ANTHROPOPHAGUS (THE GRIM REAPER) - 1981

[The Burgomaster]

Tisa Farrow is back in another cheap Italian gore film that was released a year after her appearance in the infamous ZOMBIE.

** POTENTIAL SPOILERS - BEWARE!!!!! **

Tisa and several acquaintances take a sailboat to a Greek Island where an insane cannibal (played by George Eastman, who appeared in several Italian post-apocalypse sci-fi flicks) has been lurking around eating people.  Flashbacks reveal that he had been adrift at sea with his wife and son and decided that he needed to eat them in order to survive!

Two of the gore scenes in this movie reach new lows in tastelessness:

* A scene where the killer strangles a pregnant woman, pulls the fetus from her womb, and commences to eat it (similar to Samantha Eggar's scene in THE BROOD).

* A scene where the killer chews on his own intestines.

For the most part, this is a boring fim.  Not much happens until the final 30 minutes or so.  The musical score is the usual synthesizer rock that was common in Italian horror movies and thrillers in the 1970s and 80s.  And it has too many scenes of someone pulling a blanket off a corpse, with a close-up of the corpse's face while the synthesizer on the soundtrack goes "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!"  It wasn't scary the first time they did it, and it was annoying by about the 4th time.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Burgo,

Obviously you saw an uncut version but was it an older VHS copy or DVD?  I've looked for it on DVD in the past but seem to only find the cut version.  If it was DVD, who released it?

[The Burgomaster]

Skaboi:

It is a 2 disc, widescreen DVD that was released by Shriek Show (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite sources of tough-to-find movies).  It is a fairly new release (within the last few months, I believe).  I bought it at Best Buy for $10.99.  According to the back of the box it "has never been available in the U.S. with all its gruesome scenes intact . . . until now."  I'm not sure if this is true or just hype, but it appears to be the uncut version.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Burgo,

That's exactly what I needed to know.  Apparently it's claim is true, as every copy I've found has been cut.  I'll have to hit up Best Buy soon and get a copy.  Thanks!