Given the title, you might be forgiven for thinking this is a cannibal film. But given the director, you won't be surprised to learn that it's actually a porn film. It actually gets off to a good start - a sex scene but with a horror twist! However, from there it's basically just a collection of sex scenes. Apparently there's some kind of story involving a nuclear reactor floating around; but this is lost amongst a sea of boobs. To be fair, the sex scenes are generally well shot and the leading ladies are beautiful but it's all just generally so boring. There's an amusing exchange involving names but even this is cheapened when it is done for a second…

"What's your name?"
"Papaya."
"Papaya? What a funny name!"
"What's yours?"
"Sara."
"HAHAHA. WHAT A FUNNY NAME."
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
*cue endless laughter*

Aw.

The translation/dub might be a little cruel on this one but y'know, it's not a bad movie. I'll always cut Uncle Joe some slack because he's a man who knows what he likes and I kinda like the same things, I think. He also - whatever else you may think of his work - knows how to handle a camera. His movies LOOK great and this (shot in the same location as Zombie Flesh Eaters, weirdly) is no exception.

Love Goddess of the Cannibals finds Maurice Poli playing Vincent; a very manly man from the 70s who wants…

Enjoyable exploitation fare in which a pair of white friends-with-benefits fall under the spell of Papaya, a local femme fatale, while working in the Caribbean. This is against the backdrop of the building of a controversial nuclear reactor on the island, against the residents' wishes, so y'know, it's not all sex and violence, there's an environmental message too. Although that message does seem to be that ecological activists are murderers who'll exploit a woman's sexuality to get close to their enemies, so perhaps not one for the Green Party's next movie night. Indeed, there's a lot more sex than violence - tons of softcore shagging, nudity, some lesbianism and more - and Joe d'Amato does a much better job of…

[now living on the list]

A friend of mine once argued that at least half of your enjoyment watching any given movie was down to your expectations going in. I'm starting to think that the other half might just be down to timing.

That is, if PAPAYA was the first D'Amato-directed, EMANUELLE-adjacent, faux-cannibal, faux-zombie, faux-mondo, 100%-past-good-taste Italian genre flick I'd seen, I think I'd be expressing many of the same frustrations that I see in other reviews.

But it's not. I've already peeped D.'s EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS, BLACK COBRA, EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD, PORNO HOLOCAUST and how many others.

With those latter two especially, I've already sat through some truly lowest-common-denominator no-budget no-shits-given just-shoot-it-and-be-done-with-this-one-day-wonder-already-sheesh examples of…

"Normale" Menschen werden sichs sehr wahrscheinlich gar nicht mehr angucken, aber da ich nicht normal bin tu ich mir sowas immer wieder an. Oder weil ich tief in mir drin ein Masochist bin? Kann auch sein.

Also, der Film entstand 1978, unter der Regie von Joe D'Amato, der damals noch in der Illusion lebte, ein Filmregisseur zu sein. Mit Kannibalen hat der Film so ziemlich nichts zu tun, die werden nur im Titel erwaehnt, weil die damals IN waren. Besonders in den frueh 80er dann, auf Video, da zog so ein Titel, wurde umkultet. Es geht da also um diese Papaya, ein vollbusiges Weib,das Maenner verfuehrt und von ihr abhaengig macht, nur damit sie nach dem Sex von ein paar…

Bravo bravo D'Amato... come al solito bel film nel suo genere. Il regista, Aristide Massaccesi, in arte Joe D'Amato, con questa pellicola ci porta nel suo mondo. Quello dell'horror/porno a tutti gli effetti. Sinceramente io non ritengo horror questo film perchè secondo il mio punto di vista, di horror non ha nulla... ma presenta comunque circa due o tre scene abbastanza crude e sicuramente quella più tosta è la scena iniziale nella quale Papaya a morsi evira un uomo. Gli errori del solito b-movie ci sono e sono anche diversi... in una scena si può notare un cameraman in fondo allo schermo, gli attori escono dall'acqua o dalla doccia quasi completamente asciutti, poi in un'altra sequenza in cui la ragazza…

[now living on the list]

A friend of mine once argued that at least half of your enjoyment watching any given movie was down to your expectations going in. I'm starting to think that the other half might just be down to timing.

That is, if PAPAYA was the first D'Amato-directed, EMANUELLE-adjacent, faux-cannibal, faux-zombie, faux-mondo, 100%-past-good-taste Italian genre flick I'd seen, I think I'd be expressing many of the same frustrations that I see in other reviews.

But it's not. I've already peeped D.'s EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS, BLACK COBRA, EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD, PORNO HOLOCAUST and how many others.

With those latter two especially, I've already sat through some truly lowest-common-denominator no-budget no-shits-given just-shoot-it-and-be-done-with-this-one-day-wonder-already-sheesh examples of…

Shocktember 07/30

Joe D'Amato muss einfach mit dabei sein. Ich mag seine Filme, weil Sie anders sind, als andere Filme die es davor und danach gab.

Meine Favoritien sind diejenigen mit Laura Gemser und da wird sicher noch einer in dem Monat folgen. Heute jedoch hab ich mir einen gegönnt, den ich bisher erst einmal gesehen habe und mir nicht so zusagte: Papaya, die Liebesgöttin der Kannibalen.

Im Gegensatz zu den späteren D'Amato Werken findet sich hier kein Hardcore (was absolut verschmerzbar ist) und verhältnismäßig wenig Gewalt. Es ist ein ruhiger Film mit einem tollem Soundtrack und guter Atmosphäre. Wenn man dieses Wissen in den Film mit rein nimmt, macht der Film gleich eine Menge mehr Spaß. Nicht mit "In…

J'ai connu Joe d'Amato plus inspiré que dans cette "Déesse d'amour des cannibales". Le film n'est toutefois pas sans mérites.

En vrac :

- La musique de Stelvio Cipriani (spécialiste du polar) est agréable, sans cependant correspondre aussi bien à l'univers de d'Amato que celle de Nico Fidenco ;
- Le début rappelle l'affection du réalisateur italien pour l'horreur, élément qui traverse l'ensemble de ce film. C'est sans doute son atout principal, car il lui donne la plus grande partie de son mordant ;
- Une assez longue partie de PAPAYA consiste en déambulations plus ou moins touristiques, ce qui peut se révéler amusant dans les premières minutes, mais finit par faire naître une certaine lassitude, d'autant plus qu'on en…