From:
darkangel5@DONTEMAILMEbtinternet.com
This follows on from my post the other week about the differences
between various releases of Deodato's other cannibal film, Last Cannibal
World, AKA Ultimo Mondo Cannibale, or Jungle Holocaust.
Decided to pick up the US BD from Code Red to see how that compared,
seems to be a new scan of the print previously issued on DVD by Shriek Show.
It's the English language version, with the same Last Cannibal World
title card and English monologues at the beginning and end. Contains the
same audio blips at the start, which truncates the pilots opening line
as he's offering Masimo Foschi's character a drop of whisky and omits
the jungle noises present at the start of the film, when the title card
is being displayed, that was present in most early VHS releases.
Picture quality is a VAST improvement over the previous US DVD, with
everything looking much clearer, brighter and sharper than ever before.
However, what is of particular interest in this release is it contains
an alternate cut of the film, that was used for its release to US
drive-ins and grindhouses.
At first, I thought it was just the same as the regular version, but
with some edited scenes. Indeed, it uses the same Last Cannibal World
title card, whereas I believe the US release was originally titled "The
Last Survivor" Plus it uses the same English audio with the same "Blips"
in it.
For the most part, the film appears to be the same, HOWEVER this
version, although leaving the blood, violence and indeed animal cruelty,
pretty much intact. Omits pretty much all the nudity and uses some
alternate scenes, which I didn't realise existed.
For example, when Foschi's character is stripped and strung up to see if
he can fly, he gets to keep his underpants on (though you can see he is
naked in some of the long shots). Which makes the next scene, where he
is wearing a crude loin cloth rather puzzling.
Also Me Me Lai's character wears a more modest loin cloth and wears an
animal skin over her torso, so you don't see her breasts in this. It
also omits the rape scene, after she tries to escape. Instead the scene
ends where Foschi's character beats her. And the scene where she is
barbequed at the end is trimmed, so you don't see her naked body. But
you do see her being split open and eaten.
It seems strange they would go to such great lengths to omit the nudity,
yet leave all the blood and violence intact. Particalarly the
unsimulated animal killings, but I guess that's what American audiences
were more sensitive about back then.
Not sure which versions were released to US video, I thought I had some
VHS rips of the US releases downloaded off youtube, but can't seem to
find them on my backup drives.
Anyway, extras wise it contains a couple of interviews with Ivan
Rassimov and Massimo Foschi, which were included on the previous Shriek
Show DVD. However, it does not contain the interview with Ruggero
Deodato that was on that, nor the audio commentary, which is a shame.
It also includes a trailer for this and several other Code Red titles,
but was idssaponted to see these were of low quality and appeared to
have been lifted off YouTube. A great pity as remastered trailers are available, which shows a great lack of effort on Code Red's part.
So, a great addition to your HD library, but when it comes to extras you
might want to hang on to your old US DVDs if you want to listen to the
audio commentary.
--
Best Wishes
Simon (Dark Angel)
http://www.realmofhorror.co.uk
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