The Anthropophagus Beast
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It's not fear that tears you apart... it's him! |
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Imagine you are on vacation. You and your friends have picked out a lovely Greek island to stay at, with beautiful scenery, beaches to stroll along, and plenty of opportunity to just relax, without a care in the world. However, this remote island is not the paradise it seems. It is strangely uninhabited, save for a blind girl who doesn't know what happened to everyone else. However, there is one other here: a man the girl says smells of blood. And for him, it is now dinnertime.
The Anthropophagus Beast (1980) is an Italian Horror Film directed by Joe D'Amato. It was his first "straight" horror film. He had previously made erotic horror films such as Emmanuelle in America and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead.
The Anthropophagus Beast was co-written by D'Amato and Luigi Montefiori, who were long-time associates. Montefiori often co-wrote and held lead roles in D'Amato's films under the pseudonym of George Eastman. He's credited as George Eastman as both the co-writer and star of this movie.
The film also starred Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Margaret Donnelly, Vanessa Steiger, Mark Bodin, Bob Larsen, Simone Baker, Mark Logan, Rubina Rey and Zora Kerova.
In the documentary Totally Uncut 2 D'Amato stated that the film was solely made for foreign markets; both the director and Montefiore claim that even though the film did very well in other countries it was a flop in Italy. Montefiore also revealed that he has never liked the film, though he did enjoy making it.
D'Amato followed up this film with a pseudo-sequel, Absurd, also known as Zombie 6: Monster Hunter. In 1999, it had a remake known as Anthropophagous 2000, made by the director of Violent Shit, who somehow managed to make things Bloodier and Gorier. The 1981 film Porno Holocaust, also directed by Joe D'Amato and starring George Eastman, is something of a Parallel Porn Title.
- Anyone Can Die: Only two people survive to the ending credits. Neither of them is the blind girl or the pregnant woman.
- The Atoner: The insane sailor believes that killing and eating people will help him atone for doing exactly that to his family. This is why he has no friends.
- Auto Cannibalism: Nikos's last dying act is to start gnawing on his own spilled intestines.
- Cat Scare
- Eats Babies
- Gorn: One infamous scene involved the antagonist strangling a pregnant woman while he ripped her fetus from her abdomen and ate it. At the end, when he is mortally wounded with a pickaxe, he starts pulling out his own intestines and munching on them before he dies.
- I'm a Humanitarian
- I Taste Delicious: The ending takes cannibalism to its ultimate.
- Infant Immortality: Horribly, horribly subverted.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: The protagonists find a diary written by a man who shipwrecked on this island with his wife and children, and was forced to kill and eat them to survive.
- Slashed Throat
- Traumatic C-Section: See Gorn above.
- Trope 2000: Anthropophagous 2000.
- Video Nasties