A beautiful reporter tags along with an expedition, has sex with them, then travel to the dark jungles of Africa in order to prove if a long lost cannibal tribe still exists or not.  Surprise, they do!

Judging a Book by its Cover

-Emanuelle doesn’t seem very concerned for that very naked lady in the back surrounded by cannibals.

-Does the film take place in a city?  That’d be an odd place to find cannibals.

-Is tag line of “Trap Them and Kill Them” meant for Emanuelle or the cannibals?  Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

“That Emanuelle girl is back more erotic and exotic than ever!”

Directed by Joe D’Amato

Starring Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti and Nieves Navarro

I certainly don’t have enough room to even start to describe the Emmanuelle series and this film’s position within that franchise but here’s the Coles Notes version for you.  What started off as a very successful erotic series throughout Europe and beyond of course became a target for Italian filmmakers to make a quick buck of its notoriety and soon Emanuelle (with one ‘M’) was born.  Joe D’Amato, already a big name in erotic and horror cinema, used the beautiful free-spirited woman in his own erotic series of films (known as the Black Emanuelle series) but then in 1977 decided to merge the beauty with a new horror craze of the time: cannibals.

Extreme breast feeding?

So with that out of the way, the film begins with Emanuelle, the sexy and adventurous reporter, using her creepy doll-camera in a hospital looking for a story.  It’s not long before a nurse runs out with one of her breasts devoured and Emanuelle finds her story.  She finds a strange woman strapped to a hospital bed and using her powers (and fingers) of persuasion she learns that this woman was raised by a tribe of supposedly extinct cannibals.  Emanuelle joins an expedition to learn more about the mysterious tribe.  The expedition of course don’t go as planned.

Oh, I’m not a doctor.

True to the nature of the Emanuelle films, there’s plenty of slow-motion sex scenes, both straight and lesbian.  The camera and the actors aren’t shy so those of you who are looking for the genitalia show will be happy with what gets shown.  The casting of the women is fantastic simply because they’re all gorgeous, including star Laura Gemser who would play the role in several Emanuelle films.

This is one uncomfortable nude beach.

The blood factor kicks in later on in when the group arrives to the Amazonian jungle and are attacked by the savages who have so many cannibalistic rituals they want to try out on everyone.  While I think that later films such as Cannibal Holocaust pushed the cannibal envelope, the Last Cannibals are no lightweights as they tear open bodies to get at the gooey innards, genital mutilation, a body cut in half and much more!

Sex scene or cannibal scene? Or both?

So the film has tons of blood and gore along with a ton of nudity, that should be enough to get people through the film to the end.  But the film as a whole is only okay due to the fact that there are so many sex scenes every 7-8 minutes used to both interrupt and further the plot.  The film clearly is pushing boobs and blood over story so as long as you know what you’re getting into, you can enjoy it accordingly.  If you can.

TL;DR

Story: 6 – A beautiful reporter discovers news about a long lost tribe of cannibals and searches for them to obvious results.

Blood: 9 – The film contains some very graphic and disgusting images that definitely will make the viewer squirm.

Boobs: 10 – The movie delivers in this category and then some!

Overall: 5 – Boobs and blood aren’t everything though they’ll definitely get you through to the end of the film.  Emanuelle is a strange mash up of genres that work well separately but not so much together.

Trivia

-Director Joe D’Amato plays a doctor talking to Emanuelle near the beginning of the film.