Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals (1983)

Today’s scripture lesson is taken from the Book of Cheapjack Italian Exploitation Movies, Chapter Mondo, verse Nudie. Thus and Lo, our slightly blasphemous but totally bonkers tale begins at the very beginning. For you see…

…In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth -- via some scotch-taped together stock-footage, most likely stolen from a smoldering dumpster in an alley behind the National Geographic Society. 

Heed ye then as grainy looking earthquakes rumble, as the earth is cracked open and torn asunder, while faded and off-color volcanoes belch fire and lava.

By and by, the Divine stock-footage was exhausted, the world settled down, and God said, “Meh, close enough.” And then the Creator filled this new world with all kinds of flora and fauna courtesy of more pilfered footage; this time, the source most probably some Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom reruns.

But! His Holiest of Holies still wasn’t satisfied and had one more creative itch left to scratch. A decision He would probably later come to regret.

A lot.

And so it was written there came upon the Earth what looked like a giant ravioli, which soon ruptured most messily from the inside out as the contents -- under pressure, apparently -- scraped and clawed its way out of this makeshift placenta.

And once the gruesome afterbirth is washed away, man officially sprung from this ersatz womb and walked the newly minted earth. And then, yea verily, the Almighty doth turn the keys of the kingdom over to Adam (Gregory), who is told not to wreck this beautiful Eden -- or else.

Now, while the good Lord rested, Adam heeded His word and steadfastly kept his hands at 10 and 2 as he explored his new domain, hiking through jungles, discovering bodies of water, laughing at his reflection in the same, watching animals do what animals do. 

But in truth, Adam spent most of his days voguing, striking poses, looking slightly confused as he stared off into the distance at nothing in particular.

Perhaps Adam was lonely, sayeth the congregation, which would explain why he found himself on the beach one day sculpting himself a sex-doll out of the wet sand. But the Lord Almighty said, “None of that, little mister,” and sent a torrential rain shower to wash this pagan idol away.

But Adam quickly flings himself on top of this sculpture -- either trying to protect his creation or dry-hump it before the effigy dissolved, hard to tell for sure. Either way, his Creator saw this and took pity on him. 

And so, when the sand washed away, it revealed a woman buried underneath. And not just any woman, but a hot blonde endowed with huuuuuge tracts of strategically placed hair implants.

Thus, Adam christened his new companion Eve (Goldman), and together, these two were happy and content for a time -- well, a very short time.

See, Eve, unfortunately, wasn’t so easily entertained as the dimwitted Adam and soon grew bored with the tedium of paradise. (I mean, How long can a person just sit there and stare confusedly? At nothing?) And so, she soon comes under the influence of a talking serpent, who encourages her to eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

This, of course, is strictly forbidden; but no matter how many times Adam says not to eat from it, this only makes Eve want to do it more. Soon enough, she gives in to temptation and takes a bite from what turns out to be the Tree of ‘Carnal’ Knowledge as Adam, ever the dimwit, takes a bite, too. And once they’ve both supped, they both get to fornicating something fierce -- officially bringing sin into the world.

Woe be to them, then, as the Great Creator deemed that this was bad; very, very bad. Who then threw a total three-alarm shit-fit of biblical proportions to punish Adam and Eve for their transgression -- for He is one wrathful S.O.B., who sends more deliriously deteriorating stock-footage of storms, more earthquakes, and more volcanoes as the magical garden is torn asunder in what could be best described as someone using a tactical nuke as a flyswatter. (Hey, the guy wrote the book on the Old Testament after all.)

Adam and Eve, meanwhile, were much afraid, and scrambled for any kind of shelter but none could be found. And then, to punctuate His point, the Almighty sent a giant stop-motion animated boulder -- from the Book of Spielberg, Chapter Raiders, Verses 5-6 -- to run those two horny ingrates out of Paradise forever…

Well, now, if you’ve ever questioned if the world needed a take on Genesis as told as an Italian exploitation movie, then Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals (alias Adamo ed Eva: la prima storia d'amore, 1983) is your definitive answer. And that answer is, “Duh-doi! This is most certainly true.”

Digging into the origin of this thoroughly misguided masterpiece of Wait, What? Are You @#%*ing Kidding Me?! sees two different exploitation streams colliding together to make it happen.

For on one side you have co-director and co-screenwriter Luigi Russo, who produced things like The Lusty Wives of Canterbury (alias I racconti di Canterbury, 1972) and The Ups and Downs of a Super Stud (alias Pensione Amore - SerVizio completo, 1979); while his co-director and co-screenwriter, Enzo Doria, came from the world of the gialli with Short Night of Glass Dolls (alias La corta notte delle bambole di vetro, 1971) and Hollywood blockbuster knock-offs like Beyond the Door (alias Chi sei?, 1974), which takes a liberal swipe at The Exorcist (1973), and Tentacles (alias Tentacoli, 1977), a blatant cephalopod cash-in on JAWS (1975).

And together, these two, along with five (FIVE!) more credited screenwriters, including Gisella Longo, who gave us Franco Nero punching sharks in the face in the totally gonzo The Shark Hunter (alias Il cacciatore di squali, 1979), and Jaime Comas Gil, who penned A Fistful of Dollars (alias Per un pugno di dollari, 1964) and Danger! Death Ray (alias Il raggio infernale, 1967), concocted the plot for Adam and Eve vs the Cannibals, but whose Italian title literally translates into the more passive Adam and Eve, the First Love Story.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, Waitaminute? What does a love story derived from the Bible have to do with cannibals? And where were those cannibals anyway? Well, we’re getting to that as this brain-bending mash-up of The Blue Lagoon (1981), Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983), and Quest for Fire (1981) is just getting warmed up as Man and Woman’s fall from Grace was just the opening act.

And to kick off the second, What if I told you the couple wind up fighting a pterodactyl? Because they sure do. 

They also eat it, and then Eve turns the skin into a gravity-defying top. And then, well … And then we kinda skip ahead a bit to The Book of Exodus as the couple wander the desert and through several rock quarries as Adam tries to lead them back to the sea for … reasons.

As they wander and bicker, the couple is soon ambushed by a group of primitives -- but don’t get your hopes up, for these are not the cannibals we seek. But these throwbacks (-- wait, throwbacks to what? --) do truss Adam and Eve up on a couple of poles and haul them back to their caves like captured game in an old safari movie.

But from what I can translate visually over what happens next, what with all the crotch-grabbing and feel-cupping, they don’t want to eat these two strangers but crossbreed with them. (No. I am not making that up.) Luckily, a handy tiger, who was also apparently displaced by the great cataclysm, and who turns out to be an old friend of Adam’s from his pre-Eve days, chases all the primitives off, allowing Adam and Eve to continue their aimless walkabout.

But after crossing a few more rock quarries, the couple comes to loggerheads when Eve calls a halt, climbs a tree, and refuses to journey any further in service of this fool’s quest, feeling Adam’s still unexplained notion to find the sea is both hopeless and pointless.

And so, with a shrug, Adam, ever the escalating cretin, just presses on without her to explore more rocks and sand and then stand around looking confused again. Eve, meanwhile, is captured by another caveman, who is a little further up the evolutionary scale than the last tribe encountered. (Wait. Have these guys stumbled into Caprona by chance? And that will make a lot more sense if you’ve read Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land that Time Forgot.)

Anyhoo, these still aren’t the cannibals we’re searching for, so calm down. But, as Eve's captor -- let's call him Kevin (Alcázar) -- becomes totally twitterpated with her, and she with him, he stakes a definite claim to this woman, taking her to a happening make-out spot down by the waterfall. Here, the two get to bonking.

But then suddenly, those cannibals finally show up!

These cannibals take the form of ape-like troglodytes decked out in some spectacularly re-purposed bathroom rugs and fright wigs. As Kevin’s people retreat into the trees, those unlucky enough to get caught in the open are either chewed-up on the spot or trussed-up and hauled off to snack on later.

And while the tree-people eventually mount a spirited counter-attack against these cannibals, both Kevin and Eve are captured. Luckily for them, Adam overheard the sounds of battle and managed to distract the cannibals long enough for Kevin to break his bonds and successfully rescue all of them. And, no, this is not about to become Adam and Eve and Kevin, a Naughty, Naughty Love Story. *sheesh* Get your heads outta the gutter, you heathens. Oh, wait. 

No! No! Instead, this movie then kicks its already laughably high rock-stupid quotient up a few more notches with the most unfortunate looking bear attack in cinema history.  

And when this ratty bear-prop gets the drop on Eve (-- don’t ask), Adam springs to her defense but proves about as useful as you’d expect, leaving it to Kevin to save their hash again, again, as he dispatches the bear after … well, I’d hate to actually call that display “a fight.”

Regardless, the bear suit is dead and Kevin moves to claim his prize: Eve. But for some reason, Eve decides to dump him and stay with the party that brung ‘em -- I mean, brung her. An angered Kevin fights for her and cleans Adam’s yet to be invented clock. But as he moves in for the kill, Eve begs him to spare Adam. Seeing who she truly loves, Kevin relents, gives Eve one last longing look, who won’t return it, and then disappears into the trees, never to be heard from again.

And so, together again, after skinning the, uhm, "bear," leaving some poor stuntman stripped-naked behind them, and using those pelts for some new clothes, Adam and Eve’s journey continues. And as they journey, the couple ‘reconcile’ in a ‘biblical sense’ because Eve has a notion to have a cub like the other animals.

After the deed is done, Adam, ever the idiot, decides to look for the sea inside a cave but finds a pack of wolves instead. However, Adam managed to pick up a few fighting tricks from Kevin, kills one of the wolves with a club, and runs the rest off.

Flush with victory, the couple poke their heads back outside to find a rapid onset ice age has suddenly struck in the whole five minutes it took them to decide the sea was not, repeat, was not, inside the cave. That’s me shrugging right now, too, Fellow Programs.

But yon ice age would pass almost as quickly and as pointlessly as it came. And as the last of the melting ice broke away, it reveals the couple had, indeed, finally reached the sea. Divine intervention? Knowing these two idiots and their sense of direction? It’s the only rational explanation possible.

Thus, as Eve percolates with their first born -- and are we sure it’s his and not Kevin’s? -- Adam starts bartering with the tree people, trading fish for veggies and something new called fire. And so, Adam and Eve eke out a meager existence until Eve is drawn into the water where she finally gives birth to Cain, with Abel coming soon after, I’m sure. 

But that, my faithful brethren, is another tale for another day. Amen.

A lot of you might recognize actor Mark Gregory and his rockin’ proto-mullet as the same guy who played Trash in the post-apocalyptic tale of a ravaged New York City, 1990: The Bronx Warriors (alias I guerrieri del Bronx, 1982), and its sequel, Escape from the Bronx (alias Fuga dal Bronx, 1983). He also starred as Johnny Hondo in something called War Bus Commando (alias L'ultimo bus di guerra, 1989) that just made it into my ‘Better Track that One Down File.’

This also appears to be the only screen credit for Andrea Goldman, who, funnily enough, acted circles around her co-star. And that’s about it as far as the cast goes as everyone else were just extras buried under a ton of pelts, paint, false teeth, and those aforementioned fright wigs. These make-up effects are fine, meaning terrible, but they fit perfectly into this mess of a milieu.

I dug around some but couldn’t confirm if Adam and Eve ever got a theatrical release in the States, but it looks like it was renamed Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals for a super-rare home video release by Transworld Entertainment, hoping to cash in on the notoriety of the gut-munching Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (alias Make Them Die Slowly, 1981). And while there are actual cannibals in this movie, I still feel this alt-title is a tad disingenuous because the cannibals are in it for, like, two seconds.

Still, even though the film kinda boils down to a strange allegory for marriage counseling, fraught with trials and tribulations, to get Adam and Eve to finally admit they love each other and then live happily ever after, this morality play is then candy-coated with an absurd amount of nonsense and pure bedlam, ranging from a go-motion pterosaur attack, to horny cavemen, to the worst / best faux bear attack of ever.

All told, if they taught this version of Genesis in Bible School, I probably would’ve paid more attention. But don’t worry, despite these dramatic liberties Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals is pretty harmless and not THAT blasphemous. What it is, is gloriously, gloriously stupid. And kinda awesome. This is most certainly true.

Originally posted on October 6, 2017, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.

Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals (1983) Alex Film International :: Arco Film :: Trans World Entertainment / P: Enzo Doria / D: Enzo Doria, Luigi Russo / W: Domenico Rafele, Lidia Ravera, Jaime Comas Gil, Eugenio Benit, Luigi Russo, Enzo Doria / C: Fernando Espiga / E: Gianfranco Amicucci, Luigi Russo / M: Guido De Angelis, Maurizio De Angelis / S: Mark Gregory, Andrea Goldman, Ángel Alcázar, Costantino Rossi, Pierangelo Pozzato