| Antropophagus | |
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Film poster |
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| Directed by | Joe D'Amato |
| Produced by | Joe D'Amato George Eastman |
| Written by | Joe D'Amato George Eastman |
| Starring | Tisa Farrow George Eastman Saverio Vallone |
| Music by | Marcello Giombini |
| Distributed by | Shriekshow Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | 1980 |
| Running time | 88 mins |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
Antropophagus, released in the UK as Anthropophagous: The Beast also known in some places as Zombie 7: Grim Reaper after 1981, the release year of Absurd and in the US as Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper, is a 1980 Italian language horror film, directed by Joe D'Amato and co-written by D'Amato and George Eastman, who also starred in the film.
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.
Anthropophagous: The Beast was released in the United Kingdom in 1980 uncut by VFP. It soon became one of the infamous titles to feature on the government's Department of Public Prosecutions list (DPP), better known to the tabloid press as the "Video Nasty" list.[1][2] It was later successfully prosecuted under the obscene publications act in 1984.[3] Anthropophagous: The Beast also saw another release in the UK, prior to its banning from a very small video company known as Videoshack. This release, although cut, is highly collectible among fans today due to its extremely scarce existence.
A highly cut version was sold in the US as simply The Grim Reaper.
Contents |
A group of tourists arrive on a small Greek island, only to find it almost completely deserted. It seems that the only person still alive there is a blind girl who does not know what has happened to the rest of the island's town, but is terrified of a man who she describes as smelling of blood.
As members of the group disappear or are brutally and mercilessly murdered by a mysterious, deformed man in various locations on the island, the survivors search for clues as to what is going on. They find a diary inside an abandoned mansion, which tells of a man who was shipwrecked with his wife and child. In order to survive, the man was forced to eat his dead family. This act drove him insane and he went on to slaughter the rest of the island's inhabitants. The cannibalistic serial killer goes by the name of Nikos Karamanlis known as "The Anthropophagus Beast."
Almost the entire group is killed until only a few remain, but one of the survivors manages to overpower him and stab him with a pick axe to the stomach, and before he dies, in one final act of insanity, he attempts to devour himself, by chewing violently on his own intestines.
In the film's most notorious scene, the killer strangles a pregnant woman while pulling the fetus from her womb and then devouring it (in reality the fetus was a skinned rabbit covered with fake blood). The effect proved so convincing that the filmmakers were attacked and questioned as to whether they really extracted a human fetus from its mother's womb.
Antropophagus was director Joe D'Amato's first "straight" horror film, having previously made erotic horror films such as Emanuelle in America and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead. D'Amato and co-writer Luigi Montefiori were long-time associates, and Montefiori often had lead roles in D'Amato's films, usually under the pseudonym of George Eastman.
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 movie, though he did enjoy making it.
An uncut DVD version of the film was released under the title, 'Man-eater', via NSM on December 19, 2005.[4]
As well as Antropophagus, the film was known in by several other titles, including:
In the UK, the film was placed on the DPP list and classified as a video nasty in 1984. This was due mainly to the infamous fetus-eating scene. In reality, the fetus was a skinned rabbit. This did not prevent the film from being falsely described as a snuff film, a story which was even featured on BBC News. It is now available in the UK in a cut form, under the title The Grim Reaper.
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