Mondo Cane (1962)

"Mondo Cane" is, of course, known as the granddaddy of the 'shockumentary' sub-genre - having paved the way for much harsher and exploitive 'reality'-based films that were to follow; most notably, the "Faces of Death" series. I've said before in past reviews for movies of this ilk that these types of flicks really aren't my 'thing'. Like a lot of others, I grew up with a total fascination for the Faces/Traces... videos and would gleefully seek out and absorb the shameless montages of real-death morbidity, but have long since grown out of it, especially with the advent of the internet. I'm still down for the occasional run through Liveleak or Bestgore for some gruesome jollies, though.

"Mondo Cane" may have sparked this death-junkie titilating trend, though it's got far less 'shock appeal' than its later copycats. It's laid out in a pretty straight-forward, anthropological showcase of a wide range of countries and cultures and how they live and behave. Obviously, some of what is shown in the film can be considered provocative - namely, the animal abuse/killing, which takes up a good portion of the movie where different food preparation customs are explored in various regions of the world. From a tribe bludgeoning pigs to death to the force feeding of ducks (and tribal women!) to the butchering and consuming of dogs in Thailand - this shit will definitely get under the skin of animal lovers, however, I didn't find it displayed as anything more than harshly honest, National Geographic-esque footage as opposed to intentionally 'exploitive', disrespectful, feather-ruffling 'trash' intended as mindless shock-value. Based on how this material is presented, I actually ended up liking "Mondo Cane" more than I expected - having heard that it was "tame" and "boring", though someone expecting mangled corpses being dragged from grisly highway wrecks to the tune of Napalm Death or Mortuary may very well find this disappointing. And, to be fair, there's quite a bit of "Mondo Cane" that IS pretty dull. A whole segment in Australia involving life guard training felt immensely out-of-place and a gym in L.A. where elderly fat women are doing yoga was dumb. Not to mention "man hunting"... Still, there was enough interesting shit, overall, such as some shitty tribe that throw their dead in the ocean which has turned sharks on to human meat, making them total killing machines so the dumbass locals get their revenge by hooking the sharks and stuffing poison sea urchins down their throats, thus inducing a slow, agonizing death for their deadly aquatic foes. There's also some crazy Spaniards who protest some religious ceremony by running around in Daisy Dukes and cutting their legs up with glass and an Asian "death room" that sick people are locked in to die while their relatives have a giant feast in the other room.

So, yeah, there's enough bizarre shit to sink your teeth into if you're down for checking out the original "Mondo movie", which, again, is a far cry from the novelty 'shock-docs' that were to follow. Gotta say, I didn't mind this one a whole lot. It's something I don't see myself ever watching again, but for a one-and-done, it's well worth it and actually comes across as somewhat educational.