|
Germany
- France - Spain
|
1980
Directed by Jess Franco
Starring
Ursula Fellner
Al Cliver
Robert Foster
Color
|
101 Minutes
|
Not Rated
Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC)
Severin Films
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Hold
your mouse pointer over an image for a
pop-up caption
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
3
|
|
 |
|
4 |
|
10
= Highest Rating |
|
Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
Hiding
behind one of his many jazz musician-influenced
pseudonyms, mad auteur Jess Franco dives headlong
into jungle exploitation with this film. It's
kind of a cannibal film, kind of a kidnapping
drama, kind of a jungle action picture —
but
it's also several kinds of sloppy!
Devil
Hunter begins by
showing us how slick an editor ol' Jess can be.
We are introduced to international movie actress
Laura Crawford (Ursula Fellner) as she cavorts
around being all glamorous and denying reporter's
rumors about her sex life. But at the same time
we're also shown a black native girl running through
some jungle someplace with other native folks
in pursuit. See, by intercutting these separate
events the film is drawing a comparison between
the two women's lives. The pampered hot blonde
being showered with money and attention is contrasted
with the poor native girl being chased and attacked
by cruel men. Sound the pretension alarm! Franco's
occasional stabs at social commentary are usually
silly and over-obvious but the opening 10 minutes
of Devil
Hunter reach a new
level. By the time Laura is being drugged and
kidnapped, while the native girl is being strapped
to a tree as a sacrifice, I was moaning out loud,
"I get it Jess, I get it."
The story
lumbers along as the kidnappers fly Laura off
to the island of Puerto Santo (yeah, I know) and
make their ransom demands known to her agent.
This worthy hires Peter Westin (Al Cliver of Fulci's
Zombie
fame) to pay the six million dollars and return
with his cash cow intact —
but if Westin can make it back with the cow and
the cash he can claim 10% as his fee. This motivates
the macho man pretty effectively and he enlists
his Vietnam vet friend Jack (Robert Foster) to
fly him to the island in his helicopter.
At the same time we are shown
that the native tribe on the island has a pretty
strange religion. The girl that was tied to a
tree before was just the latest sacrifice to their
naked zombie god. You read that right. The island
has an unexplained naked zombie guy (Burt Altman)
stumbling around the jungle who occasionally rips
out the heart of a human being for lunch. The
island tribe (showing good sense) throws the occasional
victim to the Mighty Naked One to keep themselves
safe. They've even gone the extra mile and built
a religion around the pop-eyed freak. They've
constructed a sort of tiki idol in the center
of their small village, in front of which the
hottest woman of the tribe prays as well as, on
occasion, writhes like a weasel having an orgasm.
Westin reaches the island,
makes contact with the kidnappers and tries to
pull a fast one with the cash. When the swap for
the girl goes bad, Laura runs off into the jungle
with neither the criminals nor her rescuers knowing
where she might be. But of course the naked zombie
god does. Faster than you can say bouncing breasts,
he's stumbling after her in hopes of a date and
a hot meal — not necessarily in that order. As
the kidnappers search for her they start getting
picked off one at a time by the native tribe.
This includes a pungi stick pit and the funniest
decapitation I've seen in a while: a severed head
bit so good they show it to us a second time
later on in the film. So, will Westin rescue the
pretty girl? Or will the kidnappers survive long
enough to grab her back and try for the ransom
again? And what will become of the pop-eyed zombie
god?
This being a Franco movie,
the zombie makeup is terrible. Jess zooms in close
to the face repeatedly showing us the details
of the sad plastic stuff and making the ping pong
ball eyes look even dumber than they do from a
distance. By the half hour mark I was pretty sure
that no one involved had taken this film seriously
— least of all Franco. There are so many moments
in which it seems as if everyone is just half-assing
around waiting to get things finished so they
could eat lunch. Early on you can that spot one
of the island natives is wearing his wedding ring
so attention to detail was a phrase unknown on
the set. At times things turned up in the movie
that later on seem to be there for no reason other
than to extend the running time. We learn that
helicopter pilot Jack is a Vietnam vet who suffers
from occasional flashbacks and watch one of the
kidnappers act like a nervous little bastard who
can't shut up voicing every worry or thought that
runs through his (eventually severed) head. Neither
of these things means anything at all and to say
the actors involved can't quite pull the dialog
off is to be kind.
Overall this is a below par
outing for Franco. He just doesn't seem to have
cared very much about the film and it shows. Sloppy,
silly, slow and, strangely for one of his efforts,
it's overlong. This is certainly not the
movie to present to a newbie hoping to catch Franco
Fever.
|
|
|
|
Sadly,
the Severin DVD of Devil
Hunter is as disappointing as the film
itself. Most of the time the movie looks terrible,
as if we were watching it through a color deadening
haze that sucks all the brightness from the image.
Some scenes look okay but most seem to have been
filtered down for some reason, making daytime
shots look far too dark. Also, there is a short
section of the film about an hour in which the
English soundtrack drops away and is replaced
with unsubtitled Spanish. Although there is a
subtitle option available for the French audio
track this odd lack of automatic subs for the
gap in the English version is irritating. The
movie is presented in 16X9 enhanced widescreen
with the already mentioned two mono audio choices
and optional English subtitles. The only extra
is a 17-minute interview with Uncle Jess discussing
the film and its reasons for being made. He reveals
his dislike of cannibal films of the period and
explains why the script involved a flesh-eating
monster rather than a flesh-eating tribe. As always,
Franco's honest appraisal of his own work is entertaining
as are his opinions of his actors. Impolitic,
thy name is Jess Franco!
12/28/08
|
HOME
| REVIEWS
| TOP
|
