Cannibal Mercenary (1983)

Just so...so bad

Don't Believe the Hype

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This film is about a Thai Vietnam vet whose daughter is dying from polio agrees to go into the jungle and take out a drug lord who has an army of cannibals. Now if that ain't a cool plot I don't know what is. So it literally starts with our main character having a Vietnam flashback and then just doing some John Wick level stuff. So this guy offers him the job of saving some girl from the jungle and in return he'll get seven grand which I'm sure is enough to help is daughter. So when you see this characters hotel room, it looks kinda like the hotel room scenes in the opening of Apocalypse Now this film is basically a low budget horror version of Apocalypse Now.For Starters the English dub is bad, not the worst I've ever heard but its pretty bad although I think it adds to the cheesy entertainingly bad nature of the film, same goes for the writing. Really everything is of bad quality other than some of the camera work and technical aspects. Also the gore in the film is well done and one of the more memorable aspects of the film that in combination with the bonkers plot and bad dubbing makes for a good time. The movie has this problem when there are a few scenes where you go in and assume that it is either a flashback or actually happening and they film doesn't tell you so you have to kinda sit there and wait for the movie to let you know which adds to the hilarious ineptness and humorous confusion the film has going on. This film is quite the gem of a bad movie and its surprisingly entertaining while it doesn't live up to its title. Also the film steals music from Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead which I thought was pretty funny and it isn't just used once its used like 7 times and every time it seems just out of place also music from Goblin's soundtrack to Dawn of the Dead is used. Plus all the Viet-Cong wear bright blue shirts and shorts with racist conical hats which make the film all the more cheesy and unintentionally hilarious. Its got this almost Ed Wood like quality with some of its continuity errors and stuff like that.On the Gore Meter from one to ten One being something like Nosferatu and ten being something like Peter Jackson's Braindead Its a 4.5 not too gory but there is gore to be seenHonestly I'm sad that a company like Arrow Video hasn't picked this title up cause I'd love to see an HD widescreen transfer of this film. Its exploitation trash cinema gold and the fact that it doesn't have much of a following or at least a decent release is a shame. I will admit it gets a little bit boring toward the half way mark but it quickly picks up. I'm gonna give it a 3.5/5

Sometimes known as 'Cannibal Mercenary', sometimes known as 'The Jaguar Project' and at other times known as 'Jungle Killers', this Thai horror movie is certainly not the 'Cannibal Holocaust' or 'Cannibal Ferox' clone that one might expect from its most common title. The first forty minutes are devoid of horror and have more in common with 'Casualties of War' as a group of soldiers accept a mission as mercenaries during the Vietnam War and contend with a local woman who tags along. The middle section of the movie is more gruesome as the mercenaries encounter vicious traps as they approach the drug lord's territory, but it is only in the final twenty minutes that we see any cannibal action as the drug lord's minions torture the captured mercenaries, eating them upon death. As one can probably guess from such a description, this film by any title is a real a mixed bag, but there are enough memorable images throughout to keep things chugging along, including a wrestle with a large snake, multiple scenes in which the mercenaries are made to swallow urine, plus detailed, grisly cannibalistic action near the end. The editing design (which includes a lot of rapid fire cuts) is sometimes distracting, but there are some neat graphic match rapid fire cuts in the mix, and the unusual editing ensures that the film seldom bores for all its weaknesses.

After the hype that I had heard about CANNIBAL MERCENARY - I have to honestly say that it was a pretty big let-down. I went into this film hoping it would be some sort of PREMUTOS-style gore-fest mixed with some CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST-ish elements. Well - it wasn't...An ex-soldier is recruited for one last mission. Reluctantly our hero agrees as his daughter suffers from a rare and extreme case of polio, and needs the big pay-day that he's been guaranteed to pay for her treatment. The group of soldiers descend into the jungle on an assignment to contact some lady named Jumpa (I think...) who has further information on their target. Along the way, the group encounters booby-traps, spies, hostile villagers and the Viet Cong...oh yeah...and cannibals.There ARE some decent gore scenes in CANNIBAL MERCENARY, but most of them are quick and don't happen until the end of the film. In fact - not much of anything happens until close to an hour in. Of note are a few throat-slashings, a decapitation, some stabbings, and a whole slew of gun-play and hand-to-hand combat action - none of which are really that notable. The only scenes that are worth any real mention are a (non-graphic) castration, another scene where a guy is buried neck-deep then a spike is driven into his skull and his brains are eaten, and one particularly nasty scene where the soldiers come across a maggot-riddled corpse and one of the team scrapes a handful of the rotted flesh and maggots and eats it - yum. Unfortunately, the cannibal elements are sadly under-rated, as they don't even come into the film until the last few minutes. Honestly, I found this one to be a bore overall, and caught myself nodding off several times. Not the worst thing out there, and a few decent scenes make it "better than average" - but I can really only recommend this one to rabid cannibal film fans or exploit completists...6/10

A special forces Sergeant named Wilson is sent into the Viet Nam jungle to find and hunt down an army of bloodthirsty cannibals headed by a demented war criminal."Cannibal Mercenary" is one hell of a brutal and gory flick.The acting is quite convincing and the film offers plenty of war images including numerous shoot-outs and explosions.The actor who plays a broken anti-hero Wilson is especially good.The camera work is awesome and the gore is absolutely brutal.For example there are decapitations,throat slashings,castrations and lots of ultra-violent torture on display.The scene where one man is buried up to his neck and his unprotected head is cracked open with hammer and chisel has to be seen to be believed.Overall,"Cannibal Mercenary" is a very nasty Thai exploitation flick that should especially satisfy fans of Italian cannibal flicks.If you are not easily offended,give this gruesome shocker a look.8 out of 10.