The scene with the monkey...

what about the croc getting its head cut off and gutted wile it was still moving. I think that was wors then the monky.

but hey each his own. any way if thats the way you feel what the hell are you doing waching this movie any way??? its all the tits isnt it :P

There's a supermodel who shags total prats and I don't know where she lives...

Do you like movies with real violence on animals? Oh, this is not so far from my point of view. I'd like to see movies with real violence on people who like real violence on animals....
But at the end... I must say always no to real violence.

It's too bad you bailed because you missed a pretty good film as far as this stuff goes.

It is of course wrong, stupid, short-sighted and unforgivable that the animals were harmed during these films. But you HAVE to keep in mind that before 1980 or so nobody thought twice about such practices -- Disclaimers assuring viewers that "no animals were harmed or exploited during the making of this film" were in part due to the Italian cannibal films. Cultural trends and acceptibilities change with time, and what is taboo now often was perfectly fine only a few decades ago. A great example of what I mean would be the negative stereotyped African American memorabilia that are now hot collector's items, i.e. the "Jolly" banks. It was only with the societal evolution that brought about equal rights and racial equity that such forms became unacceptable, though like the animal violence they were always absurd, stupid, derogatory and insulting. By assigning your present day sensibilities to the form in question and judging it in contemporary terms you can find evils in almost every form of expression or cultural artifact: The trick is to respond to it knowing that what you are seeing is an unfortunate result of actions taken during a time that perhaps lacked your present day insights.

Which again is not to condone the practice of harming or exploiting animals for film's sake, and blaming the Italians and their cannibal films as the face of evil for the use of such scenes is short sighted. The practice was widespread, and one need look no further than -- yes -- WESTERNS as a huge issue when it came to cruelty to animals. Specifically, when scenes for a film would require a "horse fall" where a horse would take a spill, the common practice right through the 1970's was to place a trip wire in the path of the oncoming horses. They of course would not know that they were going to be tripped up and many hundreds if not thousands of horses probably had to be "destroyed" after breaking limbs during all those years of Westerns that to this day, nobody ever seems to think twice about. Case in point is another Italian classic: DUCK YOU SUCKER aka A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE, which exists now on DVD in it's otherwise complete 157 minute form but minus two specific events when horses were tripped up or otherwise caused to fall onscreen in a way that was not natural. Nobody asked them if they would mind falling, some may have broken limbs, and would have had to be destroyed. Animal rights groups lobbied MGM UK and the film certificate board and the scenes were banned.

My current favorite example of how stupid people are about what they do to animals onscreen is that idiotic hunting show on cable where Ted Nugent and whoever take their hunting bows and shotguns out into the hills and blow animals away to kill time between NASCAR races on the Hillbilly Network. The first time I saw the show I was stunned: How is THAT any more acceptable than having the monkey be eaten by the snake?

It's also fascinating to me that folks react with revulsion to the animal carnage scenes and yet clamour for all of the cannibalism and sexual violence in it's uncut form. People demanded the film "uncut" and got what they asked for without realizing that these movies were all about pushing the envelope of acceptability, and onscreen animal violence was a staple of Italian exploitation cinema dating back to the Mondo shockumentaries of the 1960's. I think another reason why modern-day viewers object so strenuously to Lenzi/Deodato etc's films is that since now we can see them restored to their cinematic forms on DVD and not just on some ratted up old rental video the artfulness of the films is finally apparent: EATEN ALIVE has a great sense of jungle locations and Lenzi had a wonderful eye for color & shot composition. That he would choose to use this talent to film a monkey being thrown to a snake to be eaten is perhaps the concept that is the most revolting of all to those who object: In the middle of this lush, jungle epic you are forced to confront barbarity being masqueraded as "art" ...

Which was exactly the point of the films. Checkmate.

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The dif is, ANIMALS are innocent, HUMANS are not!!
Yes, animals kill and eat each other, but only to survive - which is not the case with humans, as most are just selfish, arrogant bastards that think they have the right to do anything they want, as long as their own egos and lusts afre fulfilled.

It made me uncomfortable too. But, I don't like the attitude that the film-makers are "sick" or "perverted" because they have these scenes in their film. Just because they include it, doesn't actually mean they condone it, or "get off on it" like some dickheads say on all these boards.

Art and information are neutral.

Do not write here

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Let me preface this by saying I am a huge fan of these types of films; in fact, my father had an extensive video collection, and while Eaten Alive! was not in his collection, Cannibal Ferox (under the title Make Them Die Slowly) and several like this were a part of it. I have grown to appreciate the Italian cinema more as I've gotten older.

That being said, the images being presented are terrible, and some can even be considered downright repulsive - and they were meant to be. The director created the film solely to shock and disgust, and for the most part they manage to do just that.

The problem is that most of these films stoop to the level of sadism towards animals to create what they could not - emotional involvement (and read this thread or any like it on the other Cannibal films and it's evident that the subject is incredibly polarizing); often the human characters are cardboard cutouts, so the fates they suffer, while "cool" (and artificial) aren't worthy of much investment...while the deaths of the animals, well, the threads speak for themselves. The animals suffered for entertainment - the arguments that they would have been killed by the natives anyway don't really hold water. Take the muskrat scene in Cannibal Holocaust for instance. They suffered for the production's deficiencies.

Generally we seem to find two types of people posting on these films - those outraged and those that somehow, someway defend it, often by throwing derogatory remarks at those upset. These people usually are so over-the-top it's ridiculous. It is possible to enjoy these films and not condone them; I do. It is possible to feel disgusted by them yet see them in an artistic light; I do. If one watches a Cannibal film, they should know what they're getting into from the start; it should still be okay for them to post their thoughts on it, even if it is outrage. That is, after all, what the Italians were going for. I find it funney that every silly "tough guy" has to trot out the same old cliche insults (taking after the films they admore so much) about killing puppies and opening salad bars. Being a horror fan or a gorehound shouldn't automatically make you close-minded to the opinions of others or just a straight up numbskull. Blah.