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I am one of a rare breed it seems. I'm somebody who fully loves
Joe D'Amato's
Anthropophagus. It's a product of a time
where nasty bloody monsters stalked the film worlds and offered
no apology to the sights they showed the viewer. The original
Anthropophagus started at a sleepy pace, only to become a
ravishing beast full of graphic guts. (I haven't seen a D'Amato
flick yet which I've written off as total trash). This one
begins as it means to go on and be remembered.
Andreas Schnaas created more of a remake with Anthropophagous
2000. It's a love letter to video nasties. It's cheap, it's
crap, but so is a majority of his output and he doesn't care.
His Violent Shit movies are fun! My review for Zombie 90 Extreme Pestilence hopefully captures the sheer madness of his mind. Quite
simply, with this one, Schnaas has compacted the story and
locations to a minimum, and then upped the crimson stuff. That's
something which no critics can ever ever take away from
him. His films score a 10 on a gore score scale and always will
it seems.
So in this nutshell barebones plot, a few corpses have been
discovered in a cave, god knows where. Interpol agents have met
up to investigate after handshakes. Bauers, the older and fatter
of the three, stays behind in the cave as the others head off to
get back up. I think it was mainly down to the fact, one lad
spews his dinner up over the neat pile of gory remains. Bauers
strolls the cave with his gun, surveying the carnage.
Through a handy and helpful diary which is kicking around the
cave, he learns something of the mystery. Flashbacks to Nikos, a
big guy on a boat with his family. Hitting bad weather and
terrible music, Nikos struggles to keep them safe. In the chaos,
his daughter, Vicky, has her head smashed open. What happened
next, we will have to wait, for it's onto the credits and the
soundtrack greedily steals your soul.
In keeping to its roots, this version has the beach couple,
called Mary (who's a tattooed Suicide Girl looking gal) and
Stuart. This time around, they are in a few minutes longer,
having a bit of the old in-out (“Mary you look so wonderful!”)
before Mary pops out to look for wood (ha ha). Upon her return,
Stuart has had his face ripped off. Trying to escape, Mary is
savagely axed to pieces almost in a prolonged violent scene by
the hands of an unseen assailant. Additionally, she has one side
of her face peeled for a laugh.
Cut to a quiet train station and the arrival into this remake of
our jolly gang on their way to die. “Hey-hey! Hi!” and
lots of hugs. These are the dead couple’s pals who are going to
meet them. Vincent, Marc, Rita -- gotta dig their names. There's
also pregnant and heavy Carroll. Driving for ages through the
streets, blasting dead Scooby Doo style rock music, they chance
upon a quiet and possibly empty village. There's a glimpse of a
woman in black. Finding a grisly sight, there's also a newspaper
which explains the beginnings at least of the end for this
village. Georg chases after the woman in black whilst Marc has
an asthma attack. Georg finds a message for him written on a
window.
Back at the van, Vincent is with Carroll who's hurt her ankle.
He's chilled out playing his acoustic guitar until a blade is
thrust through his neck. Meanwhile, the investigating trio at
the village are suitably upset by their findings, so they hide
away in the vacation cabin, after discovering someone has nicked
the RV. In perfect Jason style, Nikos is keeping busy waiting
for them by slaughtering a few woodland campers.
In the basement, they are attacked by Audriet, the blind sister
of Mary. She's probably the only survivor of what happened.
Desperately seeking any help, they chance upon the woman in
black and watch her die. More corpses are found, plus the
journal of Nikos.
Bumping into late arrival, Stan, who's Carroll's hubby, they
figure out any way possible to fight back. Very soon we see
Nikos himself. Expect much more blood to spill.
Nikos (played by Andreas himself) isn't too badly made up. A
cut-price copy of George Eastman, of course. The thing is, he
looks way too friendly. Plus it's revealed he has a conscious, a
few emotions. Fuck that! Big George was a rabid animal!
Everything which occurs in the original is in this one (minus
the hairy girl armpits luckily) aside from a different set up,
and the ending itself. The murders are truly insane. I won't go
into details, but believe me, Andreas Schnaas specialises in
pure demented murder-set-pieces. I think the only thing he fails
to outdo is the infamous abortion scene, in this version it
looks silly. The locations are wonderful, giving it all a feel
like
Burial Ground
(aka
Nights of Terror) or
Rollin's
Grapes of Death. All rather homely, to be
honest.
Andreas has made a lengthy career from gory flicks, directing,
acting and putting effects together. He's one of those people
whispered and chuckled about by cult horror followers worldwide. Anthropophagous
2000 passes the time if you go in and
realise you won't see any miracles.
Massacre Video has released a subtitled edition of the low
budget epic, but mine unfortunately has none. Released on Laser
Paradise as a Red edition, it has decent sound and picture
quality (this is a curse sometimes because sharp images kind of
reveal some of the effects as cheap), but lacks any extras at
all aside from pointless deleted scenes. Apparently, Laser
Paradise has been known to suffer German Police raids.
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