Antropophagus (1980)

(In French, On Cable TV, September 2021) Ugh — why am I torturing myself so? Sure, the point of being a cinephile is to learn as much as I can about as many film subgenres as I can, hitting the high points and taking a look at the landmark films. For better or for worse, Italian gore film Antropophagus ended up on some list of noteworthy horror films — best known for being one of those “video nasties”’ banned in the UK, it’s credited by some as marking a turning point of some sort of Italian horror, which would then spend much of the 1980s pushing the limits of on-screen gore. That’s not a legacy to be particularly proud of, but hey — I’m just someone who loathes the stuff. I also suspect that the lurid self-cannibalism poster had something with the film’s reputation and video-club popularity. The actual movie, though, is predictably lame and ugly — much of it has to do with a psychopath cannibal stalking, killing and eating half a dozen tourists unlucky enough to set foot on the wrong island. (One of them is a pregnant woman, so that should give you an idea of how low it’s going to go.)  Oh, it’s put together with some competence for the genre — director Joe D’Amato has enough experience in this kind of stuff. But that’s not much of a compliment. Antropophagus is 90 minutes but feels remarkably longer — fortunately, modern viewers will be able to check their phones whenever it gets interminable.