Antropophagus – The Rustblade 2K Limited Edition
The independent Italian publisher re-releases Joe D'Amato's journey into extreme nihilism
While the boom of seaside tourism painted the Mediterranean as a paradise accessible to all, Italian horror cinema of the 80s explored its dark side. This is the panorama into which Antropophagus, a pivotal work by Joe D'Amato, fits. It doesn't seek to entertain, but to violate the viewer's sensibility with a primitive crudeness and a nihilism unparalleled at the time.
The premise is a classic isolation horror: a group of tourists accompanies young American Julie (Tisa Farrow) to an island in the Cyclades to meet friends, finding it seemingly deserted. The absence of life, the unnatural silence, and the encounter with a catatonic survivor babbling about a "beast" are the harbingers of a nightmare that unfolds with brutal slowness. D'Amato's direction doesn't indulge in cheap jump scares; it prefers a growing tension that suffocates.
More to be endured than watched
A celebrated, and infamous, work for two sequences that led to its censorship worldwide. More than simple gore excesses, they represent the visual synthesis of the film's philosophy: the total annihilation of life and hope. The first sees the monster attack a pregnant woman (Serena Grandi), eating her fetus, an act of violence so sacrilegious and psychologically devastating that it transcends horror cinema to enter a territory of pure existential shock.
The second is a powerfully absurd and nihilistic image of autophagy: deprived of any other victim, the monster devours itself, in an extreme, grotesque metaphor of humanity, consumed by its own despair, having no other way out than self-destruction. Antropophagus is an extreme cinematic experience that rejects any compromise. Joe D'Amato here reaches heights of narrative cruelty that few have equaled: more than a film to enjoy, it remains a work to endure. Not recommended for the faint of heart.
Shot on 16mm at unspecified ASA sensitivity, decent technical quality excluding the first few minutes up to the bloody prologue, with heavy grain, video noise, and chromatic disturbances. Afterwards, the image, 1.66:1 format (1920 x 1080/23.97p), AVC/MPEG-4 encoding on a dual-layer BD-50, is more enjoyable even on large screens. The limitations of the cinematography and the scarcity of effects are an integral part of a film that also benefits from its (un)intentionally "rough" and crude lighting and colors. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 monophonic track (24 bit) is decent but lacks dynamics.
Antropophagus - Limited Blu-ray 2K Rustblade
The limited edition of 399 copies in mediabook format from Rustblade includes the comic book with a B/W gore story inspired by the film, DVD, CD with Marcello Giombini's soundtrack. The BD-50 disc also includes the international trailer in English and Federico Frusciante's review, plus it adds the documentary Joe D'amato – Totally Uncut Horror (79') by Nocturno. 5 commemorative postcards, embossed slipcover.
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