Sacrifice (Umberto Lenzi) (Blu-ray)

The birth of the bloody and controversial “Italian Cannibal” sub-genre starts here, with this notorious 1972 Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox, Nightmare City) directed survivalist shocker, presented in its completely uncut, outrageously violent version. Sacrifice! (aka The Man From Deep River, Deep River Savages) stars Eurohorror legend Ivan Rassimov (Mario Bava’s Shock, Lamberto Bava’s Blade of the Ripper) as photographer John Bradley, who ventures into the heart of Thailand’s jungles and is kidnapped by a ruthless native tribe. As Bradley fights for his life, he eventually catches the eye of the Chief’s daughter (the beautiful Me Me Lai, who also appears Lenzi’s 1980 gut-muncher Eaten Alive!) and, after marrying her, and after several bouts of brutality, eventually wins the natives’ respect. Complications arise, however, when the neighboring clan, a horde of bloodthirsty, flesh-hungry cannibals, begin sniffing around, licking their lips at the sight Bradley and his newly conquered tribe mates... Taking its cues from Gualitiero Jacopetti’s hugely popular Mondo Cane films and its many imitators as well as Elliot Silverstein’s similarly plotted hit A Man Called Horse, Lenzi’s paean to primitive pain was branded a Video Nasty in the UK due to its relentless brutality, disturbing scenes of cannibalism and upsetting sequences of real-life animal death. Less exploitative than Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust and Lenzi’s own Cannibal Ferox but no less intense, Sacrifice!