Taking In The Trash #1: Cannibal Apocalypse

This is actually a shot from the film in question, but curiously enough is also the exact image I wanted to use of myself as a header. Consider it, then, a placeholder.

Taking In The Trash (note: this is a clever clever pun. Chortle) is a feature I plan on doing as often as possible on our to-be-weekly podcast but on account of me watching more than one trashy film a week I’m going to throw some of them on here as well. There shall be zero overlap in the written and recorded word save for directional mentions from one to the other. Guaranteed. 

This entry’s not written as a recommendation though. I just finished watching 1980’s confused shocker Cannibal Apocalypse and if I get this article out of it, then it’ll feel like it was worth my while. Imagine for me, though, an alternate world, an alternate September 7^th 2012 where I watched Cannibal Apocalypse and didn't write about it. In this nightmarish pseudo-existence, where a man can watch a film and just not write about it, there and only there would watching Cannibal Apocalypse have been a pointless exercise. 

Commences the inquisition. Is it a good film? No. Is it a terrible film? Almost definitely yes.

Almost definitely?

Yeah. Just almost. Look, I’m getting to it guy, OK? If you view this movie as a horror film (starring John Saxon off of Nightmare On Elm Street and Enter The Dragon), it’s a bit of a failure. Scenariowise it presents Saxon (my number one Bond That Never Was) as a Vietnam vet struggling with nightmares about the time he rescued two of his captured men and was bitten by one. The implication – and I’ve either imagined this or read it on the box – is that the ‘Cong forced these cats to eat, I dunno, each other I guess, and they developed a taste for it. It’s never really dealt with. Anyway, the film presents these two guys, these prisoners, as suffering from PTSD and Saxon living a subdued private hell at home with his wife and worryingly interested teenie neighbour. After a long, long time spent setting up the whole, you know, they-were-in-Vietnam-and-share-a-bond-and-have-ended-up-a-little-up-the-left thing, these dudes start biting people who themselves start biting people and you’re left with a horror film that’s no longer a considered study on the effects of war but a parable about the effects of war. Side A of Cannibal Apocalypse documents three men who came back emotionally and somewhat physically scarred from their fruitless military venture. Side B suggests that war turned them into actual monsters, completely ruined them and by extension the lives of those they came into contact with.

It doesn’t wash. It’s too obvious, right, as obvious as a cat offering you a sign that reads “look, I don’t like water, I’m even less fond of dogs and milk? Yes to all the milk, ta”. Antonio Margheriti directs a film that works best when it’s at its worst. Refresher O’Clock – you need to approach Cannibal Apocalypse the wrong way to enjoy it, and you get the most from it when it fools you into thinking it’s not a horror film for the first 45 minutes, and the least when it becomes a horror film for the last 45 minutes at the expense of some restrained social commentary. You buy it because it’s in the horror section, dig? The first half of the movie is just the last ten minutes of First Blood (which, in an unplanned coincidence, I watched right before it and have fallen hard hard in love with all over again. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE PUSHED HIM TEASLE!) You think “sugar, this isn’t the zombiefest it was sold to me as.” You settle in though, and even if you’re not coming off the back of Rambers, the plight of young men who were shipped to another country and made into figurative monsters should elicit sympathy, OK, you big bastard? And yeah, you come to terms with it as a kinda subtle reflection on alla that with added non-bonus teen pubage. Then it flips on you and becomes the horror film you were originally sold and can no longer welcome. “Hi, awkward allegory. You’re late, everyone’s left, the soup’s gone cold and yeah you can still eatdrink it but it tastes like shit now and you kinda ruined the night. You can have the sofa if you want to stay but I don’t want to see you here when I get home from work tomorrow.”

Neither of these kids are Saxon's, which is especially helpful when he bones one of them. Also though it's regrettable that that happens. Still, though, incest-free...

Saxon sports a good line in turtlenecks, chinos and lumberjack shirts throughout, though I was surprised to learn afterwards that he claims to have never watched the film, supported it being banned and generally regrets being involved. Seems he signed on without, um, maybe reading it or something. I mean, how else does that happen? I can only presume the title stems from the Apocalypse Now/ Vietnam connection. You wanna talk exploitation, there’s exploitation. Not a single sign of apocalypse otherwise. Another writer contested that the film's six cannibals better merits the title 'Cannibal Inconvenience'.

Also I just read a little about the film there and it pretty much confirmed for me that I may have had a little sleepy while it was on ‘cause several things were not seen by me. Go fig.

In short – watch it as a horror film and it’s pointless. Watch it as a film with something to say and it succeeds half in, half out and is still a little pointless. Watch it and write about it and it's dingdingdingdingding straight to the bank. At first we got a few laughs from it because of poor editing, a completely unsuitable score and one shot in particular where four drops of blood accompanied four plucks of a guitar, and the gore effects are definitely enough to have earned the film’s place on the original UK list of banned Video Nasties, but by the end of the film I was just willing it to end. As a B to the A of First Blood is was a cool curio, but like I said, I’m not recommending it. What I am recommending is The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue, part of the same Original Video Nasties label from Optimum and also the subject of this week’s Pod entry for Taking In The Trash. I’ll see you again next week. Suggestions for this sort of thing are welcome and encouraged, so comment away and I’ll see ya soon. 'Til then... pleasant SCREAMS.

Why I Think the Ending of The Dark Knight Rises was Bullshit

THIS CONTAINS MASSIVE, MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE DARK KNIGHT RISES! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Still here? Okay. Let's jump in.

How Rad Was My Commando?

Bill Duke - The Blackest Man in The World. Whilst crediting the darkness of other humans, Duke is the benchmark against which they are measured. Fuck you asshole? Fuck YOU, ASSHORL.

David Patrick Kelley - Whilst not clinking bottles on his fingers and inviting teenagers in their thirties to come out and play or firing it up, Dee Pee Kay takes his place amongst The Commanded with a pair of unforgettable comeuppances - firstly, he is spun through the air within a telephone box, and lastly - for him, EVER - dropped from a great height as the victim of a lie.

Charles Meshack - The one no-one remembers, Chuck gets his poor ass neck snapped on a plane, somehow...I'm not sure how it happens that no fucker notices, but... Maybe... Anyway, we have to presume he's dead because Arnold - JOHN MATRIX - quips that he's "dead tired".

John Vernon - Man, there's no way the script was written with the way John Vernon sweatily fucks at his role's hole in mind - of all the things people remember about THE COMMANDO, it is Vernon's Antipodean nemesis Bennett "rocking"* his fat belly and the possibly the gotta be best outfit ever worn by humans (except Han Solo in Star Wars 1 because that's the coolest cat out) with his too-big black t-shirt, CHAINMAIL VEST and leather trousers. If I was in the form for looking into things I'd say that when he's impaled by Arnold's vengeance pipe late in the film, he fucking loves it. Not That There's Anything Wrong With That.

Bill Paxton - Bill Paxton is in this film. Bill Paxton is fucking famous as fuck and he's in this film for like a second. What the hell, Commando?

Dan Hedaya - One of those cats you see in everything - most of all things he's not in - but can never remember a) his name when you see him or b) what he looks like when his name's in the credits.

Here, has anyone ever made the joke, just, "Conan The Librarian" before. I imagine not.

Arnold - This film is a love letter to Arnold. Everything anyone - women or Not That There's Anything Wrong With That men - could want from an Arnold film is in this Arnold Film. Physical feats of strength, ON CAMERA? You got it. Carries a log, rips a phone booth from the wall, flips a car over. ARM PORNO? Yes. Lots of lingering, sweaty shots of the embodiment of the human equivalent of equine majesty that is Arnold Schwarzengger's 'ceps. I feel like a puny fuck watching this film. ONE-LINERS? Get to fuck. There's barely a line that isn't concocted for maximum cheering, in-cinema. Ones' arms must have been wrecked from all the cheering. VIOLENCE? Nigga please, he kills something like thirty men in five minutes - and that's in the CUT version. FACIAL CONTORTMENT? If only someone would upload it to Youtube, I would watch the shot where he wades out of the swamp for days and days. THE THICK BALMY SAP OF AUSTRIAN TESTOSTERONE? Empty your bags 'til this:

The soundtrack - More steel drum than Super Mario Bros. 3. Or like, most music.

Alyssa Milano - Sure, when she grew up she became a witch? Not sure why I put that question mark there. Either way, she never would have been such a bad ass magic mutha if Matrix hadn't raised her right, resisting the urge to snap her twigsforbones when she ice creams him in the face and feeding a deer with her (and possibly later, to her? I imagine Matrix would hunt deer, then cook and eat them for his dinner at night, sometimes).

A Final Fact: Apparently, the film was written for Gene Simmons, awwww, go away and FUCK yourself, the past. That film - COMMANDO starring Gene Simmons - would have been a shit film. 

*In a bid to get over with the young ones, I've made this concession to wankery. You can't expect to apply a term like this and live, though, not round my gaff son. Rockin's for concerts.

For more on films, finery and fillies head to Rambleast post-haste. Note there are no fillies at Rambleast.