Anthropophagous 2000

"Anthropophagous 2000" is the first Schnaas film I've seen. As a huge Joe D'Amato fan, I couldn't but give it a try. Well, I wasn't totally displeased, but I wasn't overly excited either. When Andreas Schnaas is good, he is very good, but when he's bad, he's rotten.

The film has its strong points: (1) The atmosphere is creepy and suspenseful. (2) The violence is brutal and plentiful. (3) There are enough surprises to keep viewers interested (especially if you are familiar with the original Joe D'Amato classic). (4) Andreas Schnaas is very good as the Grim Reaper (at least he tries his best to make a solid performance).

But there are also weak points. To name the most important ones:

(1) The major letdown is the lack of realistic gore. The gore effects in "Anthropophagous 2000" are of very uneven quality: some are quite impressive, while others are cheesy to the point of offense to the viewer. Was Schnaas distracted by other projects while he was making this, or did he run out of money, or did he simply lose interest?

(2) The sex scenes are laughable. How people are supposed to have sex with their under- and outerwear on (and how we are supposed to believe they're having sex) is beyond me. I'm not asking for Andreas Bethmann- type explicitness, but those scenes just don't work.

These drawbacks aside, "Anthropophagous 2000" is a nice effort. It's brutal, it's gory, and it's definitely worth a look – or maybe two. But it could have been better.