Love Goddess Of The Cannibals [DVD] [1978]

They say that sex sells, and this is the line that Shameless Screen Entertainment have taken for its second batch of releases. It's been the best part of a year since Shameless have bought us some unadulterated Italian cinema, and now they are back. Last time round they bought us some classic thrillers or Giallo for those in the know, this time round they are focusing all about the sex, with some spicy genre bending titles. The first releases are Satan's Baby Doll and Love Goddess Of The Cannibals, two movies that are available for the first time in the UK, and in versions that have longer prints than other countries.

Love Goddess Of The Cannibals is a 1978 offering from notorious director Joe D'Amato whose movies include the highly controversial Porno Holocaust and Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead. D'Amato's output mainly focused on the sex and death category a monopoly that he himself dominated, the director made over 190 movies that centered on either or both categories. Both of the aforementioned titles were more over the top on what I prefer to refer as "knobs and knockers" features, being more like pornographic movies than anything else. And while being amusing in different ways, were both lacking a great deal in anything with real structure, seeing as Love Goddess Of The Cannibals comes from this era I settled down with some hesitation to watch the movie.

The movie starts in typical D'Amato fashion straight into the sex, a seduction at the hands of the beautiful Papaya (Melissa Chementi) that leads to a mouthful not easily forgotten, either for the viewer or the unlucky man in question. What follows from this is something a little edgy, and for the first time I got a little excited about a D'Amato movie, although obviously not in a way the director intended.

The story circles around an Atomic plant that has caused native inhabitants of a tropical paradise to become evicted from their homes. Papaya is a tool used by the locals for seducing the scientists and developers rendering them too weak to fight off whatever atrocity awaits them. For reporter Sara (Sirpa Lane) and plant employee Vincent (Maurice Poli) an encounter with Papaya leads them down a dark path of sacred ceremonies, voodoo, and death.

From a subject matter perspective Love Goddess Of The Cannibals (AKA Caribbean Papaya, Papaya Love Goddess Of The Cannibals) has a little more on the bone than the usual D'Amato feature, there is some clear story telling there, but its bogged down by boring soft porn sex at such an alarming rate it almost eclipses the story aspect. And as a story it's a pretty good one, one that any torture porn director (the likes perhaps of Eli Roth) might embrace with open arms. When the story gets dark, it gets really dark and the movie is certainly full of bloody punches. Sadly at some points however the bloody punches are met by hollow after effects, when a key characters life is ended around an hour in after the "oh my God" aspect their very existence is completely eradicated from the movie, like a nasty editing accident. I'm not a D'Amato fan (or of you prefer Aristide Massaccesi) but this is certainly far better than his usual output.

Sadly the characters are all fairly one dimensional, the only character with any clarity played by the late Sirpa Lane (who rather interestingly died of Aids at the end of the 90's) spends much of the movie sleeping with animal, vegetable or mineral for no apparent reason thus unbalancing any actual performance.

One thing that is of interest is the title of the movie, it's a little on the deceptive side, anyone looking for a cannibal feast would be sadly upset by a movie that contains one heart eating scene, but otherwise features no cannibal activity at all. A more appropriate title might be Voodoo Love Goddess, but I guess Cannibals out sell Voodoo activity.

If you're a fan of Italian cinema this is certainly one of those movies you will need to see in order to mentally complete a collection of classics, but it's a disjointed, and slightly underwhelming entry. I'm certainly glad I saw it, and should I ever take up the directors chair I'd certainly have gained some story inspiration, but based on the fact I don't and won't I'd never watch the film again.

The DVD comes with a scattering of Trailers from the original 20 Shameless releases, a trailer for Satan's Baby Doll, as well as some trailers for Love Goddess, and some alternate opening sequences.

The basic story of 'Love Goddess..' is that a nuclear energy company want to build a power plant on an idyllic Carribean island so the residents start killing anyone and everyone who works for the company, Papayo, the love goddess in the title is the venus fly trap, the voodoo priestess, the sex siren and ecologist although I'm not entirely sure she's a cannibal as she only chows down on one piece of meat in the whole film, although I have to admit that it'd put me off inviting her round for dinner.
A cynic might say that the whole film is a pretence to cram one slice of nudity in after the next, including a great tub scene, a voodoo scene where everyone gets naked and climaxing with a girl on girl scene with the olive skinned Papayo (played by Michelle) and Sara (played by the deliciously boobed Sirpa Lane) and for the film crew to spend a month in the sun in the Dominican Republic but a less cynical person might say that it's a film ahead of its time, a film about ecology, the destruction of the earth, global corporations killing of local traditions and eroding ways of life but to be honest, Sirpa Lane really does have terrific boobs.
You might want to avoid this film if you're an animal lover as there's a cock fight and 2 pigs get their throats slit and stomachs gutted and to my eyes, the pigs looked pretty real and there's no 'No animals were harmed' disclaimer at the end so be warned.
All in all, an okay part of the Shameless catalogue, it's no 'New York Ripper' though.

To be honest I would be hard pressed to recommend this product as a buy. But we should support Shameless and it does come in a nice yellow plastic case.
It is actually quite an interesting story, tropical island threatened by nuclear power development, a clash of old beliefs and new. Not a lot to shock here or disturb (possibly one or two scenes might have you going 'Wha...what the...!?")
I really like some of the filmography here though; it captures something that is gone forever and I'm not just talking about Sirpa Lane's breasts.
Picture quality alas not great.