The Film:
Another World Entertainment are a relatively new company to enter the highly competitive DVD market, and they are one that are going for the 'cult company' approach ala Blue Underground and NoShame. So far, after viewing several of their releases from both their 'Zombie Series' and 'Cannibal Series', I have nothing but praise for this company. Rather than Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals being put under their 'Cannibal Series' range, it has instead been given the moniker of part of the 'Erotic Collection'. As with most titles of this genre, the film has been known under several names including it's original Italian title of Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali and other English titles, Emanuelle's Amazon Adventure and Trap Them And Kill Them. Unlike the UK release from Dark Vision (that I also own), this disc is uncut.
Joe D'Amato made a lot of films from various genres in his lifetime before his death from a heart attack in 1999, but a lot of people know and love him for his many 'Black Emanuelle' films starring Laura Gemser. In Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals, Gemser plays an undercover reporter who is doing an investigative report at a mental institution in New York. Whilst there, one of the nurses has her breast literally ripped off and eaten by one of the patients and as Gemser looks into this more in-depth, she plans an expedition to find the Amazonian 'tribe' of the patient. As you can guess, the expedition party finds these cannibals and their lives are immediately put under threat. Will they manage to escape back to civilisation or will they be ripped apart and turned into a meal? You have to watch to see because I'm not going to spoil it for you!
As soon as you see the word Emanuelle in the film title you know you are going to be given plenty of erotic scenes with the plot just being there to string them together. Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals is no different with some of the sex scenes being so random, it's unbelievable, and sometimes a little disturbing (such as the masturbation of a mental patient by Gemser). Obviously, with D'Amoto being a director of plenty of violent horror and softcore films, he decided to try and mix them together, to rather bland results. The cannibal scenes are what you'd expect the to be, as are the erotic scenes, and the acting is pretty standard. Despite having an opportunity to be quite a unique film, it unfortunately still follows the 'expedition crew caught by cannibals' formula to a T. Genre fans will want to pick the film up, but for everyone else, you'll want to rent it. For me, the sex scenes taking away from an already loose storyline make this a less worthy buy than most cannibal films like Mountain Of The Cannibal God or Eaten Alive.
The DVD:
Video:
Another World Entertainent have given us an anamorphic transfer at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The print is pretty good and is what I have come to expect from AWE with only minor edge enhancement and a bit of grain and dirt to contend with. Also owning the Dark Vision UK release I compared the two quickly, and it made me impressed wih this release even more (Dark Vision's print is dark and has a few major scratches). With these genre films usually having a poor transfer on DVD's across the world, this is certainly worthy of praise.
Audio:
The audio is pretty much of an exact quality as previous AWE releases I have had the pleasure of reviewing. An English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track, there is little channel seperation losing some of the films atmosphere during certain scenes. An upmixed 2.0 Surround track would've been lovely but a 5.1 track in eiher Dolby Digital or DTS would have really made my day (providing they also had this track included). Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles have been included.
Extras:
All the extras are pretty unsubstantial, yet great to have included, with the fact sheets and slideshows being of particular note. Rather than go into detail of all the extras seperately I'm just going to list them and due to them being unsubstantial and self explanatory:
Here's what we get:
Slideshows:
- German Lobbycards (1:20)
- German Super 8 (0:20)
- Italian Lobbycards (0:20)
- Spanish Lobbycards (0:25)
- Posters (0:40)
- Stills (1:14)
- Laura Gemser (3:23)
Fact Sheets:
- Joe D'Amato (1:01)
- Laura Gemser (0:41)
Laura Gemser Filmography (5:01)
Bonus Trailers:
- "Cannibal Ferox" (4:17)
- "Cannibal Holocaust" (2:57)
- "Mountain of the Cannibal God" (3:45)
- "The Beyond" (3:21)
- "City of the Living Dead" (2:51)
- "Puzzle" (3:12)
- "Eaten Alive" (3:03)
- "Zombi Flesh Eaters" (3:36)
- "Zombi Holocaust" (2:44)
- "The New York Ripper" (3:11)
English Trailer (2:32)
Italian Trailer (2:34)
