Man From Deep River
1972
AKA: Sacrifice
AKA: Deep River Savages
Roas Produzioni / Medusa Distribuzione : International Trading / Shriek Show
5 / 10
Though this made it onto the Video Nasties list when it was released and classified as a horror film I must admit to finding little horror in it at all. It is more of a drama, with gore, about a photographer in the Thailand jungle who is captured and subsequently brought into the tribe where he has to marry the chief's daughter to stay alive.
It also isn't a bad movie...
The major trouble with the film is that it's all staged, which means the scene's of animal cruelty are real. With other films of this ilk, most of the cruelty scene's were filmed by a third party for documentary reasons, though added to the movies for entertainment; you can usually notice the difference in film quality. So the cockfight and the snake vs mongoose are real, though I'm unsure at to the decapitation of the monkey skull so they eat the brains, as there is a cut which may indicate they changed out for special effects - one can always hope.
However, at the heart of the film is the change in John Bradley's (Ivan Rassimov) character from being a captive to a reluctant member of the tribe to a fully fledged tribe member, thrown into the mix is the love story between himself and Maraya (Me Me Lai).
It's not a fantastic film though Umberto Lenzi directs nicely, though I think the steady pace is a little too slow at times. It is beautifully filmed and I like that Lenzi filmed it in vivid colour and resisted making it more grimy and gritty. However, this beauty has a downside some of the sets are too clean and structured, not what you would expect to find in the middle of a jungle. The actors aren't too bad either and do a respectful job of bringing the tribe to life and showing their traditions and day to day living habits.
I really wouldn't recommend anybody to watch the film as it falls between the gaps trying to please everybody. For example, for an adventure, it's too slow so if you like adventure films you may not like this. The love story, which is more suited to this pace, at times could have made a decent "chick-flick" in its own right, though I don't think lovers of this style of film would enjoy the torture and cruelty aspects of the adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment