It's pretty amazing to me that this movie exists, seeing as how Anthropophagus came out all the way back in 1980 - and was spelled Antropophagus - and already has had several spiritual and unofficial sequels, like Absurd - which is closer to Halloween than D'Amato's first film, which was released as The Grim Reaper in the U. S.* - and the German sort of sequel Anthropophagous 2000 was made in 1999.
You don't need to really know anything about the original to watch this.
The BIFFF website has a great line about this: "It ticks off all the boxes of Italian Z-grade trash cinema: an outrageously idiotic script, paper-thin and brain-dead female characters who are more likely to break out into a pillow fight than to engage in a scientific discussion on their thesis (we do hope the film-makers have met actual women in real life), bad acting made worse by hilarious dubbing and such outlandish amounts of blood, guts, intestines, brain mush, baby removals and other such niceties that put Hostel to shame. In short: pure, unfiltered bad taste."
A teacher named Nora (Monica Carpanese, who is also in Claudio Fragasso's 2022 movie Karate Man) has assigned her students - Giulia (Jessica Pizzi, The Slaughter), Angela (Giuditta Niccoli), Diletta (Maria D'Ascanio), Betty (Chiara De Cristofaro), Sonia (Shaen Barletta), Cinizia (Valentina Capuano) and Isabel (Alessandra Pellegrino) - to an assignment that will help her thesis paper on the impact of isolation. She's gotten the keys to a fallout shelter where numerous people have already died in, asked the girls to not bring their phones and everyone just goes along with this plot.
Meanwhile, a mysterious man (Alberto Buccolini) is hunting them all.
Antropophagus is best known for a scene where Klaus Wortman (George Eastman, who also co-wrote the script for the 1980 movie) tears a fetus out of Maggie (Serena Grandi) and eats it right on camera. For being a degenerate exploitation filmmaker, that film's director, Joe D'Amato, waited until nearly the end of the movie. Here, it happens three minutes in.
Director Dario Germani started his career as a cinematographer (he's still working as one, as he made Emanuelle's Revenge with Carpanese last year, as well as the aforementioned Karate Man) and he understands that for this movie to work, the tunnels - the Bunker Soratte, Gallerie del Monte Soratte - that it takes place within have to be claustrophobic. There are some nice shots within this, as well as some gore - skin rolling off arms - that got close to disturbing me. Writer Lorenzo De Luca doesn't do much to tie this to the original and instead, it feels like it could easily be a ripoff of The Hills Have Eyes or Hostel.
Credit - or blame - for putting this together goes to Giovanni Paolucci. Yes, the same man who wrote Ark of the Sun God before writing and producing the last period of Bruno Mattei's career (from Attrazione pericolosa - which starts Carpanese - to Zombies: The Beginning) as well as Dracula 3D.
I have to be honest. Yes, this movie is bad, but if it was shot on film and made in 1980, the dubbing, bad acting and lack of story would not bother me in the least. That said, I wish that the monster in this had an intimidating size and aura like George Eastman. Actually, the dubbing is so bad here that it made me love what I was watching. That said, I can only imagine someone who hasn't made it through the assembled canon of D'Amato, Mattei and Fragasso would absolutely detest this movie.
*I can make this even more confusing and say that Absurd was also released as Zombi 6 and Antropophagus as Zombi 7 but let me tell you, breaking down which movies are called what Zombi numbers will give you a migraine.
You don't need to really know anything about the original to watch this.
The BIFFF website has a great line about this: "It ticks off all the boxes of Italian Z-grade trash cinema: an outrageously idiotic script, paper-thin and brain-dead female characters who are more likely to break out into a pillow fight than to engage in a scientific discussion on their thesis (we do hope the film-makers have met actual women in real life), bad acting made worse by hilarious dubbing and such outlandish amounts of blood, guts, intestines, brain mush, baby removals and other such niceties that put Hostel to shame. In short: pure, unfiltered bad taste."
A teacher named Nora (Monica Carpanese, who is also in Claudio Fragasso's 2022 movie Karate Man) has assigned her students - Giulia (Jessica Pizzi, The Slaughter), Angela (Giuditta Niccoli), Diletta (Maria D'Ascanio), Betty (Chiara De Cristofaro), Sonia (Shaen Barletta), Cinizia (Valentina Capuano) and Isabel (Alessandra Pellegrino) - to an assignment that will help her thesis paper on the impact of isolation. She's gotten the keys to a fallout shelter where numerous people have already died in, asked the girls to not bring their phones and everyone just goes along with this plot.
Meanwhile, a mysterious man (Alberto Buccolini) is hunting them all.
Antropophagus is best known for a scene where Klaus Wortman (George Eastman, who also co-wrote the script for the 1980 movie) tears a fetus out of Maggie (Serena Grandi) and eats it right on camera. For being a degenerate exploitation filmmaker, that film's director, Joe D'Amato, waited until nearly the end of the movie. Here, it happens three minutes in.
Director Dario Germani started his career as a cinematographer (he's still working as one, as he made Emanuelle's Revenge with Carpanese last year, as well as the aforementioned Karate Man) and he understands that for this movie to work, the tunnels - the Bunker Soratte, Gallerie del Monte Soratte - that it takes place within have to be claustrophobic. There are some nice shots within this, as well as some gore - skin rolling off arms - that got close to disturbing me. Writer Lorenzo De Luca doesn't do much to tie this to the original and instead, it feels like it could easily be a ripoff of The Hills Have Eyes or Hostel.
Credit - or blame - for putting this together goes to Giovanni Paolucci. Yes, the same man who wrote Ark of the Sun God before writing and producing the last period of Bruno Mattei's career (from Attrazione pericolosa - which starts Carpanese - to Zombies: The Beginning) as well as Dracula 3D.
I have to be honest. Yes, this movie is bad, but if it was shot on film and made in 1980, the dubbing, bad acting and lack of story would not bother me in the least. That said, I wish that the monster in this had an intimidating size and aura like George Eastman. Actually, the dubbing is so bad here that it made me love what I was watching. That said, I can only imagine someone who hasn't made it through the assembled canon of D'Amato, Mattei and Fragasso would absolutely detest this movie.
*I can make this even more confusing and say that Absurd was also released as Zombi 6 and Antropophagus as Zombi 7 but let me tell you, breaking down which movies are called what Zombi numbers will give you a migraine.