), the extra uncompleted line underneath and the cave-in that trapped workers in the tunnel are fictitious. According to the film, the working men and women trapped by this cave-in were simply left to rot after the contracting company went bankrupt. What they hadn’t counted on was that the trapped workers didn’t die; oh no, they lived on underground, drinking the water that trickled through the rocks and eating human flesh. Fast forward a couple of generations and we have an inbred, grunting cannibal stalking the tubes, picking off lone visitors to Russell Square late at night.
It’s an odd film. The Inspector (Donald Pleasence) and his Sergent are comic characters, all stout British swearing and drinking, whilst the underground man is genuinely pretty creepy. Both are pretty good but they just don’t feel like the same film. It’s noticeable that, by the time they finally actually investigate the tubes, Donald Pleasence seems to be playing a very different character.
“Yes, we’d better investigate. But first, some tea!”
The speed with which it cuts from laughs above ground to moody scenes underground doesn’t really help the horror factor, it just makes it seem boring. One very long shot that pans over all sorts of rotting and savaged flesh, accompanied by only the sound of dripping water is almost atmospheric and powerful but… in contrast to the scene before it, it just becomes a bit dull. Which is a shame, as overall it’s mostly pretty good.
Overall, the funny bits are funny, the creepy bits are creepy and the music is brilliant throughout. Only the odd editing makes it seem a little slow. What is perhaps its best feature though, is that we actually feel sorry for the cannibal. This is no crazed beast, the poor guy was born and raised in the dark and only kills to survive. That the film doesn’t take the easy route and just make him as disgusting is possible is pretty impressive.
Oh, and the bar scene is amazing.
