I saw this great movie when I was a boy who knew nothing about the art of film.
There is an image that has stayed in my mind ever since I first saw it.
When the hunters are taken captive, one of them is tied, elbows and knees, to a stick. He covered in clay and then roasted alive over a fire.
I have never been able to shake the 'horribleness' of seeing it.
I'll add an "I agree" to this thread. Perhaps even worse is the casualness of the scene, the fact that it's not portrayed as a vicious act of torture, ie, Saw or Hostel, "torture porn."
shareAbsolutely fascinating thread.
I, like it seems most others who have commented, watched this movie as a young child, and this scene has been etched in my mind ever since. I certainly have seen films since that are arguably more gruesome("Saw" and "Hostel" come to mind)but none of those films ever left the impression on me that this scene did. I won't bother to try and decipher what it was that struck me so deeply, but suffice to say, the clay figure has been rooted in my memory for years. I recently made an effort to discover what movie this scene was from, yet I could not remember it's name, or much at all really except for this scene and the image of a man running away from natives in a dessert-like setting. After much searching, I randomly came upon a list of the most haunting moments in film, and this scene was listed along with the movie's title. I forced myself to re-watch the film, and felt my heart beating through my chest as the scene approached. When I found this page and saw the title of this post, I knew immediately what it referenced.
Whatever about the scene so memorably etched it into our minds, one thing I know for certain: When I have children, I will be careful about the films I show them, for I know that some images we see forever become a part of our minds, rooted deeply and unable to ever be completely wiped clean.
[deleted]
"one of them is tied, elbows and knees, to a stick. He covered in clay and then roasted alive over a fire"
I am haunted by this as well. Amazing scene, and possibly the most disturbing ways to die I've seen in a movie.
I just watched this again recently (not a hard thing to do since it's such a great film)and I started thinking about the cooking scene, which did indeed disturb me when I saw it as a child in the theater.
He's covered with an awful lot of wet mud clay. Even in a warm climate, that amount of clay would take a very long time to dry. If it was humid, even longer. And he probably would have been sweating, which wouldn't help. The fire he was placed over was too small to do a quick dry job, he'd roast, yes, but not in the amount of time allotted to the act in the film. The poor bugger probably would have been steamed to death. I once saw (and ate)an already deceased whole pig cooked in this manner, in a warm humid climate, and the clay was still wet when the roasting began.
Artistic license, rightly taken by the film makers. It wouldn't have served the dramatic element very well to show it all in real time.
Incidentally, the pig was quite delicious. Very tender and juicy.
"Arguing here is like arguing with a donkey. It makes you angry and confuses the donkey."
As to the particulars of the scene; The man being roasted if I recall is actually a native African with the whites all suffering similar tortures. The killings could have been avoided if not for the disrespect of the fat British safari-goer towards the tribal leader.
Seeing those tortures as a kid also stayed in my mind like few other movie scenes. One exception would be a Civil War miniseries where a battle has just been fought with the dead and injured lying all over and the wounded screaming for help; and a crazy preacher type is going to each wounded and bayoneting them when still alive while reading a Bible.
If I could chime in, I was thinking about that guy on the spit today and many other days in the past, it's a unique scene. I've got to see this movie again soon so I can stop thinking about it as I know it won't hold up as well with repeated viewings and I won't think about it as much.
Another movie to check out is "Dark Of The Sun" starring Jim Brown it's about the Congo revolution and a village of whites is savaged (to put it mildly) by black men, pretty graphic stuff, also made around 1966, must have been a growing sentiment about the rise of black power or something.
I've got to see this movie again soon so I can stop thinking about it as I know it won't hold up as well with repeated viewings and I won't think about it as much.
Funnily enough, that's the scene I remember most as well.
On your train of thought, I think I just caught the caboose.
There's nothing new when it comes to killing our fellow man.
The brazen bull is an executionary device first invented in Ancient Greece.
Its inventor, Perillos of Athens, proposed to Phalaris; a tyrant, the need of a more painful way to kill criminals. This was done hoping to disuade the poor population from committing any more crimes.
As the story goes, when Perillos finished the brazen bull, Phalaris asked Perillos to try it out by himself. He then ordered him locked inside the brazen bull and set a fire underneath it. He was very pleased with the results. Being burned alive was a very exciting act to watch.
When a victim is placed inside the brazen bull, he or she is slowly burned to death. This device gradually became more sophisticated until the Greek invented a complex system of tubes in order to make the victim's screams sound like an infuriated ox.
Even though this torture was not used as frequently during the Middle Ages as it was used earlier by the Greek and Romans, it was still used in Central Europe. This torture is similar to being boiled alive.
Me too! I saw the film when i was around 7 years old and that scene stayed with me all these years later (I'm 45.) I saw it again recently and that scene is STILL quite horrible.
Good little film though. Reminded me of it when i saw Apocalypto.
I remember watching that scene as a kid too. Not sure if it's the same movie, but there was a movie where the African natives captured the white tourists and pulled back some trees. They tied their one leg to one tree and the other one to the other tree. They cut the ropes and the purpose would be to split them in half. Was that in The Naked Prey? I know it was a movie in the 60's/70's about a group of people in the jungle.
"You're close, but the sky's closer."
The tree splitting scene you refer to are in the early Weismuller-O'Sullivan Tarzans like Tarzan Escapes. I know the scene appears in a few other jungle films I have seen but I can't recall them right now. I have a friend who remembers that tree-splitting scene just as horrifically as the the guy in Naked Prey.
shareAll of it could have been avoided if Man #2 had let Wilde give a few minor gifts to the natives and then everything would have been friendly. Of course then the main plot of the movie wouldn't have happened.
share