Last Cannibal World (1977)

Later released as Cannibal and Jungle Holocaust, Ultimo mondo cannibale (Last Cannibal World) was Ruggero Deodato's first stab at the cannibal genre. Robert Harper (Massimo Foschi) and three companions land on the Philippine island of Mindanao, where an oil-prospecting expedition is underway. When they arrive at the prospecting team's base camp, though, the entire team has disappeared. Robert and Rolf (Ivan Rassimov) go tromping off into the jungle to try to determine what happened (well, no, really Robert stumbles into the woods in a mad panic and Rolf chases after him, but unless you want this to be 10,000 words long you'll allow me a bit of reviewer's license) while Charlie (Sheik Razak Shikur) and his girlfriend Swan (Judy Rosly) stay behind to repair the plane, which lost a wheel during the landing. Robert and Rolf come upon a tribe of cannibals feasting on the corpses of their former associates and decide they'd better leave Mindanao's oil to be used by its native inhabitants when and if they ever emerge from the Stone Age. When they arrive back at the plane, though, it's too dark to take off, so they spend the night in the cockpit, planning to leave come first light. Halfway through the night, Swan wakes up and goes outside to take a leak, but no sooner does she drop her trousers than one of the savages grabs her and hauls her into the woods. So, instead of leaving the next morning, Robert, Rolf, and Charlie go looking for Swan (this is stupid). A tribe of primitives (it isn't clear to me that this is the same tribe that snacked on the other prospectors, but it might've been) captures Robert and carries him back to their cave (which is pretty awesome), where he has to endure such indignities as having his clothes ripped from his body one torn piece of cloth at a time, having his penis fondled and pulled at by a number of the natives (considering that most of them aren't wearing a stitch of clothing, you'd think the male sex organ would've stopped arousing their curiosity long before), being thrown into a pit and urinated on by a group of naked kids, having difficulty getting an erection when a tribeswoman tries to give him a sympathy tug, getting stones thrown at him by another group of naked kids, etc., etc. Finally, Robert makes his escape, but can he get to the plane before he's recaptured? This is a fairly well-made film: terrific location shooting, an authentic feel, even the dubbing is done well. The subject matter is pretty gruesome, but it's explored in a somewhat less exploitative and gratuitous fashion than in Deodato's later works (though I suppose a lot of people might disagree after seeing one particularly delightful and more or less out-of-nowhere scene in which a woman gives birth to a baby, checks its genitals and sees that it's female, and then tosses it to the crocodiles; there are also a couple of animal abuse scenes that I find a lot less than delightful).