Cannibal Man — Cannibal Man (Blu Ray)

Cannibal Man is an early 1970’s Spanish film that blends serial killer exploitation kills ‘n’ gory, with slightly arty drama, and thriller elements. It’s a film that features no cannibalism, and it is also a film that hit DPP 39 UK ‘Video Nasty’ list. Here from the guys at Severin is a much-deserved Blu Ray reissue of the picture- taking in two cuts of the film, and a few other extras.

Cannibal Man (aka La semana del asesino, The Apartment on the 13th Floor, The Week of the Killer) appeared in the year 1972. It was written and directed by Guipúscoa Spain born Eloy de la Iglesia- who was known for his provocative films that stabbed at the Spanish regime of the time, as it switched to democracy. In all he directed twenty-two films- with these went from fairy tale anthology film Fantasía... 3(1966), claustrophobic romantic drama lgo amargo en la boca(1969), early Spanish Giallo No One Heard the Scream (1973), brutal biker gang Sci-fi To Love, Perhaps To Die(1973), drug addiction and juvenile delinquency fueled drama El pico(1983) and it’s sequel El pico 2(1984). Cannibal Man is certainly an interesting blend of high and low cinematic tropes- with subtle stabs at Spanish fascism and slice of life drama, rubbing alongside violence and gore, with disturbing shots from inside a real slaughterhouse.
 
The film focuses on Marcos(Vicente Parra) a large sideboarded twenty-something man who works in a slaughterhouse/ meat processing plant. He’s in a relationship with Paula(Emma Cohen) promising to marry her when he gets a promotion. One night when the pair are out on the town they get a taxi- starting to get hot ‘n’ steamy in the backseat- the cabs driver is none too keen on this throwing the two out of the car insisting they pay for their journey. Marcos starts arguing with the driver, knocking him on the head with a rock. They run away, finding out the next day that he’s killed the cabby- he and Paula start rowing about whether he should hand himself in, and next thing you know he’s strangling her, hiding her body under the bed. And so begins his killing spree, with seemingly calm and sweaty glee- taking the body parts to the meat processing plant, to put them through the new meat grinding machine he’s just been put in charge of. Added into the mix we have creepy-possible homosexual with his eyes on Marcos neighbour Néstor(Eusebio Poncela)- whose constantly walking his dog, bumping into Marcos either on his way back and forth to work or after his killings.
 
The disc features two cuts of the film- Extended version (Week of the Killer) 107 min, and the International version (The Cannibal Man) 98 mins. I watched the longer of the two- and it does rather jarringly switch back and forth between badly fitting English dub and original Spanish language track, with often white on white subtitles. The mix of slightly arty drama and brutal killings is made all the more jarring with these dub switches- making the whole thing quite distinctive- with sleazed, though slightly cheesy gore exploitation rolling along with grim drama and light regime snipping. We get a prolonged throat slashing, an impressive hatchet to the head, strangling’s and stabbings, with the whole thing turning a lot more thriller-like in its last quarter.
 
All in all, it’s great to finally see Cannibal Man, as it was one of the few films I’d had left to see from the DPP 39 UK ‘Video Nasty list. And I rather enjoyed its often-jarring switches in tone, though I was less impressed by the appearance of real animal slaughter - so if you are an animal lover, do be aware of this early in the film's runtime- and I believe these scenes are in both versions presented here.
 
Moving onto this region free blu ray, and the new print looks passable enough- though you do become aware of the jumps between the different dubs. Moving onto the extras- and we get two worthy featurette- first up we have Cinema At The Margins- this runs twenty-six minutes and finds Stephen Thrower and Dr. Shelagh Rowan-Legg discussing first the whole career of director Eloy de la Iglesia- with Thrower comparing him to a Spanish version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Moving onto talk about Cannibal Man, discussing its blend of genres, and how well it played around the world, in particular the US where it played under The Apartment on the 13th Floor title- a most worthy
featurette. Next, we have The Sleazy And The Strange-this is a seventeen look at Eloy de la Iglesia career in general and Cannibal Man by Spanish film commentator Carlos Aguilar- this is in Spanish with English subtitles, and again is well worth a play.

The disc itself comes presented in a reversible sleeve, which very neatly on one side recreates the old VSH cover- which is very neat for us fans of Video Nasties. With the version we were sent having a neat white card slip- this features red raised text, and an eye-catching image of a man with a hatchet in his face, this is also slightly raised on the hatchet handle- so very nice presentation to this release.

This is the first of a series of Eloy de la Iglesia films to be released on Severin- with No One Heard the Scream and a selection of his 80’s juvenile delinquency features also been released in this months batch- so I’m very much looking forward to checking those out too. In finishing it’s great to finally see Cannibal Man after all these years, and it certainly is a most distinctive/ original genre film, that blends low exploitation art with more arty highbrow touches.