Weirdhouse Cinema: Cannibal Apocalypse

not sound like it will be under seasoned. Yeah, yeah, how tender eyes? Would you say? This film is? Oh my god, it has used the spiky side of the meat mallet. It has covered everything in in pineapple puree. Uh, it's gonna be uh, it's gonna be fork tinder all right. The film is Cannibal Apocalypse. The original title in Italian Apocalypse Domani, which I believe is Italian for apocalypse tomorrow. Oh yes, yes, So it took me a while to

understand this title because I actually watched this movie. So, uh, this was your pick, you handed it off. I watched it last night and then I immediately started watching it a second time after I watched the first time with the with the commentary track that's actually on the disc that you rented um by a film critic and historian named Tim Lucas who has written a lot on exploitation cinema,

particularly Italian movies and Jello and stuff like that. And I know he wrote a book about Mario Bava that is that is pretty popular. But anyway, I might mention some more of Lucas's observations as we go on, because his commentary track was pretty good. But like I said, I was watching this and I kept trying to understand

the title Cannibal Apocalypse. I would have expected with that title that the movie would be a little more apocalyptic, but there's not really anything apocalyptic about it in either sense of the word, so not the original literal sense of apocalypse meaning a revelation or unveiling. There's nothing really revelatory about the movie, nor in the common understanding today having to do with the end of the world. It's

not really an end of the world movie. But then I realized, oh, it's called that because of apocalypse now, but the Vietnam movie, right, So what comes after Apocalypse Now, Apocalypse Tomorrow, Apocalypse Demani. Uh. So, if you want to cut right to the quick, what you actually do is you take one word from the title of a recent popular movie with similar themes, and then you take another word that is a lurid, conceptual hook word like cannibalism.

So you end up with cannibal Apocalypse. It would be kind of like if you made a movie today called like the Necrophilia and the Furious or something, uh and then other. There are tons of connections actually with other Vietnam movies, but mainly with Apocalypse Now. For example, the main character in this film, what's his name? Him? His name is Norman Hopper. I think it's pretty clear where

this comes from. It is a combination of Norman Bates, the main character in Psycho, and Dennis Hopper, the actor in Apocalypse Now. Oh yeah, yeah, that's a good point. And it is this the sort of role that Dennis Hopper could have conceivably played. You know, you could imagine him playing this sort of character. I guess you could. That would be very different. I mean, Dennis Hopper, he's

notable in Apocalypse Now for being wild. You know, he is on a permanent trip, and he is fully in the thrall of the warrior poet of of Marlon Brando's Kurts in the movie. In this movie, the main character, Norman Hopper is very much on the edge, but because it's cast as John Saxon, John Saxon has an undeniably

even tempered, steady kind of presence. I mean, he he's an extremely grounded actor, and that's contrasted with some of the the very like ratlike energy of characters in this movie, such as the character named again, this is really the character's name, Charles Bukowski, exactly the same as the name of the author and poet. Oh but but but we're

we're burying one of the leads here. Uh so this movie, each kid just have two names for a movie that, you know, it was an Italian exploitation movie released in nineteen eighty, you've got to have at least like six names, right, Oh yeah, yeah, it's It's also been released as Cannibals in the Streets, which weirdly enough, is the main title for the film on its IMDb listing. Right now, I

feel like this was surely not always the case. I think I because I've been aware of this film for a very long time, but just had not set down and watched it. I think it used to just it used to just be listed as um, Cannibal Apocalypse, because that is it's it's most famous name, I thought. But then again, I think Michael Weldon in the Psychotronic Video Guide also lists it as Cannibals in the Streets, so

I don't know. I think it also got an American R rated release, so it was released with in a in a somewhat edited form, especially in the Southern United States, under the name Invasion of of Flesh Eaters. Is that right, I believe so, yeah, and it may have been released it was released in UM to the German market with it with several different titles as well, so it's It's definitely one of these films that's often referred to as a video nasty because it was. I think it was

banned in the UK for a period of time. Um. Though it is interesting how you assume that the pictures are that are classified as such that they're all going to have like the same level of of nastiness to them, uh, and it's really not the case. Um. I think one of the things about this film is that. Yes, it has its grotesque moments and themes. For sure. It is not a family movie by any stretch of the imagination.

But it's also not nearly as as bad as or And when I say bad, I don't mean quality wise, but just in terms of taste, it's not. It doesn't nearly have the level of bad taste that it certainly could have had. And it's gonna be fun to discuss why that seems to be as we go through this episode. I don't think it's the only reason, but one that has been mentioned in several sources I came across is just the influence of John Saxon being in the lead and repeatedly saying about things he was asked to do

by the script no I'm not doing that. Yeah, seemed to be a moderating influence on the content of the film. That's what you when you when you cast John Saxon, you know you're going to get a certain level of energy from the performance and intensity. But yes you're gonna get you're gonna get some some other grounding influences as well, which ultimately makes this a better film. I think, all right, well, let's talk just a second about these these different genres

that are colliding here. First of all, I mentioned Nam sploitation. Uh, these elements aligned with the various Vietnam action films of the day, including both numerous US films and then international films that were clearly springboarding off American pictures. For instance, some of the American films, particularly films that dealt with Vietnam vets returning home and d with with post traumatic

stress to some degree or another. Your funder, Yeah, you have like Deer Hunter seventy eight, also Coming Home in seventy eight starring Bruce Dern, and even First Blood. Yeah, I guess the first Rambo movie would fit more into that category. Though. It's funny with even within the progression of the Rambo movies, you see the change in how

Vietnam subject matter is dealt with. Like earlier on, I think you get more of these movies that are uh, you know, dealing with some of the with some of the horrors and the moral ambiguities of the war, and then later on turning uh, the lingering residue of Vietnam more into just kind of like pure exploitation action cinema

subject matter. So like Rambo by the time you get to First Blood Part two, Rambo, the character of John Rambo has gone from a you know, a a brutalized man who just wants to be left alone and has turned into a like a human slaughter house who you know, the point of the movie is to watch his greased up muscles as he just guns down millions of enemies. So like in the first one, you're asking the question is is Rambo okay? I don't think he's okay? And then the second one and on from there Rambo is

doing great. Look at him. Go ye, all right. So we have those elements in the film and we'll talk about some of that. But then, of course, also it's

in the title, this is a cannibal film. And cannibal films at their their absolute worst, they tend to be movies that follow a basic structure where modern day explorers or journalists, or you know, whatever their case may be, they're traveling to a remote part of the world and they're encountering cannibalism and cannibalistic violence as practiced by an isolated tribal group. I've long known there are a bunch of movies like this, but I've never really watched any

of them. It's one of those that just seems conceptually just like not enjoyable at all to me. Yeah. Yeah, they you know, they're often marketed for their just sheer shock value. That was part of their appeal, and it remains part of their appeal for people who who dig them today. Uh. They can of course be area exploited.

They can be very sleazy. They include such films as uh, Sergio Martino, Slave of the Cannibal God from seventy eight, Umberto Lindsay's Sacrifice from seventy two, which I think was the first major Italian cannibal movie, Umberto Lindsay's Eating Alive in nineteen eighty, and so many more. But the most notorious example is of course rogero uh Deodata's Cannibal Holocaust from eighty notable for its extreme violence and gore as

well as animal cruelty. Yeah, I remember. Actually I think maybe even like reading some sort of like film scholarship about that movie when I was in college. It seems like the kind of thing that is maybe more interesting as like subject matter for film criticism and film historians than it is actually something you would ever want to sit down and watch. Yeah, I agree, and I'll get

into some some of the scholarship about it. Though. I'll also point out that when I was when I had decided, like, yeah, I want to check out Cannibal Apocalypse, I pulled up what I thought was Cannibal Apocalypse online and it was Cannibal Holocaust. So I ended up watching the first five and a half minutes of it, which which are actually pretty goofy and don't have any cannibalism in them. But that is as far as I can recommend anyone watch

in this film. Once I realized, oh, this is not the film, this is not John Saxon, I cut out and uh and actually send an email to Video Drome, our local video store, to make sure they had a copy of Cannibal Holocaust for us. You mean Cannibal Apocalypse. Cannibal Apocalypse. I'm doing it again. It's so easy to get them confused. So if you hear me reference Cannibal Holocaust again outside of the context of that film, I

probably mean Cannibal Apocalypse. Well, I mean it's clearly. I think it shows what these titles have in common, which is they're just trying to like jam your radar with the most shocking words they can possibly fit into a title like ultimate Shocking title density. Yeah, I mean it's all about the shock. So for a little more. I was interested early because you can engage with these films at the shock level and all. But then I'm also

thinking like, why why cannibalism? Why were these cannibals and films so big at that in the time. So I was reading Cannibalism in Literature and Film by Jennifer Brown, which is a really interesting book. You can you can pick this up as an e book, um, for example. But the author argues that much of what we see in this in this genre, especially the colonial cannibalism film,

as opposed to the domestic cannibalism film. So again, think, are you encountering cannibals in Texas, as in the Texas Chainsaw Masacre, or are the characters traveling to some you know, former colonial holding, um, some you know nation that was under a colonial rule and encountering cannibalism in those settings, right, Yeah,

I see the distinction. So Brown's argument is that these colonial cannibalism films are probably resulting from post colonial anxieties in the West and media coverage from this time period, you know, especially like the late seventies or the eighties and so forth, um of political and social unrest in parts of the world previously under colonial rule. Quote amidst the litany of atrocities, arose the feeling that without the civilizing arm of British colonial law, the world had descended

into chaos. And they also explained that there there there's a familiar trope of the cannibal other in all of this, of course, as well as a specific variation on colonial

cannibalism based on US foreign policy and its ramifications. So imagining audiences already have a kind of embedded colonial mentality, like this fear that people would have that without boots on the ground in every part of the world and soldiers managing every other country on the world, we can only imagine what kind of grizzly horrors are taking place in every other part of the world if we are not constantly pointing a gun at people right, right, and

so Brown discusses this at length, and they also they also get into cannibal holocaust itself and talks about sort of the the things that are important about it from a film history standpoint, but also you know why it is so notorious. But but I should be clear that Cannibal Apocalypse, the film were primarily discussing here today, doesn't really draw on any of these cultural cannibalism tropes and seems to be largely exploring a concept a model of

PTSD as viral cannibalism. Yeah, despite the fact that it does use all these tropes of Vietnam exploitation movies. Really, I would say it is a domestic cannibalism movie. It's a it's about you know, the cannibals are all Americans. Yeah. I ultimately really enjoyed this model of cannibalism that is deployed in this film. It reminds me a lot of the later film by um uh Antonia Birds Ravenous, which is a wonderful I guess largely it's got It's a

domestic cannibalism film, kind of a frontier cannibalism film as well. Right, it's about all these soldiers at an outpost in frontier California who are switched onto the magical wonder of eating human flesh. Yeah. Yeah, Ultimately even more of a vampiric

model of cannibalism in that film. Well, that one also I guess it does loosely draw on some rough like Windigo mythology, but but then it's I think it's one of those movies where you kind of wonder, like wait a minute, like within the world of the movie, like is there real magic going on here? Or is this just like an idea that has captured and motivated the minds of the characters. And you could probably argue the

same thing about this movie. Yeah. Now, Cannibal Apocalypse, though, is about more than just eating human flesh and US foreign policy. This film is also exciting for us because it is a Georgia movie. It is an Atlanta and Decatur movie filmed here back when that was something that was notable, you know, back when you weren't filming all

these big blockbusters in the state of Georgia. There actually were a good number of Italian horror films shot in the US South though, right around this time, like Luccio full Chiese The Beyond, which he shot in New Orleans, said in New Orleans, or like, uh, I think it was also ful Chi who may um City of the Living Dead or also known as Gates of Hell. Is that Savannah? Yeah, that was in Savannah, which I actually

watched just earlier this year. Yeah, there's also the wonderful film The Visitor, which is very much filmed in Atlanta around the time, same time period that is the God talking about Weird House. That is one of the most bizarre movies I have ever seen in my life. I mean, that one will make you leave your body. Yeah, we may have to come back to that one. That's a

fun one. So so yeah, if you're a if you're a local, if you have any connection to Atlanta, Georgia or Decatur, Georgia, Uh, it's worth watching because there's a lot of a lot of local locations that are used, including the Decatur Marta station, which I was looking this up. This film came out in nineteen eighty and the station opened June nine, So it's like a fresh spanking new Marta station there that which Marta is the train system

here in Atlanta. Uh. But but yeah, you get to see it fresh and new and and uh, you know, unsoiled by by cannibalism. Oh. I just thought of another one that I forgot to mention earlier, though this one is actually not Italian. Some Marta stations appear in uh in Escape from New York John Carpenter's movie One of the Marta stations here in Town is extensively featured in a sequence that was cut from the movie that involves Kurt Russell robbing a bank at the beginning of the movie,

or maybe sort of like digitally robbing a bank. I think he like steals computer stuff. Um, but he like gets on a Marta train and then like rides it to a station and then him and his co conspirator are ambushed right in the middle of a Marta station by a bunch of police. That's how Snake gets caught. Oh yeah, that's right. Um. And to be fair, there are some other Georgia horror movies of note from back in the day. I think Squirm from seventy six, I

think that was a Georgia movie. And oh, I'm trying to remember the name of the one that's set at the Beach, um Man, I was just down there recently and I had I think I even sent you a picture of one of the locations. Or was it The Slayer from Type Island? Yes, from Tybee Island, The Slayer, which is which actually quite good, um, maybe even too good. It could have it could have been a bit crappier, and that would have been probably been better for the

viewing experience. It's it's pretty seriously serious minded, but it's so it's a fun view So if you ever, if you ever find yourself out on Tybee Island enjoying, you know, beach vacation, bring a copy of The Slayer with you. Okay, So what's the elevator pitch on Cannibal Apocalypse? Green Beret Norman Hooper or is it Hopper? I guess because it's like Dennis Hopper, Queen Beret Norman Hopper survived the Vietnam War, but he brought something back with him, a stress activated

viral hunger for human flesh. Let's set that trailer audio cannibalism that very ridd in the flu market taking pot shots got side. Okay, that's an avoid about Please please try to understand. Listen to me. While she was here, I had this urge tood by her, good bye her, you understand, like Posky, it's so good, it's so good. I love the music in this film. I can't wait

to talk in more depth about the music. Music is great and some of the musical choices, as is common in Italian movies of this period are quite hilarious in their in their deployment in the film, despite being pretty great on their own. But first let's talk about Let's talk about the director, the writer, and some of the some of the cast. So the director here is Antonio Madretti, director, co writer, lived through two thousand and two. Um, I

believe you're you're very familiar with one of his other works. Oh, yes, he's so. He's the director of your The Hunter from the Future from three so a few years after this one was made. That is a Conan the Barbarian rip off, a leather diaper barbarian movie starring Reb Brown, the guy from Space Mutiny who screams. You remember him? Oh yes, he's an all time great muscle bro and in this movie he's playing the Conan. But I like how this movie mixes cheap barbarian rip off movie with dinosaurs and

science fiction. So it has aliens and robots and spaceships and the villain at the end of the movie is basically Darth Vader. Well, it makes sense for Margarity because he worked in pretty much every genre. He did Vietnam War movies, horror movies, sci fi movies, and more. Yeah, I think he's widely considered sort of an ultimate top tier schlock granddaddy. Uh. And in fact, he gets he gets name dropped by a lot of other film nerds

and stuff. And if you are not familiar with these Italian schlock movies, but you recognize his name an Tonio Marghariti, that might be because you have heard him name checked in movies by Quentin Tarantino. For example, in Inglorious Bastards, Tarantino has a character who is assuming a false name as and pretending to be an Italian Uh, camera operator. I think say that his name is Antonio Margariti. I forgot about that. Um, yeah, yeah, he did it. All he did did like you can pretty much name it,

and he did it. Did he do underwater horror movie? Yes, he didn't want called aliens from the deep, so many of those. Did he do a Hercules movie? Yes, he did a couple of them. Oh yeah, I think he actually did a number of them. So the Sword and Sandal movies, as they're often called in the States, uh, they're they're often referred to as peplum movies in the in the Italian press, I think named after sort of like the Greek garment that the Hercules type character or

the Ercole character would wear. Uh in these movies. Uh, these were really popular in Italian cinema from like the mid fifties until the early sixties. I think they, like they absolutely dominated the Italian movie scene at the time. What Marvel movies are today. Peplum movies were to Italian movies in the in the fifties through the early sixties. And and he definitely made a few. Yeah, I mean

he also did literary adaptations. He did a Treasure Island adaptation. Okay, he did a Christopher Lee horror movie titled Horror Castle in nineteen sixty three. He did a number of science fiction movies that I think are can that I haven't seen any of them, but I think they're considered less over the top and grotesque than a lot of his later works. Uh. And there it seemed to me like they're sort of like competent, pretty solid, well grounded, well

executed sci fi movies from the fifties. Yeah, it would be interesting to explore. I I read that he did special effects as well, including working on two thousand and one of Space Odyssey in the special effects department. But yeah, he Also I should note that, even though his his name carries more weight today, he generally worked under the moniker Anthony M. Dawson. You know, you had to americanize

that name, right right. A lot of a lot of Italian people in film, not just directors, would have a sort of anglicized pseudonym that they would release their movies under. I don't know if that was designed to make them seem more appealing to English speaking audiences, but so, yeah, he would be Anthony UM Dawson. I think I read somewhere that he sometimes directed under the name uh an Tony Daisies or Anthony Daisies, which is what Margariti actually

means Daisies. So he's co writer on this. But also we have Dardano Sacchetti, who was born ninety four, Italian screenwriter who worked with oh, just about all the big names in in um you know, the sort of B movie uh schlock market. He worked with Lomberto Bavo, with Lucio Fulci, with in Zog Casta Castelleri, uh, Dario Argento. Uh. In fact, his first credit was Argento's The Cat of Nine Tales. Ah, that one. Despite what you would guess from the title is about genetic engineering. I think I've

never said it. It involves a murder that takes place in like a genetics lab in the seventies, which is very strange. Uh And I think it shares a cast member with this movie. Now. He worked with Fucci a lot, including some of his most well known films such as Zombie House by the Cemetery That Beyond New York, ripper Man, Hat and Baby, etcetera. He worked on Baba's Monster, Shark and Demons, and he worked on Castellarity's nineteen ninety The

Bronx Warriors. So he's just an important name in Italian be cinema. You're gonna if you start watching b movies from Italy in this time period, you're going to see his name. Now, the next person we got to introduce for this film is uh Is is someone who was born by the name of Carmine Rico, though you might know him better as John Saxon. That's right. I believe he was the son of Italian immigrants if I recall correctly. Yeah, he's He's Italian American. He was born in New York.

I think his father was a was It was a dock worker in Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, he. If you have been listening to our Weird House Cinema episodes, you will remember he was our villain in Hands of Steel. Just a legendary American B movie actor. Um. He wasn't close to two pictures. He he was born in ninety six, died in um but had a very long career. Uh. He started out in some beach hunk movies I guess you'd call them in the nineteen fifties, and he went

on to be in some really iconic films. He was in the Original and Nightmare on Elm Street playing Nancy's dad. He was in Inner the Dragon, of course, had a huge role in that opposite Bruce Lee. I think that is in some ways considered his big breakout role. Yeah yeah, I mean he it's an incredible role. But yeah, he's a guy that was always working, so the films were not always top shelf, but he always brought this quiet intensity,

you know his he's really piercing eyes. Were already talked about he has kind of a grounding um acting presence in a film. Yeah he. I mean he's one of these people. Actually. I think Tim Lucas talks about this in his commentary track that Saxon operated at the boundary between a cinema and be cinema, and it seemed like he had a choice where he could sort of be a supporting player in A cinema or he could be

a leading player and top name in B cinema. And it was around the time of this movie that it seemed like he just fully embraced I'll be top billing guy in B movies. Yeah. I was reading an interview with him that was from a two thousand two Dutch fan convention where they were talking to him and he was talking a little bit about working in Italy. He mentioned that, you know, he spoke some Italian, uh, you know, enough to get by, but he was took from this

interview that he wasn't like truly fluent. Sometimes I see, like an IMDb, I see factoids about him being fluent in Italian, and I don't think that was necessarily the case based on his own words there, because he talks about there being communication issues sometimes um between Italian directors who did not speak English or very good English and the cast um. But he says that in these Italian films he was often given just a lot of room

to do like what he wanted with a role. And part of that might have been that they couldn't communicate with him that well. Um, or that maybe they were a little intimidated because again he's this this boundary walker between a film and B film and a lot of these guys, I mean, they knew they were making a B film. Uh, and so illusions there. Yeah, and here's John Saxon. We're paying money for John Saxon. We're gonna

let Saxon do his thing. You know what I had forgotten is that John Saxon has a prominent role in tenne Brey Another, a famous Italian jello movie made by Dario Argento. Some people consider it Argento's best movie, or one of his best movies. I'd put it maybe like fourth or fifth. But but yeah, it's good. That's one. I haven't seen it yet, but I've listened to the soundtrack before. Oh yeah, good soundtrack. If you see Goblin live, they will play tenner bre definitely. Now. That a two

thousand two interview from the Dutch Fan convention. UM. I was reading it on a site to title the flashback file. Um, if you just look for John Saxon interview there you'll find it. But he has a wonderful little story about this film that I think is very revealing. So I'm gonna quote here. This is a quote from John's Good One. Let me tell you about that film. It's a real funny story. When the script came, I thought it was interesting. It was talking about the Vietnam War, like it was

a virus you could bring home. I thought it was a great metaphor for a psychological condition. So I went down there and I met within Tonio Margretti, and I told him how I really liked the script. He said he did not. I didn't understand why he would say that, but I didn't ask him. Turns out I got an English translation of the Italian script, but the translators weren't very good. They just left stuff out. But we got

babble fished into a role. Yep. Yeah, And he says, but I always found out that that When we were actually shooting, I thought it was just one guy biting another guy in the virus spreads. But at one point we were shooting a scene and a guy brings in this tray of meat. I asked what it was for, and they explained to me it was supposed to be body parts, even genitals, and we were supposed to gnaw on them. He continues, I asked Margaritti to take me out of the scene and I went to my hotel room.

Once I found out what the true nature of the film was, I got so depressed. I had three days off and I flew to New York, and all the while I was dreading to go back there. I've never seen it, and I tried to forget about it. But in four I met with a Korean producer who wanted me for a film, and he said, you know, your film is a big hit in Korea. I asked him

which film, Yeah, that one. Oh my god. But even in observing the difference between this story and the final film, you will see some of John Saxon's influence and saying like, no, I'm not doing that, because here he's being asked to gnaw on in trails, and he never does that in the movie. Other characters do, but Saxon, I do not think you ever see him with any kind of meat

in his mouth. Now. I think the most he ever does is he wiped some blood off of his mouth, you know, So it's implied that he engaged in cannibalism, right, it is implied that he does all kinds of horrible things, but off camp ra Yeah, alright, so again Saxon plays Norman Hopper and then his wife in the movie, Jane Hopper, is played by Elizabeth Turner, an Italian actor. This was her last film. She was also in Full Chise the Psychic. She was in a truly throbbingly bizarre movie called Beyond

the Door that came out in nineteen seventy four. Though, so she's credited as being in that film, But then again, I don't really remember her from it, and it's possible that big parts of her performance may have actually been cut out of the movie. But anyway, I'll leave that for you to sort out. Anyway, Beyond the Door, it's worth saying, is a fascinatingly weird, blatant rip off of The Exorcist released just so. The Exorcist came out in

seventy three, This is seventy four. It's set in San Francisco, but of course it is actually super Italian. I feel like we should get a sting from the trailer here. Let's hear it where Demonic possession lives an evil and it trates the soul. Step inside. If you dare you, Jessica has gone beyond the door. At first she didn't believe, but she does now. No one must attempt to interfere

with her pregnancy. You understand, the child must be born beyond the door where demonic possession lives and grows and grows, and beyond the door, we dare you not to believe it's a demon possession movie. But the weirdest thing I remember is a scene where there's a couple of the main couple in the movie, or they're like having lunch shout on a on a patio, and they're discussing what to name their unborn child, and the woman says, with

great passion, what about Steve? No offensitive people named Steve or Steven. But I don't know that that seemed really funny. Well, the trailer is great. I've I've never seen it, but in looking it up, I do see that it's another one of these Italian franchises of sorts where you have otherwise unconnected or or you know, just unconnected films that have been relabeled in some cases in order to loosely

be a franchise. I think this one may have actually been such a blatant rip off of The Exorcist that there were some legal troubles, but all that aside. I mean, who can resist going beyond the door. All right, let's move on to our next actor. This is um Giovanni Lombardo Radici. That I hit that right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the guy playing that uh that character named again Charles Bukowski. Like, I think this is just a

direct nod to the author. Um. I was trying to understand, like what the what the connection might be, And I think basically the idea is that Bakowski was a writer who was uh you know, he he was sort of is self characterized as an outsider. His whole thing was like, well, you know, I I need drugs and alcohol to cope with the fact that I have horrible memories of my experiences throughout life and that I don't fit in in society. So just somebody who's uh embracing the role of an unaccepted,

sort of despised outsider who doesn't fit in. Okay, that matches up. So Radici again an Italian actor born nineteen fifty four as of this recording still at it. Played a lot of sleeves bags in his career, especially his early career. Uh. And and was in more than one cannibal film. Yeah, he was in I think he is in a very famous disgusting gore scene from Full Cheese City of the Living Dead, in which he gets like

a power drill to the head. Okay, I noticed. He's also in Joe Diamato's Cannibal Love, uh, acting alongside Big George Eastman. So that's that's exciting. He's also in the Church by Michael A Suave. Oh yeah, that's a good one from nine. And he's also a in Berto Lindsay's Cannibal Fear Rox film that proudly boasted that it was banned in thirty one countries. That's another one of the cannibal movies that I have never watched. Yeah, same here, but it's not on my list either. But uh, but yeah,

this is a cannibal apocalypse though. And this was his first film, but he's gone on to have quite a career, including showing up in a couple of Big Us pictures. The two thousand and six reboot of The Omen, which falls in line with some of what we're talking about here. But also he has a role in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. Oh do you remember who he plays in that? He's pretty far down the list. I think he he but he has a name, his character has

a name. Um, he's just I'm assuming one of the Italian characters. I haven't actually seen Gangs in New York, so I can't I can't be more specific than that. Okay, alright. Another actor in this we have a Sinsiad Carols, who plays Mary the Neighbor. Born nineteen sixty an Italian actor, again, a former child actor. I think she was twenty at the time that this film was put together, but she had already been in Argento's The Cat of Nine Tales.

She was She went on to be in an Italian TV bio of Helen Keller, and I believe she's worked as a as a dubber, dubbing helping to dub various like uh, English language films for instance, into Italian. We also have in this film Tony King. Also known I think more properly known today is Malik Farrakhan Uh. He plays Tom Thompson, a vet. He was born in nineteen

forty seven. He played for the NFL on the Buffalo Bills, I think for one season in nineteen sixty seven, I believe, and then he went on to act in a lot of B movies throughout the seventies. He's been a political movies though he's oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. He did a lot of B movie work. But he also pops up in Shaft. I believe. He has a brief, maybe uncredited role in the Godfather. He was in The Toy.

He was in Sharky's Machine with Burt Reynolds. Yeah yeah, uh, and I I read that he also served and I think perhaps still serves as the hip hop group Public Enemies head of security. Uh. There's apparently a documentary about about him in the works titled The Long Road Projects, So check that out. It's The Long Road Project dot com. He's great in this, Yeah, he has all right. We also have the character Dr. Phil Mindez played by Ramiro al oliver Eros, who was born in n and is

a Spanish actor. It's It's worth driving home. I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but this is a Spanish Italian co production. Um so here's our Spanish presence in the film. He's known for such titles as The

Swamp of Ravens and Black Commando. Tim lucas Is commentary track pointed out the distinctive Italian nous of the inappropriateness of this character, This guy who, ostensibly, in another in another version of this movie, would be able to kind of be the hero of the movie, like the person who uh can can like step in and intervene. Instead, he's just like he's just wrong in every possible way. He is well, and we'll get to some examples here

in a second. Now, one thing about this film is that it's it's filmed in Atlanta for the most part. I think they shot some tunnel sequences in Rome, but not Room, Georgia, but Rome, Italy. So it's very much filmed in Atlanta, and it is set in Atlanta. Not in like a hard way. They don't say things like what will this cannibalism due to the city of Atlanta or anything to that nature, but they don't hide the fact and they seem to embrace on some level that

it takes place here. That being said, we have a number of Italian actors who are clearly dubbed, including a couple of them at least that have just ridiculous Southern accents, like like country loyal chicken accents. Oh my god, Foghorn, Leghorn, the doctor Fog were in Leghorn at the psychiatric hospital.

That was so funny. Um. I don't know the actor's name, but I think he was an Italian actor who looks just the slightest bit like I forget the actor's name, but the guy who plays the President in Clear and President Danger. You know that guy, um, Donald Moffatt. Yes, yes, Oh. Also he's in the Thing, the Captain and the Thing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I do agree. When I was watching this, I was like, he looks like somebody, and I looked him up and I was like, oh,

he's he's an Italian actor I've never heard of. Yeah, yeah, it just slightly like in the eyes, looks like him.

But anyway, he's like many characters in this movie and many other Italian movies of this period, totally dubbed, so you don't know what his real voice sounds like, but they dubbed him with This guy with the most hilariously implausible Southern accent ever, and sometimes edges almost into Cajun accent where he's at the hospital, you know, treating somebody who's been bitten by by a cannibal and he is like, oh, geryon d you know, he sounds like Paul Prude m

or something. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So you have a lot of that going on. But but again not every actor is dubbed, So you have this this weird exception that makes those accents even more ridiculous because he had this actor, Wallace Wilkinson playing Captain McCoy of the Atlanta Police and he is not only an actual Southern he's an actual who was an actual Atlanta native who lived nine two

thousand and one. Yeah, so he plays like the hard edged police captain in this Yes, and he has some some wonderful lines and it's some some hilarious lines in the film. So he's a he's a real pleasure. Uh. He was, of course, when it goes without saying he was the nineteen seventy nine The Visitor, that other one of the other Italian movies set in Atlanta, like that, it just lines up too well, you know, he would

have to be in that one as well. The cast in that one is so weird, so it has like people. It's got Franco neary as as like a space Jesus in it. But then it's got Sam Peckinpah the director. Yeah, a doctor in the movie for no reason that I can discern. He's just like, Hi, I'm a doctor. I think he just gives somebody like a prescription. And then the scenes over. Yeah. Yeah, you've got John Houston in that one. You've got Lance Hendrickson showing up. He's got

a weird cast. I believe there's a there's a particular long running um or. I think he's retired now. But there's a particular political radio host that was Atlanta based that pops up in it for no real reason. Oh yeah, he's a background extra. Oh yeah, right wing radio guy Neil Boards. Yeah, he's just I think he's just in a in the background in like a boardroom scene or something. Alright, So Wallace Wilkinson, he's fun in this. Um This doesn't mean anything to me, but I'm gonna pass it on.

There's a character in it that's just called Brunette Jogger, played by Laura Dean, and apparently she is Sophie from Friends. I never watched Friends, so I don't know how meaningful that is. I don't really know friends, So okay, well friends, fans, you can just take that run with it. Then. Uh, but then finally, let's come back to the music. Oh boy, Yes, yes, the score of Cannibal Apocalypse is by Alexander block Steiner,

who lived nineteen thirty through five. And for my money, this is one of the real stars of this picture because this is just a fabulously like funky disco score. It's just absolutely tremendous. It may not always feel completely at home in this picture, at least for a lot of our our our listeners out there. Uh, but it's impossible to imagine this movie without it. It has some synth delights in there, it has some spooky bits that feel very much in keeping with Italian horror. But it

has to be the funkiest horror movie score ever. And it also has a saxophone love theme. I know what you're saying, but actually there's a thing I wanted to talk about regarding the music. I was gonna bring it up later, but maybe I'll get into it right now. Yeah, let's do it. This is also something that Tim Lucas pointed out when commenting on the opening sequence of the movie that takes place in Vietnam. Uh And it's something that's true of that scene in this movie, but also

just more broadly true of Italian movies of this period. Generally, there is this weird cultural disconnect between Italian sensibilities for the uses of different types of music and genres of music versus American sensibilities. Many Italian directors of the seventies and eighties have a distinct predisposition to take a scene of high tension, terror and suspense and choose these exact

moments to let the musical score get the funkiest. And this always elicits laughter from American audiences because I don't know, I mean, it just doesn't feel right, like funky bass and saxophone is not really what would seem to heighten the effect of a scene where someone is creeping up on somebody else behind them with a knife or something. But for some reason this made sense to the Italians. So what is going on here with the intended effect of funky music? I I don't don't don't hear funky

music and think, oh wow, I'm getting really nervous. I think I have a theory on this. I don't know if I'm correct, but because certainly there are people that

have more expertise in the genres involved here. But I think part of it might be might come down to the disconnect regarding disco culture between the Italian market and the Europe in general and the United States, because disco obviously exploded in the States, but there was this for a long time, there was this kind of disco backlash, and I feel like a lot of us grew up exposed to that backlash, you know, jokes about disco and about disco being dead and and being lame to some extent, right,

oh yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, But but in Europe, disco never really died, and horror disco was able to to sort of thrive and evolve as its own genre or subgenre. Um and is it is actually doing quite well today, with a lot of artists that were inspired aired by soundtracks just such as this one. So you can even check out whole labels. There's a wonderful label called Jollo Disco Records um which interestingly enough put out a label

sampler titled Apocalypse Domani that's really really, really quite good. Huh. Well, I mean, I agree with your characterization of the difference between Like, yeah, I think clearly disco had a more sustained survival and popularity in in European culture than it

did an American culture. But I don't know if that would really explain the disconnect within the movies, because I don't feel any personal particular disco backlash, and yet it still seems very funny, and I can imagine many other types of music that would seem equally funny to put in these types of like if you were to put in Simon and Garfunkel, or some kind of like a folk music, or if you were to put in certain

times of rock music. I think, like any of that would seem really not fitting with the tone of the

scene and would be very funny to me. Maybe may yeah, But but I do wonder if there's something to this, like the idea that that disco was allowed to thrive morning Europe, and so European audiences might be just more exposed to a wider world of disco, Like disco is big enough in Europe and in Italy, perhaps theorizing here big enough to encompass horror and suspense, whereas in the United States we almost had this this effort to eradicate disco, and so it's just not growing in all the places

it should. Well, I'll keep an open mind about that. That's interesting. I could be completely wrong. It's just just throwing that out there. That's that's what's going through my head. Well, either way, so as as funny and incongress as it does seem to me in its placement in the film, the funky disco tracks are just great. Yes. Uh. In fact, let's go ahead and listen to a quick sample from the score. This is one of my absolute favorite bits from it. Yeah, and I should also throw into the

excellent Death Waltz Recording company. They put out a really stunning red vinyl edition of this score, which you can still buy for you know, a reasonable price, and you can also get it on CD, though I don't think official digital versions or are that easy to come by. Right now, make the score of Cannibal Apocalypse your next Friday night. It's a it's a great it's great. I mean, it's it feels a good time. If you did not know this was cannibal music, I don't think most people

would would associated with cannibal you'd be like cannibals. You think, God, this is this is great, this is this is hitting the town music. I am at the discotheca. Yeah, about to go out and get steak guys, French fries. I got lots of gas, full moon and a jump in tune. All right, So I guess we should talk about a

few elements from the plot. We mentioned already that the movie starts with a flashback to the middle of the Vietnam War, where you get to see some of the themes I think the movie is trying to establish, like it is, it is trying to depict the kind of cold brutality of the war in Vietnam. And but also that's the reason that it's kind of funny when the funky music kicks in in the scene. Um. But it sets up the plot by showing a couple of American soldiers who have been taken as po ws at a

at a Vietcong base. And I think the implication is that they're they're kept in captivity for so long and and fed so little that they are driven to cannibalism, or at least that's what you were led to believe is the causal factor at the beginning, right right, Yeah, So the film opens with these choppers moving in. This is the Green Beret team coming to ultimately rescue these people.

And I should point out that the blue ray of this we watched is a wonderful Keno Lerber addition, Um, and I believe a new four K remaster from just it looks absolutely gorgeous, almost too gorgeous because the just jarringly good quality for a cannibal movie. And you notice this when you cut back and forth between the actual film footage and uh, the stock footage of the helicopters. Yeah. I think the stock footage is originally archival sixteen millimeter

news footage that was taken. You know. It's like actually from Vietnam, so it's showing helicopters landing and stuff. But it looks extremely grainy when held up against this nice restoration of the cannibal movie here. Yeah, so that they they're coming in for the rescue. And then there's this hillatious there's a number of hillacious things happen in quick succession. Uh that can maybe make it hard for some people to push on through this movie. Uh, because for one thing,

they break the dog rule uh pretty quickly. I want to say, well, maybe five minutes into the film, oh less, I mean a few minutes into the movie a a dog explodes, so there's like a dog bomb, which, yeah, I gotta say when I was like, I was like, oh no. And then and obviously also like the battle in Vietnam, uh by being based on real events is sort of less can be. It's harder to take in a lighthearted way like you can with the biting and the eating of people and the rest of the movie.

Um so like the I feel like definitely the first like ten minutes or twenty minutes of the movie are are the most unpleasant part of it. Yeah, And there's a there's a sequence that's ultimately pivotal to the plot where the Green Berets they have a flamethrower and the flamethrower hits um. It doesn't even appear to be a combatant. It's like a Vietnamese woman she's on fire and so

it's a horrific like burn suit stunt. And then she runs away on fire, falls into the pit where the two p o ws are being kept and they immediately start eating her body. Yeah. And then On Saxon, who is the leader of the Green Berets, are actually It's kind of confusing because he's wearing a beret that would seem to indicate he is a Green Beret, but he's leading a group of soldiers who are not similarly dressed. So I'm not sure what the composition of this this

group is supposed to be. But they come in. John Saxson like opens up the cage on top of the pit that these guys are being kept in while they are eating a human being and uh, and he reaches down to to help these guys out, and what do they do. They bite him on the arm. And then as soon as they bite him on the arm, suddenly John Saxon wakes up. It was all a dream. But then he gets up and his his wife wakes up again. This is played by Elizabeth Turner and uh, and she's like, oh,

dreams again. And we see a scar on his forearm right where the bite was in the dream. So it was a dream, but it was also real. He is being haunted by the memories of what he saw in the war and what bit him in the war. And these are actually I think some of the best acting scenes for for John Saxon in this you know, where he has this real haunted. Look, it's him like getting up in wandering shirtless around his his house. Uh. And

and he's good in these Saints. He's in great physical shape, by the way, And I detect I feel like I have a good sense for when this is happening in movies. I feel like you can really tell he wants to show off the fact that he is currently in really good shape while they're shooting this movie. Yeah, he was, I think at the time, but he jacked. He looks awesome. I think he was. He was using this movie as like his dating profile. This is his profile pick, but

also the funny thing. So he gets up and he's like, well, another haunting dream about the war. I guess I need to go take pills. So he goes to take pills, and he like opens the refrigerator and just sees that there is just raw, bloody meat just out open in the refrigerator, not in a container of any kind, just dripping maa globin all over. Everything in the fridge. Is disgusting. Um.

So he's doing that, uh, you know, being troubled. And meanwhile his Elizabeth Turner, his one dubbed wife, it just seems very irritated by his Vietnam flashbacks and she starts flipping through a copy of Fortune magazine. I have to say, the meat and the refrigerator scene was a moment we're looking back in it. I can imagine this was a sequence where they originally they might have wanted him to to eat that meat or to drink that meat juice,

and Saxon was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not And ultimately the film's better for it because it's not about him, you know, being a midnight uh you know, meat drinker, and more about like the what's going on in his head when he's looking at it. Right. So I guess, once again, we don't have to describe every scene in the movie, but I think you can probably guess the the basic format of it. So John Saxon is still haunted by the war, and he finds out that the POW's that he rescued in his in his

dream sequence. Of course, they are real guys, and they're about to be they're about to be released from a psychiatric hospital where they've been receiving treatment, and one of them is this guy, Charlie Bakowski, and we follow him once he is released, and pretty quickly he So he like goes to a movie theater and starts watching a war movie that's just like full of violence and explosions on the screen, and immediately starts biting people in the theater.

He like bites a woman sitting in front of him, and then the cannibalism cycle kind of ramps up from there.

And so one of the things that I thought was really interesting about this movie was the way that it actually, in the mechanics of plot development, very closely mirrors zombie movies, because what normally happens in a zombie movie, especially zombie movies that followed Night of the Living Dead and followed the sort of formula established by George Romero, it is you have a number of human characters and some zombies

are roaming around. A zombie bites a human character. The bite makes the human character die, and then they turn into a zombie and they start biting other people. This movie has essentially the exact same dynamic, except without the death. So you have a cannibal who you could think of as like the zombie. They are driven to bite other people.

Once they bite someone, the bitten person has a sort of has a sort of grace period where they are recovering from the bite, and then eventually something about the bite seizes them, changes them and they start biting people

in turn. And so I thought that was interesting that in an unacknowledged way, it is like a Ramiro zombie movie, except everybody is still alive and to a certain extent, like even the characters who give in to the cannibalism are still human enough that you don't have that clear disconnect, because I've often seen it pointed out by sort of zombie critics that in the zombie film, there is there's no question what you do about zombies. You kill zombies.

Brutal violence is the way you deal with the problem of zombies, and it's okay because the fiction creates gives you license to do that. Whereas cannibals, as presented in Cannibal Apocalypse, that's never the case, Like there's still mortal human beings that could conceivably be pulled back um, even if they are, you know, drifting further and further into their their cannibalistic obsession. You can almost see several characters,

especially John Saxon, struggling with the cannibalism thing. It's almost like they're conflicted about it, like they feel the urge to bite and eat humans, but maybe they're resisting it

for some period of time. Well, in the film, like he he was bitten a long time ago, and it's like he's been fighting it this whole time, and it's almost it's one of these areas that gets into where it's you know, it's almost or perhaps you can go say it it actually is like a clever um commentary on sort of either modern life or the American condition that you know, you that we were all bitten a long time ago ago, and the sickness is already in us.

The sickness is growing, and it's not a question of will we acquire the sickness, but will we give into it? You know, can we fight it off? And is it ultimately too much for any individual to fight off for too long? Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And uh, but there's another way of thinking about it, which is that so as you mentioned about the zombie movies, you know, a common criticism of them is that, uh, is that by creating the zombie plot device, you you

remove certain types of moral ambiguity from the film. You know, because like in the Romero set up. It's frequently emphasized by characters who have a kind of scientific authority or something that these are no longer your friends and relatives. They are not human anymore. They must be destroyed on site, and characters are often punished for making the mistake of thinking that the zombies in these movies are still the

person they were before they died. You know, they like try to reach out to their friends or relatives and then they just get bitten. This movie almost posits that you could be a secret zombie, that you could be a zombie, but that you could still blend in with the living, and that you could talk and you could seem like a normal person at least for a while, as long as you're able to keep it under wraps. But at some point your zombie nature will just sort

of erupt out of you and then the biting starts. Yeah. Which, again, not to give too much credit to this movie, I don't want to overstate, uh, it's it's thoughtfulness, but you could see that as actually a kind of, you know, if you look at it the right way, as a kind of clever insight about the the effects of certain

kinds of trauma or experiences. With brutalization, say in a war. Yeah, yeah, I think again this is an area where um Saxon and perhaps others, right, that is, and then what the commentary track indicated that they were it wasn't just Saxon that we're encouraging the director to maybe pull back from the from the visceral and allow some of the metaphorical

a little more room to exist. Yeah. Yeah, there, Tim Lucas was saying, I think that Saxon and uh and Dja as well, we're sort of, uh, we're sort of the the angels on Antonio Marghariti's shoulder when making this movie. I'm not sure who the devils were. Maybe it's his own devil, the screenwriter. Maybe I don't. But also so so that's the kind of interesting, serious thematic part they're also there's just so much absolutely unintentionally hilarious stuff in

this movie. Some of the dialogue and the dubbing is so funny, uh like especially one thing that really stands out to me is the character of Dr Phil played by Rameiro Olivero's Almost every scene he's in is so inappropriate and the way that the movie doesn't really seem to understand. Yeah, I mean it seems where he's like he's talking to um John Saxon's character's wife and she's like, I'm really concerned about Norman. Um, you know he's having

these dreams. And he's like, no, I totally understand by the way, I'm still looking for my soul mate. You know. So good. There's one part I can't remember the exact quote, but this is pretty close. He's on the phone with her and he says something like, I do not think you should be alone with your husband tonight. He may be on the verge of a psychotic break. You should have married me and not him. It's so good. Uh. There are also some great lines that are that are

they are not dubbed. For instance, UM, we're talking about the the Atlanta police chief character and he has there's this one scene where the cannibalism has spread two police officers and so they're screaming and he rushes into this

room and cannibalism has broken out. One character cop character is eating human flesh and he says, oh my God, put that down, son, And then I think later he says cannibalism that maybe in the trailer that we aired earlier on in fact, we were we were joking that he's like James Brolin as the Republican Governor of Florida and the West Wing. You know, he's like cannibalism. Boy, I don't know cannibalism. Big side. Um. There was another one more thing I wanted to mention about the plot

before we move on. So, of course, you know, it's just kind of like a spiral into cannibal hell as more and more people getting bitten and sort of secret zombified get turned into cannibals. But again with the interesting difference from the zombie movies that they still retain rationality, that they can speak, that they can form and execute plans, that the cannibals seem to have the ability to collaborate, like they can work together with each other to further

the uh, the coordinated cannibal agenda. Yeah, and it almost is like it instant, like the once the switch is turned in the mind, you start working with the other cannibals, because you know what life is about now, it's about

that human flesh. Just in terms of technical filmmaking, though, I thought there was something worth pointing out, which is that there is a central sequence of the movie that really stands out, and it's the entire flea market sequence with Radici in it um where So before this part of the movie, I think it starts maybe like twenty to thirty minute it's in, and then it just goes and goes for like twenty or thirty minutes, almost in

real time. And before this part of the movie there's just like a lot of bizarre and inappropriate, tasteless stuff happening, and then afterwards it's it's more in kind of like

cannibal escalation mode. But for this one middle chunk of the movie, you just get this really tight, very well executed, high tension standoff scene with with this character played by Ridici, this cannibalistic veteran, uh sort of taking over a flea market with a gun and the police being outside and there's this whole thing where they're trying to talk him down and get him out, And I thought it was so weird to have this one sequence that just technically

and pacing wise, is so different than the rest of the movie. Yeah, yeah, now that you mentioned it, it's definitely a sequence section of the film that really moves quite along. I mean, in general, I feel like this movie kept me invested throughout like it. Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's definitely not boring. Yeah, And I think a lot of it has to do with certainly with it with some of these many of these sequences being so well paced and and in many cases shot really really well.

But but also the last third of the film especially, it goes in a direction I wasn't expecting and in general didn't seem to be setting itself um in accordance to any particular cinematic pattern, at least one that I was familiar with, So I really wasn't sure how everything

was going to play out. Yeah, And I think part of the unpredictability of the movie is created by having this chunk of the movie in the middle where or the early middle, where suddenly the plot stops developing at the at the kind of uh fast, random pace of what was happening earlier, and suddenly everything slows down and we get this real time, very very technical scene that uh.

Tim Lucas in his commentary very much compares the way the flea market scene plays out to the filmmaking of George Romero, which again I think is a good comparison.

It has that kind of I don't know that real time uh, tactical step by step progression of the way that that Romero does a lot of sequences, and for example, Dawn of the Dead, you recall a lot of What's actually pleasurable about Dawn and the Dead is the kind of is seeing the characters execute a plan very much in real time, step by step in a way that that feels very logical, and you have a good sense of place and and setting and do you know what

I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, that all of that is definitely in play with this sequence. They do a really good job of of creating that environment and need, like the physical expectations of that space. Um, and it makes for a really solid standoff because you you know what the environment is like, it's well established. So question before we wrap up, do you think the movie would have been better or worse if it did include a

shot of John Saxon just like housing role meat. I think it would have been worse because I think we would have we we would have It would have been hard to root for him if we had seen that, especially if we'd seen it early in the picture. Even if it was just him be again being a midnight meat drinker that would have I think it would have it would have caused that that slip to occur, and would we would have a harder time thinking that he

had a shot at at a normal life anymore. Uh So, yeah, I think it ultimately it made the film a little less exploitive and and allowed for the film to feel a little more metaphorical for those who wanted to engage in that kind of experience. It's funny we keep saying this though, about about the ways that it seems to kind of like hit certain limits because you know, because once again, I mean, this is a gross cannibal movie that is like inappropriate and in bad taste in most

ways you could imagine. But for some reason, you just keep noticing about it that it feels like it would have gone farther in that regard, and and for some reason it doesn't quite even though it is already pretty gross and tasteless. Yeah. Absolutely, And and once again, I think it's a far better film for those restraints being in place. Uh And you still get to have all your bloody cannibalistic fun in this film as well. So again it's not a family film. It still has plenty

of gross and shocking scenes. My only question in my own mind is whether it would have been better had George Eastman been in it as well playing a cannibal, And on that I'm not sure. I'm kind of torn. On one hand, I'm always up for a good George Eastman appearance, but on the other hand, Um, he is very much a harbinger of of that kind of excessive

quality of filmmaking of it. I feel like like his presence alone might have been enough to push the film, uh into the extremes that we're we're praising it for avoiding. When we saw the poster for this movie displayed on the menu screen from the blue ray, So Rachel and I she watched this with me and uh, And at first when I saw the guy, I thought it was George Eastman the guy, but you know, it's got a kind of eagerly rendered anthropophagus, kind of Georgie Sman appearance.

But Rachel, upon seeing it, was like, is this a Sasquatch movie? But no, I think it's just supposed to be Uh and uh, what's his name? Radici? Yeah, some of the you look at some of the posters for this and there's like another poster or maybe VHS box art, I'm not sure which. That shows John Saxon's face, and part of half of his face is distorted into like a monster face, which is totally not in keeping with anything you see in the film at all, or even

really in the vibe of the picture. But they certainly didn't have a problem presenting it on the you know, the post or the box art in some market or another. One last thing I have to mention before we finish. Rachel had a really good one. When I was explaining that I had realized the title comes from trying to get some of the magic of apocalypse now, she suggested instead of cannibal Apocalypse, they should have called this movie apocalypse Chow. Oh would have been good, especially because I

can double with like the Italian greeting. Yeah like that like dog chow and yeah chow Okay, all right, I like it. All right. Uh, well, we're gonna go ahead and close it out there. Again, if you're wondering where can I watch this, well, I think it's as of this recording kind of hard to find on legit streaming services. But again, that Keno Lerber Blu ray is beautiful and you can buy that wherever you get your films. Um it's again just really great remaster four K remaster of

the film. We rented our copy from Video Drome, Atlanta's last rental store, and I think it was meant to be because when I walked in there to inquire about the film, they were playing Transfers three on the on the screens. So so I got to talk briefly about the Transfers franchise with the with the owner. Uh so, Yeah, it's a great spot. And if you want to check out more about Video Drume, you can go to Video Drome a t L dot com or for their merchandise, you can go to Video Drume dot tv. Are we

coming back for Deep Transfer sequels on on Weird House? May? I mean, who knows? We could do Transfers three. I don't know about four and five, but you know three three is a possibility. Three basically have like Street Sharks in it. There is a there is a shark character. Yes, there's a fun monster character that shows up, and we have uh in keeping with the second Transfers, there's a wonderful villain roll as well. Okay, that's staying on the list.

Oh but I think I actually know what we are doing next week, and boy is not going to be a treat. Let's not spoil it. I do you want to tease anything about it? Of course not. No, I want it to be a surprise. Okay, all right, I'll just say it's going to be an incredible journey. Al Right, Well, I won't even spoil it. Then. At the at the blog post for this episode, which we'll find it some new to music dot Com, but I will include some some clips and some samples and some links to some

of the soundtrack stuff we've been talking about here. And if you want to catch more episodes of Weird House Cinema, the place to get it is every Friday in the Stuff to Blow your Mind pod cast feed, which we'll find wherever you get your podcasts. Stuff to Blow Your

Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast. We run our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we run an artifact episode on Wednesday's, we run listener mail on Monday's, we run on the weekend, and then on Friday it's this It's Weird Our Cinema, you know, which we get to talk about a weird film. Huge thanks as always

to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.