| The Long Island Cannibal Massacre (1980) |
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| Director: | Nathan Schiff |
| Writers: | Nathan Schiff |
| Starring: | John Smihula, Fred Borges, and Michael Siegal |
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The Plot: After a series of dead bodies start to pop up in Long Island, inspector James Cameron (John Smihula) begins to feel many regrets about his job. The law is starting to feel like a burden that holds him back from discovering just who is responsible for these brutal killings. These murders are absolutely heinous, and Cameron would do just about anything to bring in the man responsible. Unknown to Cameron, the fiend responsible for these crimes is a local beach owner named Jack (Fred Borges) who has been killing innocent women so that he can feed their body parts to his father and his friends. You see, Jack’s father returned home from Vietnam with a very serious version of leprosy that… well, causes him to desire human flesh… for some reason. Anyway, Jack has been paying two bikers to help him gather the bodies necessary to feed these hungry veterans, but with Cameron snooping around his beaches it becomes a waiting game to see how long this little charade can continue. |
| The Review |
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Although it was shot with no budget at all, The Long Island Cannibal Massacre doesn’t really look THAT bad. Not from a technical standpoint at least. Shot on 8mm instead of video, the movie actually looks like a “real” product. Sure, the footage has degraded quite a bit and it’s still obviously extra low budget, but it actually has a legitimate “look” that other similar films did not have. Director Schiff actually crafted his film with a relatively steady hand and he frames his shots fairly well while also telling an intricate plot that belies the campy nature of this movie. Schiff, who begins his movie with a woman having her head cut to bits by a lawnmower, quickly tries to lure his audience into a very dark and mature thriller. With several scenes of talking heads sitting around chatting about the dangers that await our main characters, one could see how an immature filmmaker might fear he was boring his audience. However, I give Schiff credit for sticking his neck out there in order to try and make a “real” movie. Granted, the film does teeter on the brink of boredom on more than a few occasions, but these lulls are brief and Schiff inevitably finds ways to keep his audience entertained.
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| The Conclusion |
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