eating out.

Rewatched this last night as it featured a top turn from Cindy Leadbetter, who also appeared in the magnificent Rats: Notte Di Terrore that has already been featured in this years 31 Days of Horror.

So there.

 

Emanuelle E Gli Ultimi Cannibali (AKA Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Emanuelle's Amazon Adventure, Trap Them and Kill Them, Emanuelle Chez Les Cannibales 1977)
Dir: Joe D'Amato (who else?)
Cast: Laura Gemser, Donald O’Brien, Monica Zanchi, Susan Scott, Gabriele Tinti, Geoffrey Copleston, Annamaria Clementi, Cindy Leadbetter, Nieves Navarro, Percy Hogan, some cannibals.

Saucy sex minx Emanuelle (D'Amato regular Laura Gemser) has momentarily given up whoring for a living and is currently residing in New York, making her cash as an ace newspaper reporter famed for getting to the heart of gritty 'human interest' stories.

And her current assignment?

To expose an evil lesbian nurse.

But frankly is there any other kind?

Posing as a mentalist she enters (phnar) the hospital with plans to get her story by any means necessary, which in Emanuelle's case involves sneaking into patients rooms in the dead of night and masturbating the information out various incarcerated loons.

Whilst all the time carrying a doll with a camera hidden in its eyes.

I'll have to check with a journalist friend, but I'm pretty sure that isn't common practice but if it is the Piers Morgan/Donald Trump interview just got even more sinister.

The best performance in the whole movie.

After a night of finger-based fun, Emanuelle is surprised to see the nasty nurse she's supposed to be pursuing stumbling drunkenly from a patients room covered in blood from a bite wound on her chest.

Obviously there's only one course of action open to our heroine if she wants to find out what's happened.

That's right, she enters the room and gets right back into fiddling.

Whilst goosing the information out of the mad cannibal woman (played to perfection by Cindy "my illustrious career" Leadbetter) Emanuelle notices a strange (re: shite) tattoo hastily scrawled on the loopy ladies tummy and - using her free hand - gets a picture of it before legging it out of the asylum and heading straight over to her editors office.

Her editor is amazed, explaining to her (and us) that this tattoo proves the existence of a supposedly extinct stone-age cannibal tribe in the Amazon.

Who'd of thought it?

Well who apart from the obviously drunk screenwriter obviously.

Intrigued by the thought of a gang of flesh eaters running an online shopping company Emanuelle decides to visit her old anthropologist buddie Dr. Mark (not the star of Oliver!) Lester (the exploitation genres very own George Clooney, Tinti), who tells her that the symbol belongs to one of the world’s last practising cannibal tribes, tho' you'd think that they'd be pretty good at it by now.

Thanking him for useful history lesson with a quick bout of the sex, Emanuelle persuades Lester to lead an expedition to the Amazon to find the tribe.

"More bass!"

In no time at all, Lester and Emanuelle arrive in South America, first stopping off to visit an old colleague of his, Professor Wilkes (Copleston from almost every movie ever made) to get supplies - oh and have sex - (but not with the old bloke obviously) before being joined on their quest by the old man's daughter Isabel (top teen me tempting tottie Zanchi) and a random, tho' fairly sexy nun (Clementi). 

"Hello? Are you the blind man?"

Fueled (and fucked) up, our frisky foursome head off into the jungle (in reality D'amato's local garden centre) for an appointment with a mightily manbreasted missionary called Father Rick Morales, an expert on cannibals as well as God.

Which is nice.

Obviously with such a hazardous and long journey ahead of them, Emanuelle decides that it'd be best to stop every few miles for (even more) sex.

And with our luscious leading lady being a modern equal opportunities type, she makes sure that everyone gets to join in, flitting - and fondling - between the hunky Lester and the eager to learn Isabel. 

And it's during one of the movies many muff-fests that Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals' - or perhaps the whole of cinemas - greatest scene unfolds; the two ladies, whilst having a quick wash in a pond, begin fondling each other (in clinical close-up) whilst a chimpanzee sits watching them from the riverbank.

And all to a sexy jazz (mag) score.

If that  wasn't enough to cement D'Amato's place as a cinematic God tho' he pulls out all the stops by dressing the chimp in a pair of big sunglasses and forcing it to smoke a fag.

Genius on celluloid.

And before you write I, yes I am aware - as I'm sure dear Joe was, that Chimpanzees are African, not South American animals so there's probably a good reason for him being there.

Who knows there's bound to be a cut scene explaining that he was the planes co-pilot or something.

Possibly.

Just be grateful that Gemser doesn't try to have sex with it.

"Aye son!"

Bored with monkey - and master - baiting the pair soon come across (snigger) hardened adventurer Don MacKenzie (Dr. Butcher MD himself, Donald O’Brien) his Rula Lenska-like, big black cock obsessed wife Maggie (Navarro) and his 'handyman' (and owner of an aforementioned big black cock) Salvador Daley.

It appears that the trio are determined to find the wreckage of a plane that went down (oooeeerr) in the jungle with a fortune in diamonds on board.

Unfortunately they have bad news concerning Morales mission; the Father is missing presumed lunch and all of the nuns have been massacred by cannibals.

Obviously no-one takes this news well and they all end up having a lot of sex in order to boost morale.

Except MacKenzie who goes to sleep.

Emanuelle struggles with a huge
(non trouser) snake. For a change.

Shagging their way across the Amazon basin for what seems like eternity, it's a blessed relief when the group are finally attacked by 'cannibals' (played with conviction by a dozen or so out of work Brazilian bin men in Beatles wigs) who, just to show how savage they really are steal Lester’s boat, most of the party’s supplies (including the cheese and onion flavoured condoms and KY jelly) and kidnap the pretty (non shagging) Nun.

Being nappy wearing primitive types tho' they have absolutely no idea what to do with her so end up tying the poor cow to a tree before stripping her naked and eating her whole.

No they don't spit that bit out.

It'll come as no surprise to find that everyone is a wee bit upset - oooh for literally minutes afterwards - by this but quickly cheer up when Don's aeroplane (with its cargo of diamonds) is found.

Celebratory sex all round then?

"Now this is podracing!"

Wouldn't you know it tho' but just as the frantic fucking is about to get interesting those kooky cannibals pop out from behind a bush and snatch Maggie.

Which is possibly much more painful than it sounds.

Lester being the hunky hero type - and the only male member of the party who hasn't stuck it in her yet - hatches a plan to save her.

In any other movie this would be a great idea and possibly lead to an Indiana Jones style climactic chase.

With more bell ends obviously.

But alas this film was co-written by Romano (Zombie Holocaust) Scandariato, so this daring rescue attempt consists of Lester and Co. sneaking into the cannibal village disguised as wolves or something, sneaking up behind the cannibal chief and shouting 'look up there! it's Fred Titmus!' before grabbing Maggie and running back into the jungle.

I'm afraid to say - but not at all surprised - that it doesn't work.

Sex machine Salvador is quickly killed whilst Donald and Isabel taken captive leaving Lester limping about with a petted lip whilst Emanuelle sits around with the look of a woman who can't remember if she left the gas on.

Our heroines problems are of little consequence to poor Don tho' who suffers the indignity of being tied to a tree before being cut in half and forced to watch as his legs, arse and cock are scoffed by the greedy tribesmen which leaves him for all the world looking like a bizarro hand puppet.

Or it would if the whole shoddy effect wasn't achieved by Sellotaping a photocopy of the actor to a couple of rose bushes and quickly tearing it in half.

Meanwhile Isabel, being the first ginger the tribe have ever seen, has an even more convoluted fate awaiting her because being drugged, stripped naked and gang banged by the entire tribe is exploitative enough so to top it off the terrifying tree dwellers are planning to sacrifice the poor girl to their river goddess.

The official Ronco Douglas Bader
Washing Line: available now!

Have no fear tho' for it's Emanuelle's turn plan a rescue attempt and this one's a corker.

She quickly removes all her clothes before getting Lester to daub the tribe’s emblem on her belly (luckily she has a face painting kit with her).

Luckily Lester's a dab hand with a brush and before too long Emanuelle is made up to look the  spitting image of the aforementioned river goddess.

Now tell me in all seriousness that you saw that coming.

Pants.

Will Emanuelle be able to rescue Isabel in time?

Will they escape the tribes wrath?

And more importantly will they be able to fit any more shagging into the last 10 minutes of the movie?

G on, guess.

"Look at me Emanuelle...I'm from Dudley!"

All hail the late, great Joe D'Amato as he spews forth another of his trademark ugly people having sex mixed with hard core gore 'epics' and again falls down the scary thematic thigh gap between the two genres.
 

It's not all bad tho', lovely Laura Gemser is always watchable and at least she can act, plus the amazing Monica Zanchi is far more attractive than the majority of D'Amato's female cast; all strawberry blonde locks, freckles and wide eyed innocence, looking for all the world like a cutesy librarian dropped naked into a cesspool of cannibal kinkiness.

Which is quite frankly the best description of a perfect woman as you'll ever find.

Damn you D'Amato springing Zanchi onto me as an innocent, horror loving teen.

I mean between her and Nastassja Kinski in Cat People is it any wonder it took me nearly so long to find a girlfriend who lived up to such perfection?

As an aside I should point out that apart from being absolutely beautiful and a damn fine actress to boot Zanchi also performs the second best masturbation scene ever committed to celluloid in this very movie.

The best being Harvey Keitel's car window Nat West in The Bad Lieutenant obviously.

To be honest if you're in any way a serious film fan then Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals is worth viewing just for that scene alone because let's be honest, you're not watching it for the plot and realistic effects are you?

Well I am but that's to be expected.

Zanchi: I love her.

 And whilst it never manages to scale the dizzyingly daft heights of Erotic Nights of The Living Dead at least the sex scenes aren't as arse clenching as those featured in Emanuelle in America (no horses for one thing), the film does at least have a slightly more attractive, less warty cocked (stand up and be counted Percy Hogan) cast than is usual for a D'Amato movie and thankfully none of the animal cruelty that blights most cannibal flicks.

Because we all know that monkeys love to smoke.

And if nothing else at least you had to admire D'Amato for his perseverance.