Reviews & Ratings for
Land of Death (V) More at IMDbPro »Nella terra dei cannibali (original title)

9 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Predator meets Cannibal Holocaust, 17 December 2004
Author: face_of_terror from Azerbaijan

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This 2003 cannibal flick is directed by Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead) under other name - Martin Miller. Mattei also did the writing credits and the music score.

Plot : A group of soldiers led by Leutenant Wilson (Lou Randall) are sent to the Jungle of Amazonia to find a general's daughter who was somehow caught by the jungle natives. They take an experienced guide Romero (Claudio Morales) and one of the captured cannibals to take them through the jungle...

On one hand this movie is really good. The acting is okay. Claudio Morales (who looks like Chaco from Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust) and the newcomer Lou Randall look very solid for these types of European cannibal movies. The movie is not as gory and violent as Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox , but fans of low budget cannibal flicks will be satisfied.

On the other hand , like the summary says its "Predator meets Cannibal Holocaust". If you have seen those two , you'll laugh while watching this movie. There is animal violence , a captured cannibal , even a punishing ritual when a cannibal kills his wife on the riverside - everything Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust had with more gore and violence. There is a group of soldiers (thank god the leading actor doesn't look like Schwarzenegger) , there is a scene with "scorpion" and a few others (for those who seen Predator will get it) - everything McTiernan's Predator has + it has Arnold.

With all the above Mattei also throws in a story about a girl captured by the cannibals (we've seen this a thousand of times before) - and there we go , we have Land of Death. If you can overcome the plot of this movie , it is really good , especially for cannibal movie lovers. If you don't - at least you can laugh at some of the scenes that were used in Predator and Cannibal Holocaust almost 20 years ago.

5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
You saw "Predator" one too many times, Bruno…, 20 June 2007

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

This user-comment stands as my last personal homage to director Bruno Mattei, who sadly passed away just a few weeks ago. Even though certainly wasn't the world's best horror director (he's often even referred to as the Italian Ed Wood), but his movies never failed to entertain me, and you could always tell he had great intentions. "Hell of the Living Dead" and "Rats: Nights of Terror", for example, are both terrible, yet they form essential viewing for fans of Italian horror cinema. Mattei supposedly died from a brain tumor, but after seeing "Cannibal Ferox 3", I'm beginning to suspect Arnold Swcharzenegger and John McTiernan killed him for exaggeratedly imitating their masterwork "Predator". I've seen a lot of (Italian) rip-offs of cinematic milestones, but there never was any film that shamelessly borrowed so many key-elements from one movie and repeated them blatantly. Every single memorable sequence from "Predator" is copied here (from the skinned corpses hanging upside down from trees to the mistaken killing of a wild boar instead of the enemy) and even most of the dialogs are literally re-used. (" ain't got time to bleed"). Actually, all Bruno Mattei did was replace the intergalactic hunter with a tribe of native Cannibals, and that's it! A team of heavily trained soldiers is sent into the jungle to locate and rescue a Western girl who's supposedly captured by a cannibalistic tribe. The tribe considers her to be some sort of Goddess, so even if the squad can get her out of there, the cannibals aren't likely to give up without a fight. The script also steals elements from a handful of other movies ("Aliens", "Cannibal Holocaust" …) but if you've seen "Predator", you're always several steps ahead of the screenplay. The action sequences are poorly done and there's only a disappointingly small amount of gory make-up effects to enjoy. Acting performances are weak and the total lack of sleaze is unforgivable. Cindy Jelic Matic stripped off all her clothes in "Mondo Cannibale" (which was shot back-to-back with this one), so the least she could do was show some ravishing flesh here as well. Oh well, at least these recent cannibal-exploitation movies don't feature any gratuitous animal killings, I suppose. Unfortunately, I can't give any praise to Bruno Mattei regarding this film, as it really sucks, but at least he kept the Italian horror industry running till the day he died. He directed no less than fifteen movies since the new millennium and I think all his fans should see them! Call it some kind of paying your last respects…

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Mattai's Holocaust, 27 February 2008
Author: Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY

Land of Death (2003)

** (out of 4)

One of several films Italian director Bruno Mattai made during his comeback a few years before dying. Mattai's films are always bad so the real question is if they are bad enough to be entertaining and this one here is. It's also worth watching Mattai to see what and who he rips off and this time out he does a scene for scene remake of Cannibal Holocaust even though, of course, that film is never credited. In the film some American soldiers go missing in the jungle so another group goes in to look for them and they too run into cannibals. I was really curious to see what Mattai would do with this politically incorrect genre and he delivers exactly what those earlier controversial films did. You have rape, torture, flesh eating and yes, real animals dying. These scenes are always disgusting but Mattai has them here after all the years of protest towards Cannibal Holocaust and others like it. This film here contains the bad dubbing and bad acting but everything is bad enough to where the film remains interesting if you've seen the other movie. There really isn't a single original idea here as everything comes from Cannibal Holocaust but it's interesting to see such a rip off.

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Great special effects., 9 August 2008

Author: andreygrachev from Russian Federation

I saw about 50 different Cannibal films. Italians cannibal films are definitely the best. And it seems like the returning of cannibals genre, really. Bruno Mattei made some really cool thrash films. And their colaboration in Dominican Republic with Aristide Massachessi was also great. With lack of money they did interesting films and found a lot of smart decisions in film-making . I really loved the special effects in this film, they show the real Italian gore old school. The story is classic, I can say! The group of call guys with arms in Amazon jungles fighting against different cannibal armies. The actors remind of Strike Commando days. So this is the last I could find from late 21st century Mattei. Great director he still managed to all the filmings in Philippines. I decided to find all the works by Mattei recently. www.myspace.com/neizvest

1 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Cannibal Ferox 3: The Predator Rip-Off!, 6 October 2008

Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

Ripping off big budget American films was a common practice for Italian filmmakers in the seventies and eighties with the likes of The Exorcist, Dirty Harry and Jaws being 'reinvented' several times by a host of names, which often included Bruno Mattei. By 2003, cheap exploitation cinema had become less popular in Italy; but Bruno Mattei was still making movies and apparently he didn't see any reason to stop this often practiced tradition of ripping off American movies, and saw fit to reinvent John McTiernan's Predator and splice it together with another popular American export, the cannibal movie, and what we have as the result is this film. Land of Death takes place, as you would expect, in the Amazon jungle and as was the case with Predator; we focus on a group of soldiers that have to go into the jungle on a rescue mission. They have to rescue a general's daughter who has been kidnapped by a cannibal tribe who, fascinated by her blonde hair, believe her to be some sort of goddess.

Most of the Italian rip-offs released during the seventies and eighties were a bit more subtle than this film. The order of the day was usually to rip a film off thematically and basically spin a new story around the idea used in the successful American film. But Mattei apparently couldn't be bothered to go through the time consuming process of thinking up an idea and writing a script; so what we get instead is just a re-run of Predator. And I mean that literally; whole lines of dialogue are taken, scenes are stolen almost frame for frame, the characters are the same etc. In fact if it wasn't for the fact that there is no alien, this could be a frame for frame remake of Predator (although it's more along the same lines as the fan made version of Indiana Jones quality-wise than Gus Van Sant's Psycho!). Basically, if you've seen Predator, you will know exactly what to expect here and to be honest there's not much point watching unless you're only there to see just how badly McTiernan's film has been stolen from. Mattei does at least give us some gore...but to be honest, this is shameful stuff.

Add another review

Related Links