The Anthropophagous Beast
Encyclopedia
Antropophagus, released in the UK as Anthropophagous: The Beast also known in some places as Zombie 7: Grim Reaper after 1981, the release year of Absurd and in the US as Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper, is a 1980 Italian language
horror film
, directed by Joe D'Amato
and co-written by D'Amato and George Eastman
, who also starred in the film.
The film also starred Tisa Farrow
, Saverio Vallone, Margaret Donnelly, Vanessa Steiger
, Mark Bodin, Bob Larsen, Simone Baker, Mark Logan, Rubina Rey and Zora Kerova.
Anthropophagous: The Beast was released in the United Kingdom in 1980 uncut by VFP. It soon became one of the infamous titles to feature on the government's Department of Public Prosecutions list (DPP), better known to the tabloid press as the "Video Nasty
" list. It was later successfully prosecuted under the obscene publications act in 1984. Anthropophagous: The Beast also saw another release in the UK, prior to its banning from a very small video company known as Videoshack. This release, although cut, is highly collectible among fans today due to its extremely scarce existence.
A highly cut version was sold in the US as simply The Grim Reaper.
island
, only to find it almost completely deserted
. It seems that the only person still alive there is a blind
girl who does not know what has happened to the rest of the island's town, but is terrified of a man who she describes as smelling of blood
.
As members of the group disappear or are brutally and mercilessly murder
ed by a mysterious, deformed man in various locations on the island, the survivors search for clues as to what is going on. They find a diary
inside an abandoned mansion
, which tells of a man who was shipwreck
ed with his wife
and child
. In order to survive, the man was forced to eat
his dead
family
. This act drove him insane
and he went on to slaughter the rest of the island's inhabitants. The cannibalistic serial killer goes by the name of Nikos Karamanlis known as "The Anthropophagus Beast."
Almost the entire group is killed until only a few remain, but one of the survivors manages to overpower him and stab him with a pick axe to the stomach
, and before he dies, in one final act of insanity, he attempts to devour himself
, by chewing violently on his own intestine
s.
In the film's most notorious scene, the killer strangles a pregnant woman while pulling the fetus
from her womb and then devouring it (in reality the fetus was a skinned rabbit
covered with fake blood). The effect proved so convincing that the filmmakers were attacked and questioned as to whether they really extracted a human fetus from its mother's womb.
's first "straight" horror film, having previously made erotic horror films such as Emanuelle in America
and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead
. D'Amato and co-writer Luigi Montefiori were long-time associates, and Montefiori often had lead roles in D'Amato's films, usually under the pseudonym of George Eastman.
In the documentary Totally Uncut 2 D'Amato stated that the film was solely made for foreign markets; both the director and Montefiore claim that even though the film did very well in other countries it was a flop in Italy. Montefiore also revealed that he has never liked the movie, though he did enjoy making it.
An uncut DVD version of the film was released under the title, 'Man-eater', via NSM on December 19, 2005.
in 1984. This was due mainly to the infamous fetus-eating scene. In reality, the fetus was a skinned rabbit. This did not prevent the film from being falsely described as a snuff film
, a story which was even featured on BBC News
. It is now available in the UK in a cut form, under the title The Grim Reaper.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
, directed by Joe D'Amato
Joe D'Amato
Joe D'Amato, was a prolific Italian filmmaker who directed roughly 200 films, usually at the same time acting as producer and cinematographer, and sometimes providing the script as well...
and co-written by D'Amato and George Eastman
George Eastman (actor)
George Eastman is an Italian B-movie actor and screenwriter.Eastman was born in Genoa, Italy. He took his Americanized alias "George Eastman" when he was cast as a "heavy" in many spaghetti westerns made in the late 1960s and early 1970s...
, who also starred in the film.
The film also starred Tisa Farrow
Tisa Farrow
Theresa Magdalena 'Tisa' Farrow is an American actress and nurse.-Early life:Farrow, one of seven children, was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Irish-born actress Maureen O'Sullivan and Australian-born film director John Farrow. She was raised Roman Catholic...
, Saverio Vallone, Margaret Donnelly, Vanessa Steiger
Serena Grandi
Serena Grandi is an Italian actress, famous as an icon and sex symbol in Italian cinema of 1980s and 1990s. Known for her junoesque body and voluptuous measurements, she was considered one of the main pin-up girls of Italy....
, Mark Bodin, Bob Larsen, Simone Baker, Mark Logan, Rubina Rey and Zora Kerova.
Anthropophagous: The Beast was released in the United Kingdom in 1980 uncut by VFP. It soon became one of the infamous titles to feature on the government's Department of Public Prosecutions list (DPP), better known to the tabloid press as the "Video Nasty
Video nasty
"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
" list. It was later successfully prosecuted under the obscene publications act in 1984. Anthropophagous: The Beast also saw another release in the UK, prior to its banning from a very small video company known as Videoshack. This release, although cut, is highly collectible among fans today due to its extremely scarce existence.
A highly cut version was sold in the US as simply The Grim Reaper.
Plot
A group of tourists arrive on a small GreekGreece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
island
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...
, only to find it almost completely deserted
Deserted
Deserted may refer to:*Desertion, the act of abandoning or withdrawing support from an entity to which one has given*"Deserted", a song by Blind Melon from their 1992 album Blind Melon...
. It seems that the only person still alive there is a blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
girl who does not know what has happened to the rest of the island's town, but is terrified of a man who she describes as smelling of blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
.
As members of the group disappear or are brutally and mercilessly murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed by a mysterious, deformed man in various locations on the island, the survivors search for clues as to what is going on. They find a diary
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
inside an abandoned mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
, which tells of a man who was shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
ed with his wife
Wife
A wife is a female partner in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the wife regarding her spouse and others, and her status in the community and in law, varies between cultures and has varied over time.-Origin and etymology:...
and child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
. In order to survive, the man was forced to eat
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
his dead
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
. This act drove him insane
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
and he went on to slaughter the rest of the island's inhabitants. The cannibalistic serial killer goes by the name of Nikos Karamanlis known as "The Anthropophagus Beast."
Almost the entire group is killed until only a few remain, but one of the survivors manages to overpower him and stab him with a pick axe to the stomach
Stomach
The stomach is a muscular, hollow, dilated part of the alimentary canal which functions as an important organ of the digestive tract in some animals, including vertebrates, echinoderms, insects , and molluscs. It is involved in the second phase of digestion, following mastication .The stomach is...
, and before he dies, in one final act of insanity, he attempts to devour himself
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
, by chewing violently on his own intestine
Intestine
In human anatomy, the intestine is the segment of the alimentary canal extending from the pyloric sphincter of the stomach to the anus and, in humans and other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine...
s.
In the film's most notorious scene, the killer strangles a pregnant woman while pulling the fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
from her womb and then devouring it (in reality the fetus was a skinned rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
covered with fake blood). The effect proved so convincing that the filmmakers were attacked and questioned as to whether they really extracted a human fetus from its mother's womb.
Background
Antropophagus was director Joe D'AmatoJoe D'Amato
Joe D'Amato, was a prolific Italian filmmaker who directed roughly 200 films, usually at the same time acting as producer and cinematographer, and sometimes providing the script as well...
's first "straight" horror film, having previously made erotic horror films such as Emanuelle in America
Emanuelle in America
Emanuelle in America is an Italian sexploitation film from 1977, the fourth in a series starring Laura Gemser, made to cash in on the success of the French film Emmanuelle and its sequels...
and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead
Erotic Nights of the Living Dead
Erotic Nights of the Living Dead is an Italian erotic-horror film directed by Joe D'Amato and released in 1980.-Plot:...
. D'Amato and co-writer Luigi Montefiori were long-time associates, and Montefiori often had lead roles in D'Amato's films, usually under the pseudonym of George Eastman.
In the documentary Totally Uncut 2 D'Amato stated that the film was solely made for foreign markets; both the director and Montefiore claim that even though the film did very well in other countries it was a flop in Italy. Montefiore also revealed that he has never liked the movie, though he did enjoy making it.
An uncut DVD version of the film was released under the title, 'Man-eater', via NSM on December 19, 2005.
Alternate titles
As well as Antropophagus, the film was known in by several other titles, including:- Anthropophagous (French title)
- Anthropophagous: The Beast (UK title)
- The Grim Reaper (original U.S. title, censored)
- Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper (US DVD re-release title, uncut)
- Man Eater (German title)
- The Savage Island
- Zombie 7: Grim Reaper
Controversy
In the UK, the film was placed on the DPP list and classified as a video nastyVideo nasty
"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
in 1984. This was due mainly to the infamous fetus-eating scene. In reality, the fetus was a skinned rabbit. This did not prevent the film from being falsely described as a snuff film
Snuff film
A snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual death or murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation. For-profit snuff films are generally regarded as an urban legend, whose...
, a story which was even featured on BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
. It is now available in the UK in a cut form, under the title The Grim Reaper.
Follow-ups
- The 1981 pornographic film Porno Holocaust, also directed by D'Amato and starring George Eastman, features a similar plot, having a group of people stranded on a deserted island with a monstrous killer.
- D'Amato followed up this movie with a pseudo-sequelSequelA sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
, AbsurdAbsurd (film)Absurd is a 1981 Italian horror film, an unofficial sequel to Antropophagus...
(1981, also known as Zombie 6: Monster Hunter). - An unofficial remake was created by GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
horror directorFilm directorA film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Andreas SchnaasAndreas SchnaasAndreas Schnaas is a German director and actor, working exclusively in the horror genre. Since he first appeared on the film scene in 1989, Schnaas has become a leader in Germany's ultra-violent low-budget horror film industry.- Early years :Andreas Schnaas was born in Hamburg and embraced cinema...
in 1999, entitled Anthropophagus 2000, or Cannibal 2000.