Cannibal Girls

The secret has slipped out that CineSavant is partial to low-budget filmmakers that prevail against all odds. We regularly worship at the altar of Roger Corman, but we also like to learn about wildcat filmmakers from the years when almost any screenable show might get a nationwide release. Be it a Texas radio entrepreneur or a movie star’s brother, we want to know how they did it and what parts of the filmmaking puzzle they solved.

In film school at UCLA, there were two elusive horror pictures that we somehow missed and that never seemed to play. It took a few years to finally see Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck’s  Messiah of Evil, which turned out to be an accomplished little gem. We often confused that show with another MIA mystery picture from the same year, that was even harder to catch up with. Ten years before breaking through with the massive hit and enduring franchise  Ghostbusters, producer-director Ivan Reitman threw together a desperate little horror shocker filmed in an Ontario winter. Designed to be the quickest of quickies, Cannibal Girls seems to have been made from the sheer will and stamina of Reitman and his co-producer Daniel Goldberg. Reitman knew some Second City talent and arranged for deferred services from the lab, etc., based on prior relationships. It was reasoned that the actual story didn’t matter much, as a horror picture with the right elements would sell. Considering the way the film was made, we’re surprised that it is so coherently directed. Unlike the Katz and Huyck picture, Cannibal Girls is a lightweight item that emphasizes the humor in creepy situations.

Clifford and Gloria (Eugene Levy & Andrea Martin) become lost while trying to find a romantic rural getaway spot. Their car is breaking down as they finally reach a small town in the snow. The motel owner Mrs. Wainwright (May Jarvis) is friendly, but other people act rather strangely, including the Sheriff (Bob McHeady). Our lovers are ‘make the best of things’ types, especially the patiently sweet Gloria; they pay no attention to Mrs. Wainwright’s stories about past cannibal murders in the vicinity. They’re finally directed to the only ‘restaurant’ in town, at the farmhouse of the unctuous Reverend Alex St. John (Ronald Ulrich). He greets them in top hat and tuxedo, gives them a tour of the house and directs them to a table. There is only one entree on the menu and they are the only patrons … and serving them are three attractive young women, just like the ‘cannibal women’ of local lore …

Cannibal Girls couldn’t be simpler; the subject matter is really the relationship between these two young Canadians looking for an amorous getaway. Clifford says he’s a rock guitarist. He looks like Phineas of the  Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers from the underground comics, but he behaves more like a regulation comedy nebbish. Martin’s Gloria is pleasant, trusting and complacent. Seeing her standing in the snow, dithering while trying to understand a road map, wins us over. Almost alone in an unfamiliar village, Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin are almost the whole show. What awful fate is in store for the pleasant Clifford and the adorable Gloria?

Low budget movies often pad & stall to stretch thin material. When a picture comes up short, the producer tells the editor to ‘be creative,’ and use ALL of the second-unit shots of cars driving around, etc.. Reitman instead lingers on extended conversations that bond us with his leading players. The slack is taken up with sidebar events, teasing the gruesome activities of the ‘cannibal girls.’  A chilly prologue shows an unrelated couple seeking privacy on a beach; we can guess what will happen to them. A truck passes through town with a big sign advertising fresh meat, and a conversation in a butcher shop suggests a ‘Sweeney Todd’ connection. Before we know who they are, we follow the activities of the Reverend’s three female companions. Each picks up a young male, and lures them to the farmhouse for sex. The men even meet in the foyer, to swap stories of their good luck … which of course is running out quick.

Unlike the eerie Messiah of Evil there is no Big Horror Concept at work here. What tension there is, is of the simple ‘don’t go in that house’ variety. The Reverend is well-dressed, congenial but much-too-solicitous. By the time we find out what’s in store for the slightly dense Clifford and Gloria, we realize that the Reverend maintains his cannibal cult partly through hypnotism. Will Gloria and Clifford see the signals (think red flags, claxon warning bells) in front of their noses, or won’t they?  Gloria is such a sweetie, we don’t want anybody to scare her, let alone carve her up and serve her for supper.

The strangely low-key horror item Cannibal Girls has just enough blood to qualify for an R rating. There’s some nudity here and there, most effectively in a dream-like montage. But the Reverend and his trio of ‘doom damsels’ stay calm in their work. The ickiest material is watching the girls attack a meat stew like pigs at a trough. True, one cannibal girl grins in glee through teeth dripping with gore. In one scene a handcuffed and very unlucky victim is apparently eaten alive, but as soon as we get the point Reitman cuts away, to our unsuspecting couple. We credit the pre-stardom Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin for making it all work; Ivan Reitman keeps us guessing with the droll situations. ‘Everything normal here!’

The disc extras document how this odd movie came about. The insert booklet reprints a 1973 interview from Take One magazine, in which Ivan Reitman and Dan Goldberg explain the long process of making a movie they expected to finish in just a few weeks. Reitman and Goldberg began the picture on a slim margin of deferrals and investor promises. We find out that there was no screenplay per se: the cast made up their own dialogue through improvisation. This arrangement is acknowledged in the credits. Instead of throwing what they had together and calling it a movie, they kept shooting more scenes, overrunning their estimates of time and money. The 26-page account puts the producer through a gauntlet of rude surprises, investor demands and ‘altered’ deals that take away most of their ownership points. Reitman had to make sure that the lab never had all the reels of finished film in their posssession at any one time, so it can’t be confiscated. And the final print didn’t arrive at Cannes until an hour before the sales screening, which they couldn’t afford, of course. Reitman claims he’ll never make a movie again, but we can tell he’s caught the bug in a serious way.

It makes sense that American-International’s Sam Arkoff would pick up Cannibal Girls for release. It’s not so extreme that exhibitors will complain, but it can be sold with advertising that promises much more gore. The suggestive tag line read, “They do EXACTLY what you think they do!”  A.I.P. slapped on a ‘Warning Bell’ gimmick, to warn viewers that something gory is about to happen. The disc release includes a separate audio track with the added Warning Bell sound effects.