Video Nasty : The Devil Hunter (1980)

Oh my, I haven't updated this blog since 2008 (!) Back then the video nasties were a fairly rare topic online, but now there's been several documentaries made about them and released on DVD, there are message boards, and websites dedicated only to the nasties, etc, so for some time I thought I wouldn't bother to finish my reviews of the banned 39, but just decided for the hell and the fun of it that I'll complete 'em, and give you my take on them anyway, and by my speed they'll probably be done some time in 2099, but at least I'm back to review, back to burn, back to hurt 'em! So...here we go with the next movie on the nasties list. I'm going to review them alphabetically but from Z to A as you've figured out by now, so we're at the titles starting with "The", and since The Grim Reaper's original title is Anthropopagus The Beast, I'll skip that one for now, and head straight for The Devil Hunter, so here we go.

The Devil Hunter from 1980 directed by Jess Franco, and originally titled El Canibal so I guess I'm about to review the first straight up cannibal flick on the Nasties list. Good! I like cannibal movies, however, at an Imdb rating of 3.1, and not a huge fan of Franco's directing skills, though he has his moments, and running at 102 minutes in all it's uncut g(l)ory, I guess I might be in for a boring old time here, but we'll see..

Plot:
We happen to be in a part of the world where cannibals live dangerously close to the city, and oh, just five minutes in, and the cannibals have secured themselves to a nice big feast in the shape of a naked, sexy townie. Then what's supposed to be the main cannibal shows up. He's got creepy, bulging out of his head, bloody eyes, and is introduced lurking around the jungle searching for human prey! Ten minutes in, and there's more nudity than most porn flicks, mixed with some violence. Add some cannibalism to that, and it was bound to be one of the 39.

Our friend with the bloody eyes is already at it, and so mean it even scares the other cannibals off. They have a Totem of him at their camp where they also worship him though. Now there's some kinda mafia in the city kidnapping women providing food for the cannibals, and there's a team of hunters in the jungle as well, I guess hence the title of the film. A combo of cruelty against women, and sleaze is present throughout, very much in the spirit of Jess Franco. Some more people join in with money to free a kidnapped girl, among them an ex Vietnam vet who throws a tantrum at the slightest smell of a jungle, no doubt bringin' him Vietnam flashbacks of the unpleasant kind, and so with all those people running around in the jungle, some of them, especially the women, butt naked, it's all set for no less than a smorgasboard for El Canibal.

What's good:
This was quite a lot better than the imdb rating indicates. Direction, and acting was not bad, plot made sense and was well carried out from start to finish, the feeling of being in the jungle while watching was present because of the location combined with the proper soundeffects along with a tribal score which was noisy and threatening at the right moments, and loungy during the scenes in the city, the gore scenes left more to be desired but (the victims) were well executed, and the main villain, El Canibal, was creepy, and one of the few villains that's managed to somewhat scare me, and must've scared the diapers off kids (un)lucky enough to see this back when it was new. The nudity and sleaze as expected in a Franco film was an added bonus.

What's bad:
Some messy editing here and there. Being a Spanish film, the English dubbing made the actors seem more amateurish than I think they were. It was a shame that we didn't get to see more of the violence and gore as it happened but were instead for the most part left to see the results of it after, which I guess could've been due to a lack of skills, budget, or both. Could've been more cannibalism being this was a cannibal film, and they didn't use El Canibal to his full potential as they could've easily made a series of movies with him as the villain had they done it right in the first place. The smorgasboard never really happens, and so the poor cannibal didn't even get to eat properly before they killed him off. Shame, shame.

The verdict:
Original VHS copies, and there's two versions, one with a red, and one with a green cover, one being more rare than the other, fetches a few hundred dollars on ebay and the likes if you're lucky enough to find one at all. As a movie it's by no means worth that price of admission though it's a little underated, and if you're a fan of Euro Horror from back in the days, you'll find this entertaining, but if your idea of a good Horror movie is Silence Of The Lambs then avoid at all costs. The main thing that pulls it down is they built the suspense well but tore it down too quickly makin' it essentially an anti climatic movie leaving more to be desired, so I guess a good warm up to say Cannibal Holocaust or Cannibal Ferox. Still it has it's moments, and it's easy to understand why this was a video nasty. Not great, not bad, so it will be...

3 (out of 6)