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The Plot: Catherine Miles is a young English girl (who speaks with an American accent) who now finds herself on trial for a double homicide in the amazon. She had come to the Amazon in order to vacation with her mother and father. They rent a large boat in order to make it to another part of the jungle where they will be staying, but they are cut off by a tribe of natives. These natives aren’t the friendly kind who want to share either, these are the kind who kill without thinking. They slaughter Catherine’s parents and poison her with a dart that makes her immobile. She is then carried back to their village and sold at an auction where she then becomes slave to the highest bidder. The young warrior who actually killed Catherine’s parents offers to trade all of his weapons as well as his own freedom in order to own Catherine, but he is denied and another owner is chosen. This other owner tries to force himself on Catherine, who resists but is then beaten into submission. When the young warrior sees this, he challenges her owner to a battle and the two fight to the death. This young warrior wins and finally owns Catherine, but she refuses to give herself to him because of what he did to her parents. What happened to put young Catherine Miles on trial and what will become of her? |
| The Review |
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Although it isn’t the bloodiest or goriest Cannibal flick I have had the chance to witness, there’s some fairly surprising gore in the early goings of Amazonia. The initial slaughter sequence is pretty brutal and the inevitable animal stock footage is enough to send any card carrying PETA member running for the exit. Although at one time I too had a great deal of resentment for animal death scenes in these movies, at this point I actually see it as a true staple of the genre. If there’s no stock footage of animals being eaten or killed, it really doesn’t pack that Italian cannibal film kind of vibe. Amazonia, for those who care, at least doesn’t feature humans slaughtering any animal prey. It’s all your basic stock footage kind of thing you might find on the Discovery Channel, so if you can handle that then I don’t think Amazonia is going to damage your psyche in too extreme of a manner. If you can get past the animal violence, Amazonia actually manages to pack a relatively interesting little story into it. It’s fairly clever the way it is written and turns out to be one of the more respectful entries in the genre. Respectful in that it’s competently made, has an interesting story structure and isn’t all murder, mayhem and sheer stupidity. Granted the story is a bit conventional and predictable at times, but believe it or not that’s actually better than what you can say for the majority of this subgenre. Amazonia is also one of the few cannibal flicks that apparently had a large enough budget that it could be shot on location instead of just a set, so the backdrops here actually look like the jungle which adds so much to the movie.
I’m sure the portrayal of the natives are insensitive and offensive to someone out there, after all the tribe is shown to be in amazement at Catherine for showing them how to make a splint. I’m sure in the many years that they’ve been alone in the jungle they might have figured as much for curing their broken bones – but what do I know of native tribes? Still, there’s at least some respect shown to these characters. They don’t ALL speak broken English, with some actual tribal speak thrown around throughout the duration of the movie. They also aren’t really shown to be complete butchers as at first it seems like they would be. It’s an interesting turn that some of the acts which come off as torturous at first are explained as simply rituals within their culture and thus not played up as sadistic. There’s even a rape scene that is interrupted due to our lead character being a virgin and that in their culture it’s taboo to take the virginity of a girl. Now, I won’t guarantee that everyone will feel the same but I thought the way the natives were shown was a fresh concept. Certainly for this genre and the culture that these movies were made in. At the end of the day though, I concede, this is just an exploitation movie. However, it isn’t entertaining to watch just for the gore and insanity.
| The Conclusion |
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