ADAM AND EVE VERSUS THE CANNIBALS (1983)

Screw the overrated Dan Brown and what he thinks are “shocking” revelations even though they’ve been known about and debated for centuries. If you want to see what the world’s religious establishments have REALLY been hiding from you check out this delirious acid trip of a movie from Italy. For the squeamish I know the word “cannibals” in close proximity to “Italy” usually means the hardcore violence of Italian Cannibal flicks by Ruggerio Deodato and company but that’s not the case here.

Actually this movie seems to have been trying to leapfrog on the mild success of films like Quest for Fire or One Million B.C. with odd overtones of Blue Lagoon but the end result is UN-intentionally funnier than Ringo Starr’s comedy Caveman. Adam and Eve versus the Cannibals opens up with a montage of “creation” followed by a scene of Adam (cult action icon Mark Gregory) emerging from a bloody and gooey cocoon … yes, a cocoon.

Not too long after that this flick throws even more oddball theology at us as it depicts Adam, in his loneliness, sculpting a woman in the sand on a beach like an erotic version of a sandcastle. Adam devotes a lot of attention to his sand sculpture and eventually a heavy rain washes away the surface of the sand creation to reveal a blonde, beautiful Eve (Andrea Goldman) underneath. Don’t bother asking any questions. This film won’t give you any answers.

The couple traipse around their idyllic jungle surroundings, comfortable with their spectacular bodies and enjoying each other’s company while ignoring the sinister whisperings of a serpent who wants them to sample some forbidden fruit. “Forbidden by WHOM?” Eve asks Adam at one point, and quite sensibly so since Adam and Eve versus the Cannibals never even hints at a relationship between the lovebirds and any sort of Creator Being. Adam has no answer for that question which is why the scriptwriters shouldn’t have even had her bring it up in the first place.

At any rate Eve finds Paradise incredibly boring and wants to try something new so she gives in to temptation and samples the fruit, which apparently is an aphrodisiac since she starts voguing and vamping after sampling it. Adam caves in to peer pressure from her and tries some of the fruit as well, after which the two have sex for what we are supposed to believe is the very first time. The afterglow of their tryst doesn’t last long followed as it is by shame and the sudden onslaught of bad weather.

The movie continues its approach of avoiding any real mentions of a deity or otherwise supernatural force being behind the ban on the forbidden fruit. The bad weather that follows the violation of the taboo accelerates to earth tremors and culminates with a gigantic claymation boulder rolling toward Adam and Eve like the one chasing Indiana Jones in the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Words cannot describe how hilariously lame the special effects are in this sequence which ends with our main characters slipping out of Eden just barely before the pursuing boulder blocks shut the entranceway, forever preventing the two from returning.

But the best is yet to come in this daffy yet watchable mess. The pair of fallen innocents find themselves having to learn to clothe themselves against the elements and – best of all – to fight, kill and eat dinosaurs (yes- DINOSAURS), with a ridiculous pterodactyl being the one that made me laugh the loudest. Adam and Eve rip apart the slain pterodactyl and chow down on the raw meat since fire won’t be invented until later in the film.

Our heroes wander the prehistoric world and encounter a tribe of furry cavemen who are more ape than human and in a very weird reversal of what you might expect the male cavemen all surround Adam, apparently intrigued by the fact that he has the same thing that they do dangling from between his legs. The females of the tribe likewise surround Eve, finding the same bizarre solidarity with her that their men have found with Adam.

And so it goes, with Adam and Eve arguing, separating and reconciling over and over again while encountering tribes of green-skinned cannibals, dangerous creatures of various sizes and species and periodically having sex. Though the original Italian title translates as Adam and Eve, the First Love Story the plain fact is that love never seems part of the equation.

Eve forever seems bored with Adam and likes experimenting with other prehistoric men she encounters. For his part Adam seems perpetually annoyed with Eve and at his most affectionate just sort of stares at her with the same dumb, vacant expression with which Hayden Christenson regarded Padme in the Star Wars prequels.

Eventually, Eve discovers she is pregnant and goes into false labor about a half-dozen times during the film. She and Adam reach the far north where they wind up on an iceberg after it ruptures apart from the mainland.

Next, with no transition or attempt at an explanation we see the two of them apparently supervising the start of civilization by ruling over a tribe of cave people who show our beautiful but less-than-bright stars the secret of fire. Eve gives birth to her first child and the movie ends right there in lame anticlimax.

If you love bad movies as much as I do this is a must-see flick with plenty to laugh at from start to finish. In addition to the other films I mentioned above, this Italian quickie has a sort-of Peplum feel to it as well.

Peplums often featured Hercules or Maciste, figures from certain belief systems, getting into adventures against human and monstrous foes, while often renamed Samson or Goliath, etc in the titles. Similarly, Adam and Eve versus the Cannibals features Adam, a figure from certain belief systems, getting into adventures against human and monstrous foes.

However you choose to describe it, this film is a must-watch for the Psychotronic minded.

FOR MY REVIEW OF ALL THREE OF MARK GREGORY’S THUNDER WARRIOR MOVIES CLICK HERE.

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