Badmovies.org Forum

Of all the various Mondo documentaries, what are the best and worst ones overall?  Any particular favorite/hated scenes?   Sorry for the vaguneness of the questions but I'm basically just trying to start a general conversation on these movies.  

BradLaGrange

Faces of Death where they eat the monkey brain.  Houston 620 was sort of mondo, though more disturbing

I'm rather partial to the late, great Michael O'Donoghue's parody of the Mondo style, "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video." While much of the film is essentially a collection of sketches, a lot of it consists of genuinely bizarre performances and film clips (including Sid Vicious singing "My Way," a stop-motion cat skeleton getting eaten by cockroaches, and a male soprano opera singer dressed as a female Martian), and the sketches fit with the Mondo theme too (a church that worships Jack Lord, a swimming school for cats, etc.). Definitely a love-it-or-hate-it film; I have a friend who cringes at its mere mention. Oh yeah, it was originally meant to be a TV movie, but an NBC executive said it would only play "over my dead body."

well it all depends on what you're looking for. Faces of death 1 was what started the whole craze of mondo flicks. it was even a big hit in Japan! but a lot of the faces of death series have animal torture scenes, & i'm not really into stupid s**t like that. the Traces of Death series are the most notable if you're looking strictly for pure gore, a lot of the footage is people being assasinated (this is most likely news footage bought from 3rd world countries where this is common), or accidental murders caught on tape by bystanders, or police hostage situations gone bad, real bad. there's supposed to be another real messed up one called "America the Violent." but it's real hard to find. And pretty much all other mondo videos are just your basic, thrown together, cottage industry made tapes of "shocking footage-not available on tv!" so it's pretty much like fox tv but more gory. and that's about all i have to say on the topic, good one to bring up though. i can't really stand much of these movies though, i have to be drunk to even watch them, i prefer more storyline. a note w/ Faces of Death 1-all the footage has been publicly proclaimed fake.

I rented Shocking Asia about ten years ago. I recall it having footage of a complete sex change operation, but I can't comment on the quality because I watched a lot of that particular segment in quick glimpses between my fingers. (Shudder)

Actually faces of death was on teh end of the Mondo craze(came out in 1978, Mondo Cane came out in 1962).  

Like Mugwump though, I agree these movies can get tiresome.  I never did like Faces or Trances of death.  They were basically just grainy video or animal torture stuff.  What I enjoyed about the early Mondo stuff was the wierd native native rituals they would find, the really hokey staged stuff(rememebr the crocodile scene in the Arthur Davis Expidition/Brutes and savages?), kind of like what we all wanted National Geographic to show back when we were kids.  

These early ones(Mondo Cane I-II, Savage Man-Savage Beast, Brutes and Savages) always did have a story line of some kind, like contrasting civilized and primitive cultures, or following an "expidition" deep into the jungle, or being a documentary of some kind(Addio Africa/Africa; Blood and Guts)

As for REALLY out there Mondo silliness(not counting those bizarre sex oriented entries) is the super odd "Africa Zio Tom" which supposedly "documents" slave life, but maybe only if Mandingo and the Marquis de Sade had been in the cotton business.  

BradLaGrange

interesting, yeah i've heard the Shocking Asia series (there's a sequel as far as i know) are really messed up, my local ma' & pa' store carry them, but i've never brought myself to rent them. feces eating isn't my cup of tea. there's also another shockumentary called Shocking Africa, with similar disturbing live surgery scenes.

Mug

      I have never seen Shocking Africa, I wonder if its related to Africa Addio(Farwell Africa) like a sequel or something?  

      One I have always wanted to see is "The Slave Trade Today" made in 1964.  I'm guessing 99% or more of the scenes are fake, but still its supposed to be a well pt together "documentary" and pretty entertaining if you dig Mondo's.  Amazon lists some other "shockumentary's" on a list of somekind, just look up Mondo Cane and there should be a link.  

BradLaGrange