Warning: This review contains spoilers, nudity and scenes of bloody violence
AKA: Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali
Dir: Joe D'Amato
Starring: Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Neives Navarro, Donald O'Brien, Monica Zanchi
I’ve watched a lot of Joe D’Amato films recently, so I got
the idea to dedicate a brief series of reviews to some of his (IMHO, that is)
best works. D’Amato is one of the greatest exploitation directors, and
certainly one of the most prolific, having made over a hundred films. He’s
probably best remembered for his sexploitation flicks, most notably the Black
Emanuelle films starring Laura Gemser, but D’Amato did also dabble in his fair
share of horror and Giallo movies too
– not to mention some quite innovative crossovers between hardcore porn and
horror. Let’s kick off this series then with one of those crossover movies, the
cannibal/sexploitation hybrid that is Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals.
Like Cannibal Ferox (1981)
this movie starts off oddly in the urban jungle of New York rather than the conventional
jungles of South America. Our intrepid protagonist Emanuelle is undercover at
a psychiatric hospital hoping for a juicy story. And wouldn’t you know it,
that’s exactly what she finds as all hell starts to break loose; a nurse runs,
terrified, through the clinic, blood gushing everywhere. One of the patients
got a bit peckish, it seems, and took a bite out of the nurse’s breast!
After the patient (Dirce Funari) is restrained, we discover,
before she ended up here, she was a captive a tribe of cannibals living deep in
the Amazon jungle. While everyone’s asleep, Emanuelle sneaks into the
patient’s room to get a better look. Snapping away with her camera, disguised
as a doll, she discovers a weird tattoo above the patients, uh, ‘pubic area’.
And in case you didn’t realise what type of movie this was right away,
the patient is of course not wearing any underwear. What a surprise. 
Back at her office, Emanuelle shows the snaps to her
editor. Convinced there’s a hot story here (no pun intended) she tries to
convince him to let her organise an expedition to the Amazon to find this tribe
of cannibals known as the Apiacas. He agrees but only if she can find an
anthropologist to come with her, you know, to fuck along way. The lucky stud is Professor Mark Lester
(Gabriele Tinti) who hits it off with Emanuelle right away. He invites her
back to his pad to show her ... uh, a guy getting his dick cut off! Nice, way
to kill the mood there Mark. Yeah that’s right; Mark shows Emanuelle some
documentary footage of cannibals in Africa castrating a victim, which
conveniently zooms in to show us the gory details. He explains to her that it
is part of some sort of tribal ritual. But enough plot development for now,
let’s get down to our first sex scene. And what better way to end a first date
than a quick shag underneath a pier. And they say romance is dead.
If that was all a bit too brief for you, fear not, there’s
another sex scene ‘round the corner, shown in flashback as our happy couple head
to the airport. Did I ever mention how gorgeous Laura Gemser is by the way? Mark and
Emauelle then hop on a plane and before you can say 'Mountain of the Cannibal God' they reach their destination. The pair are greeted by an old friend of
Mark’s, Wilkes, and his daughter Isabelle (Monica Zanchi). Wilkes suggests that Mark track down Father Morales,
who has been living amongst the natives for years. But I’m a little tired after
that long flight, show me another sex scene. Well you’re in luck, because Mark
and Emanuelle once again start making the beast with two backs. Only this time
the lovely Isabelle is watching in.
Come the morning, the expedition heads out into the jungle
to find Father Morales. After a long boat ride, it’s time for our lascivious
female lead to cool off a bit. And this is my favourite part of the whole
movie. No it’s not Laura Gemser and Monica Zanchi, both naked, washing each
other – a close second! – it’s the random chimpanzee that shows
up and starts puffing away on a cigarette! Don’t know about you, but I’ve never
seen that in a movie before. Better cut down there Dunston, that’ll stunt your
growth. In all seriousness, I’m very impressed with the way he handled that
lighter. I’m even prepared to overlook the slight inaccuracy that there are no
chimps in the Amazon because I liked this scene so much.
Well I enjoyed that, but the plot must go on. Emanuelle’s
been a bit quiet lately, that is until she’s attacked by an enormous python!
But if I know these cannibal movies (and I’ve seen WAY too many than I should)
and how they treat animals I’d be worried for the snake right now. And sure
enough, the poor reptile gets a bullet through the head. The shot was fired by
Donald McKenzie (Donald O’Brien) who allows the expedition to stay at his camp.
However, Donald reveals the horrific fate of Father Morales’ mission. Turns out
the padre got on the wrong side of the natives and they had him for lunch along
with his followers. This is particularly upsetting news for Sister Angela, who
has been tagging along. But no time to grieve, on with the movie.
Our motley crew arrive
at the McKenzie’s camp and Donald introduces them to his wife Maggie (the
ravishing Nieves Navarro), as well as their muscular guide Salvador. Donald’s a
hunter and the kind of brute who hunts exotic animals just for the hell of it,
or to make up for some sort of inadequacy. Would you know it, it’s the latter
as he fails to satisfy his horny wife in the bedroom. Instead, Maggie goes off
with Salvador to get her rocks off. Despite their problems, something’s keeping
them together. More on that later.
The next morning, our heroes are confronted with some bad
news: their canoe is gone and so is the McKenzie’s. Even if they wanted to they
can’t turn back now so they move on, with the bickering couple in tow. I’m starting to get bored, where the hell are
the cannibals?! We’ll get to them soon, but first we pause as Donald tries to
cop a feel for Monica Zanchi. Of course she doesn’t take too kindly to this and
Mark intervenes and lays the smack down on Donald. It’s worth reminding
everyone at this point that the film is called Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals but it’s been over an hour and we
haven’t seen any cannibals and Laura Gemser’s been pretty anonymous since the
movie left New York.
Alright, you want action? Well here it comes, as poor Sister
Angela is abducted by the cannibals. They tie her to a tree, gut her and slice
off one of her breasts! Yikes, that was almost worth the wait. Our heroes go in
search of Sister Angela and Donald makes an interesting discovery. He finds
the remains of a plane crash including a bag full of diamonds. Turns out that’s
what he and Maggie were doing out here in the first place. They’re so delighted
that they start making love right there and then, only for the cannibals to
show up and take them both hostage. Isabelle is also captured, but Mark and
Emanuelle manage to escape.
The cannibals take their hostages to their camp and perform
a ritual sacrifice on Donald and Maggie. Mark and Emanuelle witness this
horror from a safe distance but for some reason do nothing to prevent it. The
cannibals have something else in mind for poor Isabella though. They lay her on the floor naked and several
of the male natives begin to rape her – I don’t know, some kind of savage
ritual. Emanuelle comes up with a bright idea: she emerges naked from the
water, attempting to mimic the Apiacas’ Goddess of the Water. This distracts
the cannibals and allows Isabelle to escape. The three manage to retrieve their
canoe and head back to civilisation. Emanuelle has her ‘scoop of the century’.
Emanuelle and theLast Cannibals is one of D’Amato’s better attempts at the cross-genre
movie. Fans of the Italian Cannibal sub-genre will find it tedious, but it’s a
decent jungle adventure film with a couple of early sex scenes, and there are
some pretty cool gore set-pieces which are just about worth waiting for.
Despite it being titled as an Emanuelle film, Laura Gemser, as mentioned,
takes a back seat for most of the films middle act but is as playful as ever in
the opening scenes. Of course, if that doesn’t take your fancy, hello, smoking
monkey!
