Anthropophagous (1980)

Well Deserved Praise

Better Late Then Never

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Nothing happens and when it does it still feels like nothing happened. I dunno why I didn't give it a one. Something just tells me, it was a three.

Going along on a trip with friends, an accident strands the group on a small island in the Greek Sea where the completely empty and almost abandoned town is found to be the home of a relentless and vicious killer is after them forcing the group to find a way to fight him off to get away alive.This one is a lot better than many give it credit for. One of the main reasons for this comes from an unexpected source of the old-school vibes it has spread throughout the film. It is nice to feature some old-school Gothic flavors mixed into a gore film, and we get a large amount of the usual trappings in here from candle-lit walks through darkened rooms, the winding corridors heading off seemingly forever, stormy nights banging in the distance, and a quite creepy scene where one character walks through a large tunnel using only a torch for light and comes across a large number of ancient skeletons lying in the walls of the catacombs. Coupled together with the knowledge of the group being stranded as well as the concept of the abandoned, deserted village full of rotting corpses, the old-school nature of the film goes hand-in-hand with the films' most infamous nature in the unrelenting gore, which is in abundance here. There is a bloody machete in the head, a couple stabbings, a chunk of the neck bitten out, and a special scene that is the cause of its infamous nature. It's incredibly gory and comes as a complete shock when it happens, as it's not an expected scene in the situation going as far as it does. Beyond that, the film also does set-up the story quite nicely, with the continuing revelations of the killer slowly coming to light in a series of coincidences and discoveries that shed some light on the killer during the final half which manages to raise this one quite nicely. As well as the frantic final chase around the house that has plenty of action and some more good gore, the film does have a few minor issues that hold it back somewhat. The main issue here is that this is quite slow for the most part. It starts off quickly but then dangles for a while and nothing happens. Granted, the Gothic scenes are nice to watch, but only one has anything resembling a pay-off, leading to nervousness and then boredom as to when something is going to happen. The action comes in spurts as well, so it seems even slower than normal. When it needed to go for the jugular, it stopped to show an exercise in Gothic flavor that wasn't all that necessary and it does inter-cut with the flow of the film. The biggest flaw, though, is the killer. This is one of the less-scary killers in history. Other than killing people, there really isn't anything done to him that makes him scary to viewers. His look is also a problem and the cheap make-up looks more like a mask which makes him look more laughable than anything. Otherwise, this one wasn't all that bad of an effort.Rated NR/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, some mild Language and Brief Nudity.

Looking back these days at the movies on the list of Video Nasties drawn up in the early 80s by the UK's Director of Public Prosecutions, one is often left wondering what all the fuss was about. In the case of "Antrophagus: The Beast" AKA "Antrophagus: The Grim Reaper", with its infamous ripping-out-a-fetus-and-chomping-on-it scene, it is easy to see. However, fetus grimness aside, 'Antrophagus' is a disappointing horror which neither lives upto the hype of its infamous set-piece or the promising first act of the movie.The film begins with the slaughter of a young couple on a pleasant beach on a remote Greek Island by something which emerges from the sea. Sometime later a young group of holidaying tourists (friends of the slain couple) arrive and find the island deserted Mary Celeste style. They begin to investigate, catching glimpses of a mysterious woman before they finally stumble upon a hysterical blind girl who tells them of a monster whose presence she can smell from the odor of blood it carries. From there the members of the group are gradually picked off by something which is eventually revealed to us to be a disfigured and insane George Eastman.Unfortunately, while the first third establishes a convincingly uncomfortable atmosphere courtesy of the island and the house, and the build up to the monster's reveal is quite well done… after this the film deflates quite quickly. For all its hype there is actually very little in the way of action/gore and after the plot has revealed itself we still have to suffer a lot of shots of people walking around like they have done for the whole of the film upto that point. However, it should be noted that the film does attempt some modicum of character development and has some only-just-sub-par acting in order to carry the viewer through the boredom…even though it falls short of the mark. And then, the fetus eating scene (in fact a skinned rabbit)! Sure, this is a gruesome and repugnant idea, but to be honest the scene isn't shot that well, doesn't really make sense, fails to repulse, and so ultimately disappoints.It's a shame really as every now and then you catch glimpses of what could be a great movie, but the editing, the acting, and (to be honest) the monster, let it down and (while it's much, much better than the follow up 'Absurd') still bores where it should scare, and elicits yawns where there should be screams.

The plot = A young woman and friends sail to a small Greek island only to discover that everyone has vanished, upon investigating they come across a blind girl who claims a monster has killed everybody, which turns out to be a disfigured man with a taste for human flesh and the group of friends quickly become his main course.I know this movie more as "The Grim Reaper" besides it's other title that I can't even pronounce. Only a few slashers have touched upon mixing Cannibalism with straight up slasher, but this one seems to go all out there, but only in the uncut version and there are several scenes which make this movie hard to watch, like the infamous fetus scene. But other than those scenes this movie is far from perfect, for a start the bad lighting makes it almost impossible to see especially the night scenes and most of the characters aren't very likable and the only standouts are from Tisa Farrow and Geogre Eastman who plays the psychotic madman.I also found the storyline quiet interesting and the setting of the Greek island is both eerie and beautiful at the same time, and the background story on the killer is both thrilling and unsettling to watch at the same time, The scares are all in the right places from the opening scene all the way through to the final showdown between heroine and killer, kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through.All in all Anthropophagus is something of an acquired taste, but a slasher with a interesting storyline mixed with true terror and sickness is a true rarity in slasher movies.