Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death

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Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death is a cult classic film made in 1989 and starring Shannon Tweed and Bill Maher. The film is a campy send-up of several pop culture motifs and societal trends, including feminism, B-movies and California. It was written (under the pseudonym J. D. Athens) by J. F. Lawton, who also authored Pretty Woman, the Under Siege series of movies and the television show V.I.P..

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The U.S. government grows worried for the nation's avocado supply after some confrontations with a group of cannibal women (who only eat men) living in the mysterious "Avocado Jungle" (westernmost outpost: San Bernardino). The government recruits Margo Hunt (Tweed), a professor of feminist studies at a local university, to travel into the Avocado Jungle and make contact with the women, hopefully convincing them to move to a reservation/condo in Malibu. Along the way, she must face both perils from the environment, and from her travelling companions: male chauvinist guide Jim (Maher) and ditzy assistant Bunny (Karen Mistal), and meet her arch-nemesis, the evil feminist fanatic Dr. Kurtz, played by talk-show psychologist-celebrity Adrienne Barbeau.

The climatic scene features a dialogue between the two main female protagonists/antagonists, with Shannon Tweed's and Adrienne Barbeau's characters holding an advanced feminist ideological discussion on the political morality of sacrificing men on the altar of liberated women. During the absurd discussion, Barbeau's Dr. Kurtz (an allusion to both Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness), Karen Mistal's Bunny character rescues Bill Maher's Jim character from the sacrificial altar.