Stephen Abell I originally watched this on SKY a few years back and I enjoyed it then as I did this time around.That's right I said I enjoyed it and judging by low scores on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, I think I'm in the minority.The worst thing about this film is the soundtrack. To say it's dreadful would be doing an injustice to the term understatement. There are a couple of scenes where the music sets the mood perfectly... but it is only a couple. The rest of the time the audience is assailed with a manic Wurlitzer pianist - I actually had a vision of an old time theatre (back in the silent movie days) and a man, half-crossed between The Phantom Of The Opera and The Joker, going insane of the ebony and ivories... all it lacked was a maniacal laugh.Apart from that what the writers Joe D'Amato (Director) and George Eastman (Actor) give the audience is a new take on both the Cannibal and Zombie legends, by giving you Nikos Karamanlis, a man turned beast who is something other than alive and with a penchant for human flesh. He acquired this evil and unnatural taste after he and his family were shipwrecked... when you're miles from anywhere and starving you have to eat.This is so much better than his follow on movie Absurd, which also fell foul of the dreaded Video Nasty title and banning. The acting is above average. Tisa Farrow (Mia Farrow's sister) who gave a well-disposed portrayal of Julie, a student on her way to a Greek island and summer job. Along with Saverio Vallone who gives an affable portrayal of Andy, the unheralded leader of the group, these two hold the film together. Even the mostly silent Eastman as The Beast does a decent job of being menacing and actually uses his size and facial features to add power and unease (wish he'd done the same in Absurd)For the time the effects are more than passable, the only let down is Eastman's "Beast" face as it looks like somebody has spilt cold porridge over him. Most of the dead look nasty enough, with decaying skin and maggots writhing in eye sockets. The scene with the rats would have looked more realistic had they not covered a skeleton in spam... they could have added more blood to disguise the fact - go Herschell-Lewis on them.One thing that did impress me is most of the scenes are shot in daylight and D'Amato still builds a sense of tension and unease. The scene where Arnold is looking for his pregnant wife Maggie and stumbles into a clearing by a ruinated abbey sent a shiver down my spine. You can actually feel something watching him.There is more to this film than I originally thought and I would recommend it to all horror fans who haven't seen it yet. And I will be watching this again in the future.

Leofwine_draca A typically lurid slice of exploitation from prolific director Joe D'Amato (who later teamed again with Eastman to make the entertaining ENDGAME), don't be lured into seeing this film on the strength of the cannibalism and gore. In fact, there is little gore in the entire film, although when it does arrive it is very extreme. For the most part, things are slow and extremely dull, without much action happening until we're well into the final third of the film. This makes it very hard to sit through, and it also reeks of cynical sleaze for sleaze's sake. Instead of being frightening, the film just turns out to be unpleasant, and laughable in places where it should be scary.Things start off well with one of those old machete-in-the-face shocks, but this is all the action we're going to get for an hour. We're then introduced to a bunch of young, dumb tourists who roam around a deserted island endlessly (think TOWER OF EVIL), finding a scrawl on a window reading "Go away" and generally doing very little. There are far too many scenes of people sitting around talking and even a pointless 'romantic' sub-plot. Yes, this is boring.Events pick up for the final half-an-hour, which to the film's credit actually does manage to have some creepy scenes. One shot of a man walking through a tunnel with a burning torch and discovering scattered skeletons while Gothic chords screech out on the soundtrack is near-perfect, and it's a shame that the rest of this film has been up to now so uneventful. From then on it's a series of murders, of the typical stabbing and throat-biting variety. Two gore scenes have made the first infamous; firstly, when the Beast eats a foetus (rumour has it to have been a rabbit), and then the climax, in which the monster's stomach is hacked open and he devours his own intestinal tract - although this proves to be unintentionally hilarious instead of disturbing.The acting from the young cast is of a low standard, and the dubbing is particularly bad at some moments, where absolutely no attempt has been made to tie the words and the lip movements together. Characters act in unbelievable ways, and indeed various actors and actresses become interchangeable. Tisa Farrow is the only one we really get to know, and she repeats her ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS role of an investigative woman who avoids being killed to end up as one of the survivors. George Eastman plays the baddie in some patently fake-looking papier-mache like lumpy makeup, and is menacing only because of his vast physical presence. If you're expecting excitement and action, then it would be wise to look elsewhere, as this is a very slow-moving and boring affair.

Bezenby Big George 'Luigi' Eastman 'Montifori' wreaks havoc on a Greek Island in a film I'd only ever seen in severely cut form (under the title 'The Grim Reaper'). Is this film any good in it's unedited form? Well, I liked it.After two German tourists are murdered on a beach, we get to meet Tisa Farrow (of Zombie Flesh Eaters and The Last Hunter) who appears once again in an Italian gore film, this time getting a lift to a Greek Island from some holidaymakers, including a pregnant woman, her husband, some guy, his sister, and another guy and a sailor. The sister does tarot cards and doesn't like what she sees, and she doesn't like Tisa either because the guy she fancies keeps putting the moves on Tisa instead of her, even though due to the very blurred copy I watched both of them looked almost exactly the same.They all sail to the island and find it strangely deserted. The pregnant woman hurts her leg, and is soon kidnapped by someone who cuts of the sailor's head (and puts it in a bucket for safekeeping). The rest wander around town, catching fleeting glimpses of a mysterious woman and finding another survivor who keeps rambling on about how someone killed everyone on the island. Our poor victims gather in a house, wandering what to do, and how to get back to their ship, which is now adrift. Plus, a storm hits the island.I'll warn you now: Even though you get to see a couple of killings near the beginning, it's fifty one minutes before Big George puts in an appearance! What a sight he is though, all seven foot of him done up like some one man zombie army. Once he shows up, he tries to munch down on those who remain, but who will survive and will we get to see a certain character eat his own intestines (which was entirely cut out of the British print)? Although slow, and cheap, Anthropophagus neatly builds up the suspense so when Big George does appear he's really creepy and daunting. The whole empty island thing helps the film a lot (as it did in Island of Death and The Wind)…maybe folks should make more films set in Greece. And is it just me or does this whole premise rear it's head in Stephen King's Desperation? You know, the 'one person killing an entire town' thing?

FilmFatale A group of tourists head to a Greek island where they are puzzled to find no one around. Eventually, they run into a blind girl who can't solve the mystery but tells them of a man who smells like blood. That man would be George Eastman, who was forced to commit some horrible acts while stranded at sea and was so traumatized, he had no choice but to go cannibal on his friends and neighbors when he returned home.No one watches this for the story, and there are a few standout gore pieces. However, if you're watching it for the gore, be sure to avoid the cut versions. If you get one of these instead of a full version, it will make even less sense and you get no payoff. :) Anthropophagus isn't as shocking as I'd been led to believe, but it does have its own grimy, nasty charm.