Love Goddess of the Cannibals
Directed by: Joe D’AmatoStarring: Sirpa Lane, Melissa Chimenti, Maurice Pauli Synopsis: On a beautiful Caribbean island, a team of geologists who are planning to build a new nuclear reactor, are mysteriously disappearing one by one. Vincent (Pauli), who has recently arrived to investigate, runs into his friend and some-time sex partner, Sara (Lane), an investigative journalist who happens to be on vacation. Together they meet Melissa (Chimenti), a sultry native who promises to show them the more esoteric aspects of her people’s culture... Review:Joe D’amato’s notoriety sits him right up (or is it down) there with Jess Franco when it comes to Euro-Sleaze. Both directors have more-than-dabbled with hardcore porn productions, often making two edits of the same film. D’Amato is also responsible for one of the most reviled horror movies of the “Video Nasties” days, Anthropophagous Beast, starring George Eastman (Bronx Warriors). It’s no surprise then that Love Goddess of the Cannibals (aka Caribbean Papaya) starts with a woman (Melissa) engaging in some fun and games with a naked bearded man in a straw beach hut. However, Just when you’ve been lulled into a false sense of mild titillation, the girl literally bites off more than she can chew, and leaves the hut, her “lover” screaming in agony. Then, two natives burn the hut to the ground... Now we’re introduced to our heroine, Sara. Sirpa Lane had garnered a lot of notoriety for herself by appearing in a scene with an ape (really, man in ape costume), in Walerian Borowzyk’s The Beast, and she was never able to shake off the soft-porn tag for the rest of her career. Here, her character much resembles the Emmanuelle character as played by Laura Gemser – a strong, free-thinking woman who is sexually adventurous. We get an early example of her attitude towards sex as she quickly joins Vincent for a shower. However before any hanky panky can get underway, the body of the unfortunate guy from the beginning is discovered.Sara and Vincent soon come across the woman from the beginning of the film, who is hitch-hiking. In return for a lift, the woman, Papaya, promises to show them the “ritual of the stone”, which supposedly involves local voodoo rites. 
When they arrive at the small town, Vincent and Sara start having a look round. This seems to take forever, as they wander up and down dusty streets, sometimes being directed to walk straight through someone’s house, until they are brought to a cellar, where the ritual takes place. As dozens of masked locals fill the room, two pigs are strung up and gutted. Although the pigs were already dead, the scene is still very unsettling and the more squeamish should be duly warned. As Vincent and Sara look on, a man is brought into the cellar, stabbed in the stomach and his insides chomped upon by the high priest.
This scene is never brought up again. Although Vincent and Sara were *slightly* drugged at this point, I’d have thought they’d have seen enough to being asking questions, but no. None of it bears thinking about let alone having a conversation over.It turns out that the locals are planning an armed uprising against the people building the nuclear reactor, and have been using Papaya to get to key officials to elicit information from them. However this plot is barely fleshed out amongst all the bare flesh on display. Sara tries to escape, but doesn’t get far, instead throwing in her lot with the rebels. The film doesn’t even bother to show us Vincent’s fate, but considering his last scene was in bed with Papaya, I have a feeling that she ends up taking something to remember him by. Either way, Sara doesn’t seem to perturbed that her on-off boyfriend may be dead and missing her favourite part of him. Verdict If you are a fan of the Black Emannuelle series of films, this is very much in the same vein, and no better or worse than many of those entries. People only used to more modern films will find the whole thing very very slow, however. Shameless have done a good job with this release , not only including alternate title sequences (showing how it was marketed in other regions) but includes a huge library of their current and future releases. My only real complaint is that the disc is missing a text commentary, such as provided on the Bronx Warrior trilogy boxset. 4 out of 10 for the film 6 out of 10 for the dvd as a whole. (MikeOutWest)New! CommentsHave your say about this! Leave me a comment in the box below. |
