Cannibal Ferox
Cannibal Ferox is a 1981 film from Italy, directed by Umberto Lenzi, running 93 minutes. reelscum files it under cannibal boom and video nasty.
- Year
- 1981 · 1980s films
- Country
- Italy
- Runtime
- 93 min
- Director
- Umberto Lenzi
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- known (23/100)
- Also known as
- Make Them Die Slowly · Woman from Deep River
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Cannibal boom, Video nasty
A DPP video nasty its distributors long promoted as banned in 31 countries, not passed by the BBFC in any form until 2000.
Lenzi chasing Deodato with none of the argument. Real animal deaths, no defence.
Umberto Lenzi runs the Cannibal Holocaust playbook with the intelligence removed and the cruelty intact. A trio of Americans in the Amazon provoke a tribe into brutal reprisal, and the film exists to string together atrocity set pieces, marketed in the US under the honest title Make Them Die Slowly.
It contains real animal killings, and unlike Deodato's film it has no structural argument to sit them inside; the cruelty is the entire product. It was banned in dozens of countries and remains cut in many.
Notorious rather than good. Know exactly what is in it before you go near it.
Trailer
The numbers
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Where to watch
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Written about
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
- The Italian cannibal cycle, 1977 to 1985
Eight years, a dozen films, one arrest, and a court appearance to prove the cast were still alive.
The cycle in depth
- The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
On these lists
- Notorious by reputation
Films whose legend outran them: banned, prosecuted, or argued about for forty years by people who mostly have not seen them.
Filed alongside
Mountain of the Cannibal God
The cannibal cycle in a dinner jacket, ex-Bond girl and real animal deaths included.
Anthropophagus
Almost entirely people walking around an island. Then two minutes of infamy.
Eaten Alive!
Lenzi recycling other films' footage into a Jonestown story. Grim work.
Cannibal Holocaust
A serious film about media atrocity that committed real atrocity.
Cannibal Apocalypse
Vietnam veterans as cannibals. Sillier and kinder than the jungle cycle.
City of the Living Dead
The drill scene. Otherwise thin, but the atmosphere is thick.
The Burning
The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals
Black Emanuelle wanders into a cannibal picture, and D'Amato lets both halves misbehave.
Maniac
Savini's effects, Spinell's performance, and a very bleak little film.
The Beyond
Makes no sense whatsoever and is Fulci's best film. Dream logic, fully committed.
Frontier(s)
Texas Chainsaw with a French accent and a swastika over the door.
The New York Ripper
Genuinely nasty and hard to defend. The killer quacks. It doesn't help.