NipPierce Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

jadavix In "The Cannibal Man", a young man accidentally kills a taxi driver after an argument about a fare. His girlfriend, witnessing the attack, is going to go to the police, so he has to take care of her as well. Questions are asked, and the body count rises."The Cannibal Man" has many touches typical of an exploitation movie. Firstly, the title it was given in the English-speaking world is a clear case of the producers attempting to mislead the potential audience into parting with their cash. There are no "cannibals" in the movie. Also, the movie has quite a bare-bones plot, which is ideal to prevent any distractions from its scenes of gore. One particularly memorable moment - generally displayed on the movie's case - depicts a meat cleaver sunk into somebody's face.It also has some aspects that are atypical of exploitation, however, and they're quite perplexing. For one, the movie is much better made than you might expect; this is no D'Amato or Schnaas grade-Z garbage (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's filmmaker, Eloy de la Iglesia, was nothing if not an auteur; kind of a Godard of the gutter.De la Iglesia was also openly gay, and this movie features a bizarre, homoerotic dalliance between the main character and someone he meets. Is the character supposed to be gay? Well, they never have sex, and there's a surprising lack of male nudity in the picture. De la Iglesia more than made up for that (for those that like that sort of thing) in later movies such as "El Sacerdote", but his chief sexual interest seemed to be boys, not men.What you end up with is a gore movie made by an auteur with a social conscience that doesn't quite come togetherand homoerotic touches that add nothing. Therefore, I think most people would find it a needless distraction. If you're looking for gore, this is one Video Nasty that you'll have to fastforward a few times to get to. If you're into social commentary about Franco-era Spain, I, for one, couldn't find any.

lonchaney20 While writer/director Eloy de la Iglesia is well known in Spain for his quinqui (i.e. hoodlum) films, gritty depictions of young criminals and drug addicts, abroad his reputation rests largely on the shoulders of his early seventies thrillers. The most notorious of these is Cannibal Man, which gained cinematic immortality as one of Britain's Video Nasties. Like many titles on that list, this film is far more complex than its exploitative title and marketing would suggest; the original Spanish title is La semana del asesino, which means The Week of the Murderer.The murderer in this case, rather than "cannibal man" as the export title misleadingly suggests. is Marcos (Vicente Parra), a lower-class employee of the local slaughterhouse. His small shack looks like a relic when compare to the adjacent high-rise apartment, which is populated largely by affluent students. Marcos is pressured by his girlfriend Paula (Emma Cohen, one of Spain's greatest actresses) to marry, but he insists on waiting until he's promoted. One of their outings goes horribly wrong when a cab-driver, disturbed by their backseat necking, kicks them out of his taxi. Marcos refuses to pay the fare, and a scuffle breaks out. As the cab driver begins beating Paula, he utters one of the film's best lines, which is simultaneously hilarious and tinged with social commentary: "I'm gonna give you the beating your father never had time to give you!" Marcos hits him in the head with a rock, accidentally ending his life. Thus begins our protagonist's soul-destroying week, which finds him committing murder after murder in order to cover up his original crime.Though the film has its share of blood and gore, Eloy de la Iglesia is far more interested in his character's plight, as well as his social status. Marcos often reminds us that he's a poor man. When his brother and girlfriend pressure him to confess his crimes to the police, he protests that as a working class schmo he'd never get a fair trial. "The police will never believe me...and you need money to afford a good lawyer." The chain of murders only escalates as more people snoop in Marcos' shack, and react either with hostility or fear. His only friend throughout the whole ordeal is the enigmatic Nestor (Eusebio Poncela, most famous for playing the inspector in Almodovar's Matador). Nestor is a resident of the nearby high-rise, and one of the affluent students mentioned earlier. He spends his time spying on people with his binoculars, and this is how he acquaints himself with Marcos.In discussing the relationship between Marcos and Nestor, it is necessary to reference the director's sexual orientation. Eloy de la Iglesia was a gay Marxist, during a time in which homosexuality was still illegal in Spain. Though it's never blatantly mentioned, Nestor is clearly gay, and he shares the director's sympathy with the working class. Though he initially tries to impress Marcos with masculine posturing, Nestor's interactions with Marcos soon become charged with homo-eroticism. This reaches its peak in a memorable swimming pool scene, in which Marcos and Nestor swim and shower together; it's a dazzling and tender display of filmmaking, and it loses not of its potency with repeat viewings. This scene, as well as much of the political content, was unfortunately but not surprisingly censored from the Spanish version of the film, meaning that this English-dubbed export version is the closest thing to a true director's cut. Some recently discovered deleted scenes, featured on the German blu-ray, fascinatingly hint at a more explicit version. While most of the material is inessential, such as a scene in which Marcos is promoted, one of the final scenes shows Nester and Marcos passionately making out. No context is provided, and this scenes (as well as the others) features no audio. Thus this plays as a haunting footnote to the film's fascinating and complex central relationship: did de la Iglesia intend for the two men to become lovers? Is this perhaps just a fantasy of Nestor's? Or, more intriguingly, a fantasy of the classically masculine Marcos? Unless the screenplay surfaces, or someone interviews Poncela about it, we may never know.Since I am both a huge fan of this film and incredibly reckless with my money, I forked out a sizable amount of money to import the recent German blu-ray. I am pleased to say that the disc is a significant upgrade to the American DVD, and lends a greater appreciation to the director's artistry. This was my third viewing of the film, and I found it just as rewarding as the first. The surprise reveal in the deleted scenes only sweetened the deal for me, assuring me that my money was well spent. It is a complex, politically charged, yet deeply heartfelt film. I shared it with a friend on my last viewing, and I hope he will not mind if I share his thoughts on the experience: "It's really just about one man having a bad week, and the trials of having to get through it without losing his whole soul." It is that, but also much more; a film that can be appreciated from multiple perspectives. I fear that this review does not do it justice. Suffice it to say that this is truly one of the crowning achievements of Spanish horror cinema. This will also be of interest to anyone interested in the history of queer cinema, being one of the ballsiest acts of transgression ever committed under a fascist dictatorship. Though homosexuality was outlawed in Spain, de la Iglesia wore his sexuality like a badge of honor, and he continued to make films on his own terms.

Camera Obscura CANNIBAL MAN (Eloy de la Iglesia - Spain 1972). There's no intro and no opening credits. We'll get a little peek in the slaughter house right away with some authentic footage of cows being brought in, cut open, with some nasty close-ups of the animals bleeding to death. Nice huh... For a few minutes I kept thinking, where is this heading? The main character is a slaughterhouse worker, but this looks more like a scene from another disgusting piece of mondo cinema.But it turned out to be the most graphic scene in the entire film. Slauhterhouse worker Marcos (Vincente Parra) accidentally kills a man during a fight, his girlfriend insists he goes to the police. Marcus disagrees, they get into an argument and he strangles his girlfriend. When his brother Steve sees the body, Marcus whacks him a pipe wrench. Marcos doesn't like to stick with one murder weapon though and uses a knife and a hatchet to kill some other nosy visitors. From then on, the body count grows and he must find a way to dispose of his victims piling up in his bedroom. Well, he's no cannibal and he works in a slaughterhouse. Take a guess what Marcus does next.The film is more a psychological study of a lonely man descending into madness. Off course this is somewhat of an overstatement, because of the paper-thin plotting with an explanation or motivation behinds his murderous actions completely lacking. There's also some gay-subtext regarding his relationship with his (gay) neighbor. Not surprising, director Iglesia was gay himself. It's not all that bad, it's comparatively competent film-making and it does have a certain compelling atmosphere... but it is dull most of the way. Most of the time we have to join Marcos in his solitude. Atrocious English dubbing as well, but nothing new in that department.Camera Obscura --- 5/10

DJ Inferno The alternative title "Cannibal Man" is very misleading, because this film is not a gory splatterfest about the sick mind of a serial killer, it is more a drama about a man whose life falls apart aroused by a chain reaction of unhappy circumstances. You might compare this film to similar movies like "Henry" for example, but this one is more a portrait of the situation in the early 70s when the dictatorship of Franco ruled the Spanish nation. "La semana del asesino" is full of macabre minor details and polished dialogue sequences. Not like the typical horror mass productions, more an unusual outsider cinema...