Sam Panico
People have been making movies about The Bible for as long as people have been making movies. But nobody - and I mean nobody - has made one like this.The pitch meeting went like this. Keep in mind, like all 1980's pitch meetings, there was plenty of tasty cocaine."We want to make a movie all about Adam and Eve. You know, from the Bible. But can't we all agree that the story would be much better if it was like Blue Lagoon? And had music like Endless Love?""Yes, we can. But who will play the first man? God's most perfect earthbound creation?""Two words. Mark Gregory.""Trash from 1990: The Bronx Warriors?""Yep.""Here's all the money I have. Please, let us celebrate with a bump bigger than your fist!"Look - any movie that starts with stock footage of volcanoes to symbolize the creation of the world is going to get me excited. Throw in landscape coming out of nowhere (George Miller from Mad Maxi fame is said to have directed some of these shots, uncredited), then have Adam burst forth from an amniotic sac (which is made from a burlap sack), then mope around until he makes a female out of sand. And boom. This is the cocktail of movie-crazy that I drink like an alcoholic finally getting his hands on a bottle of cheap rotgut.The sand woman disappears when God makes it rain, leaving behind a real woman, in a scene that has nothing to do with the real scene from The Bible. This is the definition of hubris - when you think your story is a better tale than The Greatest Story Ever Told. Also: Adam and Eve are white. Also: A fake Bee Gee's song plays over the proceedings.If you wonder, am I watching a ripoff of The Blue Lagoon? Good news. You are. And you're watching one made by rip-off experts. Directors Enzo Doria and Luigi Russo made Blue Island just one year before this film.Eve swims naked while Adam tickles a baby leopard in the same way that you or I would play with a housecat. And oh yeah - here come some flamingoes!We're 12 minutes into the film - and Eve has been in it for barely three minutes - when the snake in the Garden of Eden appears. Adam appears to tell her that the tree is forbidden, but Eve protests that she's hungry. Adam gives her a plum instead. This is but the first time that a husband would try to solve a problem and mess everything up as the result. Of course, she wants the apple. Nothing is good enough until she gets the apple. Come on, man.While Adam and Eve are sleeping, a big lion comes over to them as ominous music plays. We get some day for night footage of the lion lying with them, because this is the Garden of Eden after all. A fact that is compounded with stock shots of more animals.Eve then watches some stock footage of a lion raw dogging (raw lioning?) his mate and gets all into it.Cut to a waterfall, where that pesky snake keeps offering the apple. And so the myth of women being responsible for all the wrong of the world begins. Adam gets there before she eats and he is not having it.I just want to note - there is nothing like an Italian voice doing an impression of a snake.Eve wants a more exciting life. Adam wants stuff to be exactly like it is. Man, if I had a dollar for every time I just want to sit on the couch and relax.Eve bites into the apple and they have sex, because you know, sex is forbidden and wrong.That synthesizer score? If I know my Italian movies, it means that shit is about to go wrong in a very bad way. Yes, the stock footage grows much darker and the winds pick up and it gets windy and our heroes get kicked out of the Garden.BOOM! A volcano! You screwed up now!BOOM! A flood!BOOM! Another volcano!At this point, the film depicts God's wrath as the boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark! What!?!How about we follow that with an attack by a bird that looks like a cross between Rodan and the Devil that had sex with Kelly Curtis in The Sect? How about Adam and Eve hungrily devour its guts? This movie can and will deliver.Adam and Eve are then taken by a gang of humping, chattering cavepeople who are obsessed with playing with Adam's balls. He's cool with it, but Eve is not pleased by having the women touch her. Luckily, a tiger comes along and chases everyone away.Adam explores the countryside, watching green men and women bathe, while one of them kidnaps Eve. If you're wondering, "Is this movie only going to be about Eve getting kidnapped?" Yes. It is.One of the green men tears open a parakeet to remind us we're watching an Italian movie and feeds Eve the meat inside it. Two of the women of the tribe begin to paint Eve green, but the main green man prevents this. He takes Eve to a waterfall and mounts her on the shore.Adam comes upon Eve lying with her new man and he seems rather, well, Mark Gregory really doesn't do emotions all that well. He seems somewhat peeved more than angry.A hairer tribe attacks the green tribe and it's a war of the cavemen! Of course, the hairy tribe is all cannibals, so we get some of that action. And now the green man is completely washed. Why didn't they show this movie in my Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes?After a giant battle, the green man a giant bear, perhaps the fakest of all bears, while Adam and Eve sit and watch. Adam finally steps to the green man and they battle. The first spot? The green man does a jumping hug, getting his balls all over Adam. It looks less like a battle and more like sex until the green man rises a rock above his head and attempts to smash out Adam's brains. Eve stops him and they leave hand in hand. But Eve misses Adam, so she calls to him. The green mad lets her go, which only proves that the first human was pretty much a giant loser and the cavemen who weren't divinely made were much nobler. Oh, and that bear? They cut his fur off and makes clothes out of it.That fake "Endless Love" song plays again and Adam and Eve decide that enough is enough. It's time to get nude on the bearskin and made awkward love. Seriously, this is 6th grade make out in the closet at a party level making out.Just to remind us that we're watching an Italian film, here's some B roll of an elk being eaten by cheetahs.Adam and Eve also argue a lot, as she wants to prove she can do things. Then, you know, she'll just fall down in the snow. Or eat berries and fall asleep.They then try and go through a cave, only to face off with some wolves. I remember when I was a kid, we had a Catholic school newspaper and there was a space story that was published every week. I was so excited about it until I shared it with my mother, who pointed out that whenever danger happened, the women would go clean and make dinner while the men dealt with whatever happened. That's always stayed with me as an example of poor storytelling and lazy sexism. That's pretty much this film, except whenever danger occurs, Eve cries.Our heroes then walk across a frozen landscape that really adds some production value to the film as Eve discusses her lack of faith. Eve - you've actually met God. And you have no faith? What hope do I have?The ice storm passes and our heroes become part of a tribe, learning how to trade things and get along with others. Where did all of these people come from? I've often asked that question and never been given a good answer. I consulted bible.org with the question, "Was the world populated through incest or did God create others besides Adam and Eve?" Here's what I learned: "As to incest, it was not considered a sin and was not prohibited for Adam and early man. If the race was to populate and fulfill the command of Gen. 1:28, there is little doubt that Adam's sons and daughters had to have married their own sisters and brothers if the race was to populate the earth, but due to the purity of the race as evidenced also by the long length of life, there were no adverse effects as we see happening today. Gradually, as the effects of sin took its toll on the human race, marrying one's own sister, etc., began to create hereditary problems." So there's that.And jamesbishopblog.com posits that "The Bible itself implies that God did create other people alongside and before Adam & Eve." And "Adam & Eve were not the first humans God by created, or the only humans to exist at that time." That leads me to a hypothesis. Those dudes saw this movie.That fake "Endless Love" comes back as Eve has her baby in the ocean and Adam holds up his son. Roll the credits.Umm, wow. Adam and Eve versus the Cannibals has raised more questions than answers. I don't really know who this movie is for. Biblically minded folks will be put off by its sleaze factor. People hoping for a straight up cannibal movie will be disappointed. And it never lives up to the insane promise of its title. That said, you should probably experience it, if you can find it. It's something, let me tell you that much.
Leofwine_draca
ADAM AND EVE MEET THE CANNIBALS is undoubtedly the weirdest Bible story you'll ever see. It's an Italian trash classic that manages to ride the wave of no less than four popular sub-genres of the era, a film that provides fitfully cheesy entertainment despite the many shortcomings of the production budget and script. It's one of those films that only true connoisseurs of trash cinema will enjoy, a so-bad-it's-good piece of filmmaking from Italy.The first genre is the mini-wave of 'back to nature' films that followed in the wake of the success of THE BLUE LAGOON. I haven't seen too many of these, but the directors had already made one rip-off (BLUE ISLAND) so I guess they were well versed to make this story. The second genre is the religious epic, although ADAM AND EVE MEET THE CANNIBALS is about as far away from any Bible story as THE TERMINATOR. The third genre is the prehistoric caveman epic, popular at the time with QUEST FOR FIRE and all of the inspirations that followed, not least the gory Italian rip-off MASTER OF THE WORLD. The fourth is the cannibal film, bizarrely enough.This film's plot starts off traditionally, with Eve being tempted by a serpent and having a bite of the apple. Once they're kicked out of the Garden of Eden, the weirdness begins. The story follows a journey narrative as the twosome meet various tribes and characters and undergo some bizarre experiences. There's a brief battle with a stop-motion Pterodactyl (!) and encounters with ferocious tigers and the like. A rolling boulder scene straight out of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK but with hilariously cheesy effects. An encounter with some Neanderthals and later a long passage involving jungle natives which directly references the Italian cannibal film genre of the 1970s. Add in rugged scenery (the whole thing was shot in the great outdoors) and the cheesiest song accompanying a sex scene this side of LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, and you have one memorably bad film. The actor playing Adam, Mark Gregory, was familiar from his roles in the various BRONX WARRIOR type films, while Eve's Andrea Goldman was a complete unknown, and it shows.
EitoMan
Probably the only reason this title caught your eye is that it stars Mark Gregory from 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx. This is his first film after Bronx Warriors and boy is it strange. Both directors of Adam & Eve also co-directed the Blue Lagoon rip-off "Blue Island" a year prior, and this film similarly attempts to capitalize on that as well as 1981's Quest for Fire. Although the Italians did exploit a number of genres in the early 80s, this is an extremely small sub-genre unlike the fantasy and sci-fi rip-offs that were more ubiquitous.Adam & Eve shares much of the same sensibilities as any other Italian exploitation film of that era. There's some skin, there's some sex, some (minor) gore, a fantasy setting, extremely cheap (but charming) production values.Surprisingly, this film is really not all that bad. The locations they shot the film are absolutely gorgeous which really set the film apart visually from other genre films of that era. The story of Adam & Eve (from the Bible) is well known and the plot of the film incorporates it surprisingly competently. Once cast out from the Garden, the plot involves encounters with what is best described as a tribe of cavemen and then a violent encounter with savages. Oh, there is the bear scene, and it is gloriously bad...I'm talking worse than Yor. Unfortunately the bear scene is short, but by God, if you like 80s Italian exploitation I guarantee you will never forget it.I found this little known film on Amazon Prime streaming in a very nice 16:9 print. Personally, I loved the film--but I am a MAJOR fan of Psychotronic film in general and Italian exploitation films from that era in particular. Although most viewers will find films like this laughable and worthy of mocking, I really appreciate them as akin to pulp entertainment. Only folks who share my sensibilities are likely to enjoy this movie--all others should seek out the films it rips off (Blue Lagoon & Quest for Fire).
dmuel
Yes, as the old song goes..."the stuff that your libel to read in the bible, it ain't necessarily so.." And at the start of the movie we find Adam, kind of a dufus actually, just wandering around alone in the Garden of Eden. One day he gets bored and forms a woman's body out of sand and, as it starts to rain, Adam gets on top of the sand. I was thinking', "Adam, what are you doin' on top of that sand??" But then the rain turns the sand into Eve. Both of them are in paradise, so they ain't wearing any clothes. Life is sort of just lovey-dovey, the leopards are friends with the birds...you know, paradise. Then, after their 1,000th time of watching a sunset after making love, Eve starts to get bored. wants a change, so she eats the forbidden fruit. She gets Adam to eat it too. Women! Always lead to fall of a good man, cause that's the way god planned it. After that life gets tough. Adam has to learn to kill animals and stuff. But this is the way things really went down 6,000 years ago. You don't have to read a book to learn history, just watch the movie.
