Rent Cannibals (1980)

Spoilers follow ... - Cannibals review by NP

It is my own fault, of course. Watching a film about cannibals, directed by Jess Franco, was always going to be a gross experience. And true to form, only a short time into the 90 minute running time, explorer Professor Taylor’s wife Elizabeth has been eaten alive in uncomfortable close-up. The effects are far from sophisticated, the camera-work deliberately blurred, but this raw direction makes the gratuitous suggestions of innards being torn out and offal eaten wince-inducing and repulsive (the close-ups appear to be repeated later on in further attacks – which are mercifully few and far between). Jerry Taylor (Al Cliver) subsequently has his arm torn off, but otherwise manages to escape the cannibals who have invaded his would-expedition. Worse for his daughter, Lana. The cannibals have kidnapped her, calling her their White Goddess.

But not to worry – the wayward acting and truly atrocious dubbing numbs any effect of elongated revulsion. I am watching the French version of this, dubbed into American. As soon as a character speaks, we are relegated to the production levels of a porn flick (although there is no sex on display here, rare for a Franco film). Equally, guaranteed to break any intended atmospherics, the jazzy Daniel White music is typically inappropriate (other credited composers are Roberto Pregadio and Franco himself.

Years later, after being nursed back to semi-health by Lina Romay as Candy Coster as Ana the nurse, Taylor vows to return to the ‘jungle’ (which looks like a palm tree park and is shown to be located on the edge of bustling civilisation) with a group of people led by a rich couple who don’t believe his story anyway and think the whole thing will be a bit of fun. As luck would have it, by this time, his daughter is now a beautiful, blow-dried blonde (17 year-old Sabrina Siani, described somewhat uncharitably by Franco as the worst actress he had ever worked with). She is still the white goddess to the cannibals, however, most of which are moustachioed Caucasians with curiously hip haircuts. “Death to the white invaders,” yells the cannibal chief at one point, presumably not noticing the majority of his tribe are white themselves.

Franco’s disinterest in the cannibal genre is something he has never been shy about and it is possible these films were foisted upon him by producers at Eurociné. As such, much like his ‘Oasis of the Zombies’ a couple of years later, this is a perfunctory work – quite enjoyable and not without merit, but containing little that is compelling. The best thing is the acting from Romay/Coster and Al Cliver, whose performance is head and shoulders above anything else here.

Lana as a child is played by ‘Anouska’, who also played the little girl Helena in the film Franco deserted, ‘Zombie Lake (1981)’, subsequently directed by Jean Rollin.

This project is also known as ‘Die Blonde Gottin (The Blonde Goddess)’, ‘White Cannibal Queen’, ‘A Woman for the Cannibals’ and ‘Barbarian Goddess’.