DEVIL HUNTER (1980): Notes on Jess Franco's Cannibal Apocalypse.

DEVIL HUNTER/Mandingo Manhunter/The Man Hunter'El Canibal (Blu-ray) 1980--France-Germany-Spain; Severin Films Blu-ray--104m; Trans-World Entertainment (U.S. Video). DIRECTED BY "Clifford Brown" (Jess Franco) WITH: Al Cliver, Ursula Buchfellner, Robert Foster (Antonio Mayans), Antonio Da Cabo, Werner Pochath, Muriel Montossey (woman on boat). ======================================= Features Reviews Video Resources Links Credits (a.k.a. SEXO CANNIBAL; IL CACCIATORE DI UOMINI; JUNGFRAU UNTER KANNIBALEN; THE DEVIL HUNTER; MANDINGO MANHUNTER)

Franco's most notorious venture into cannibal cinema, while not as extreme as Umberto Lenzi's CANNIBAL FEROX or Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, registers as a definite gross-out, deliberatey so, as well as a ripe example of the director's cynicism. Is he satirizing the cannibal genre and films like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979), or is he just executing a commercial delivery of a product filled with sexual violence and graphic gore? This 1980 co-production clearly represents Franco's ability to deliver on demand a commercially viable, if crudely crafted sex and violence exploitation adventure and something which he can infuse with his own style. One can picture the director, machete in hand, cutting his way through the Portuguese "jungles" to find locations for a film about a mercenary hired by a sleazy producer to rescue his contracted sex star from ruthless kidnappers. The plot is lurid and unimaginative: A sexy starlet (Ursula BuchFellner) is kidnapped by ruthless criminals in a European city (Alicante) and whisked away to a tropical island. On the island, the kidnappers torture and molest the terrified woman until help arrives. This takes the form of hero type Peter Weston (Al Cliver, aka Pierluigi Santi) and his Vietnam vet sidekick (Antonio Mayans, credited as Robert Foster). The starlet manages to escape before the heroes arrive. She runs straight into the arms of a local native tribe, who are intent on sacrificing her to their living god. Weston puts an end to the the cannibal's bloody rampage by pushing him off a cliff. He sails into the sunset with the topless starlet. Plotting is not high on Franco's skill set nor is it a personal priority in his multiverse. As in Bunuel's Mexican melodramas a happy ending can signify its opposite as a character arc can be a detour leading nowhere. It's another element in the cycle of exploitation which is mapped out by the producers and the art directors on board for home video releases. The actual on-set "Art Director" was longtime Eurocine hack Pierre Chevalier (ORLOF AND THE INVISIBLE MAN, PANTHER SQUAD).

Some of this plays even worse than it sounds. The most effective part is the opening, in which Franco cross-cuts a cannibal tribe pursuing a victim to paparazzi descending upon Buchfellner at her hotel. The sense of actors waiting for direction is pervasive and the early scenes set in the hotel and beach are filled with background extras who all stare directly at the camera. The jungle scenes, filmed largely in Portugal, do contain layers of humid atmosphere along with buckets of blood.

Franco doesn't seem to give a damn here about the 1970s trend of Italian cannibal films which heavily loomed at that time. He knew his intended audiences. It's difficult to locate any gestures toward his personal obsessions and his sometimes imaginative use of low-budget filmmaking techniques. The order of the day on this Italian-French-Spanish-German co-production seems to have been to jump on the cannibal bandwagon, pull 'em into the theatres and rip 'em off. Even the graphic gore scenes are uninteresting. More interesting is the way they are edited into the action in blood dripping close up, like gore inserts suddenly inseretd in a comic strip jungle adventure.

The only character seen practicing cannibalism is played a seven-foot tall black actor (a local Portuguese gymnast according to Franco) with absurdly bulbuous eyes, credited as "Burt Altman". He wanders around a questionable jungle setting bare-assed, and eats most of the cast. Whenever the cannibal eats flesh, we see him endlessly chew on what appears to be bits of cold cuts dipped in fake blood. It's sickening and somewhat laughable at the same time. Such gratuitious details are also immediately laughable and immerse the view into a realm of delirious jungle fever. There only performance worth mentioning in this macabrre jungle adventure is Werner Pochath's nervous kidnapper who always seems on the verge of an anxiety attack, although one wishes that the always nice to look at Muriel Montosse had more to do than show-up in two brief scenes and get nude before she is eaten by the cannibal demon.

The first time I saw this, on a Blockbuster Video VHS, it seemed that almost every scene was in some way technically inept. The photography was the most dismal I had seen in a Franco production. At least half of the movie seemed out-of-focus, under-exposed, or over-exposed. An atmospheric background vocal created by Carlos Perlata (Carlos Franco), Franco, and Daniel White adds a sinister ambience in the right places. Seen decades later in HD, the Juan Cozar compositions are much more interesting, dense with local flora and other detail. Cozar has since become a noted still photorgrapher of natural scenes. Some film writers (The Aurum Horror Encyclopedia) have labelled the native scenes and the cannibal zombie as racist representations. One thinks of the 1960 German Krimi, THE AVENGER/DER RACHER, featuring future Jess Franco player Klaus Kinski in one of his first Edgar Wallace roles. Its depiction of a black African servant, a feral raised, hair covered hunchback suspected of severing heads wasn't as risible then as it would be today. Then there's the Wallace written KING KONG (1933), especially viewing the vertical climb of Cliver up a 90 degree cliff to save the white heroine from yet another monster of color. It's certaingly crass exploitation of basic civilized fears of ravishment by the Other. That's the way things are represented in Franco's civilization free universe, entertainment value aside. I guess to the 2023 non Franco fan this would all seem fairly abysmal, the serious Franco collector would not pull it off the shelf to entertain party guests.

The now ultra-rare TWE (Trans World Entertainment) video version is presented in full-screen format, but the gore scene close-ups are letterboxed at varying ratios. Wizard Video reportedly released this version in the U.S., as well. The more recent Blu-ray versions are definitely the way to go for optimal video and audio quality of film which has often been screened via unwatachable presentaions. The Spanish language tracks are the recommended options, since the vintage video English language voice casting is bottom of the barrell. CUT TO-- 2017 archival notes: Credited to "Clifford Brown" this German, Spanish, French and Italian coproduction features Al Cliver [Pier luigi Conti], most familiar from Fulci's ZOMBIE, as a mercenary hired to bring back a starlet [Ursula Buchfellner] who has is being held for ransom on a tropical island. The only interesting performances are given by the intense, late Werner Pochath and Antonio de Cabo as nasty and increasingly frantic criminals. Conti/Cliver looks as bored as usual while German starlet Buchfellner looks almost anorexic and spends most of her screentime tied up nude to a tree getting abused by the criminals and a giant black cannibal. Watching Europeans like Claude Boisson as the cannibal chief is a real hoot and the film in unconvincing in just about every department. Note the equipment and details in the film producer's office; everything in this film looks cheap or bogus. A junk aesthetic. But it's Franco all the way in terms of out-of-focus shots both from the marauding cannibls POV and other images, mismatched filmstock (the film was reportedly begun by TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD auteur Amando De Ossorio), and editing between events which looks like it was meant to mean something (the paparazzi and the fashion show are intercut with the jungle pursuit of another nude female victim who is later tied to a tree, gutted and disgustingly cannibalized). Totally incomptent on the FX level, the cannibal is shown chewing on bloody meat scraps in extreme closeup, this will give no competition to the other Euro cannibal films of that era (cf CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST). It's pure exploitation for very desperate audiences. There is an interesting primitivist score by Franco himself (and Daniel J. White) with a delirious male vocal by Carloto Perla (Carlos Franco), heard in other 1980s Franco films. The stalking, bug-eyed, giant black nude cannibal has to be one of the most blatantly racist images in the history of horror cinema or a tip of the hat to the zombie in Val Lewton's more aftful I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. (C) Robert Monell 2017-2023

VIDEO ASIA DETOUR: The Video Asia DVD of this, coupled with Manuel Cano's VOODOO BLACK EXORCIST (1972), is possibly the worst digital presentation of a Franco film yet. The opening credits are removed and the film starts in the middle of the first scene. There is digital censoring of the copious male and female nudity of the original, some extreme gore is cut and the bottom third of the image is masked presumbly to hide the presence of Japanese subtitles, video quality is significantly inferior to the more complete old TRANSAMERICA VHS: THE MAN HUNTER. I believe that this was indeed sourced from a Japanese video or disc and booted over here. The somewhat racist cover artwork reads TERROR TALES FROM THE HOOD SPECIAL EDITION VOLUME 4. BLACK VOODOO EXORCIST (sic) plus THE GRUESOME SHOCK OF: THE DEVIL HUNTER. A 1970s style Afro coiffured female poses in a collage with a glowing eyed gravedigger, green hands emerging from graves holding cigarettes [!], etc. The back features more dated jungle nonsense including some stills and amusing promo notes ("The long banned masterpiece...[!]"). But for under 10 dollars it may be an outre collector's item for some. (C) Robert Monell 2017-2023

There would be more jungle adventures to be created during the 1980s, DIAMONDS OF KILAMANDJARO (1983), GOLDEN TEMPLE AMAZONS (1984), THE WHITE SLAVE (1985), all infusing Franco's Saturday Matinee adventure mode with his unique Primitivism. He seemed to get the jungle dieties out of his system with TENDER FLESH, in which the threats were civilized flesh owning class. Cannibalism is an oral fixation in Franco's universe, rather than a dietary choice and, a signifier of class, of the upper class devouring the lower classes at their leisure. These signs would be reintrepted in his final digital period. DEVIL HUNTER is hardly Franco's answer to Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, which ended by asking its audience to wonder whom the real cannibals were, the exploitative media or the anthropological cannibals. The class contrast between the wealthy cannibals and working class procurers and prey is not as elegantly stated as in LA COMTESSE PERVERSE (1973) or like the game show format of TENDER FLESH. There is irony in this film but there is no message. It was a way for him to continue to work and participate in a trending genre. (C) Robert Monell 8/4/2023