AMAZONIA: THE CATHERINE MILES STORY

(A.k.a. WHITE SLAVE; CAPTIVE WOMEN 7 - WHITE SLAVE; FOREST SLAVE)

The latest addition to 88 Films' nicely priced "Grindhouse" DVD series comes in the form of this no budget 'classic' from 1985...

Purporting to tell the true story of what happened to a young student called Catherine Miles; it's a silly foray into third-world exploitation that makes up with wackiness what it lacks in downright nastiness.

We start with Catherine (Elvire Audray, VAMPIRE IN VENICE) in an Amazonian courtroom, pleading not guilty to a double murder charge on grounds of "extenuating circumstances". Via flashbacks, we learn what those are.

Events start calmly enough with Catherine's term at a London college coming to an end, at which point she flies out to meet her wealthy parents who are holidaying on the Amazon.

As they sail down the river, all seems well as Catherine's folks tell her they plan to move to London to be nearer her while she studies. But moments later poisonous darts are blown from the riverside bushes, killing Catherine's parents. The boat is then boarded by several native headhunters who, appropriately enough, decapitate the folks and drag Catherine away with them.

After a bit of all-too-real animal violence and a pretty funny scrap with a rival tribe, the natives get to their mud-hut village with Catherine tied and gagged. One headhunter, Umukai (Will Gonzales), wins a fight with another and claims Catherine as his prize. Luckily for her, he's a soft touch given to doing things like rubbing oil into her chest to protect it from the sun.

Soon, Catherine is accepted by the tribe and she grows accustomed to life within their small community. She delights the children with her flute playing, and finds love for the first time in her life in the form of Umukai. But, as the flashbacks continue - only interrupted by occasional leaps to the present-day court trial - we learn how Catherine discovered there was more to her parents' death than first met the eye, and sought her revenge.

AMAZONIA is badly dubbed, poorly acted, clumsily scripted, unattractively shot and sloppily edited. It suffers from a sub-CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST synth score by Franco Campanino that seems to exist only to irritate, and is padded out with the usual mondo swill of travelogue stock footage and unsimulated animal violence.

But, it is curiously entertaining. All of the above negatives would go against most films, but for Z-grade trash like this - ultimately a revenge story with a mondo setting thrown in - they work in its favour. And in addition to all those key elements already listed, we also get the remaining staple genre ingredients: copious female nudity, bloody violence (head loppings galore), naive racism, nasty westerners acting more despicable than the supposed "savages", a 'twist' ending and a lot of unintentional hilarity along the way.

It's worth noting the screenplay was written by Franco Prosperi (MONDO CANE), and that despite the film's marketing begging for it to be likened to Deodato and Lenzi's jungle flicks, there's no cannibalism here.

AMAZONIA is pulpy, but fast-paced and oddly enjoyable. But not so much so that I could easily recommend it to anyone but the most forgiving trash-hounds.

88 Films' disc (number 10 in their aforementioned "Grindhouse" series) presents AMAZONIA uncut and in its original 1.78:1 ratio. The transfer benefits from 16x9 enhancement and is a generally pleasing one. Certainly, this film has looked a lot worse on some of the (many) DVD releases its received previously.

Here, colour timing and contrast look to be an improvement on Shriek Show's decent transfer from several years back. Otherwise, it's a pretty comparable proposition: a good picture, albeit with the odd reservation (mainly the occasional edge enhancement on display).

English mono audio is reliably clean throughout playback. First-timers should note that it's not out of synch - the dubbing really is that bad.

The region-free disc opens to an animated main menu page. From there, an animated scene-selection menu allows access to AMAZONIA via 8 chapters.

A limited run of bonus features have most likely been seen by fans before, but are always welcome regardless:

The film's original trailer is presented in 16x9 widescreen and doesn't look too shabby, clocking in at just under 2-and-a-half minutes in length.

A 2-minute alternate opening title sequence bears the WHITE SLAVE handle, and is presented in a soft, VHS-quality pillar-boxed format.

Finally, there are trailers provided for a clutch of other 88 Films releases: THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, PUPPET MASTER, PUPPET MASTER 2, PUPPET MASTER 3: TOULON'S REVENGE, DR ALIEN, TOURIST TRAP, MANDROID, REEL EVIL, CASTLE FREAK and SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY.

Although not made available for review purposes, it's perhaps worth noting that this release comes complete with double-sided reversible cover artwork and is housed in a nifty-looking red keepcase.

88 Films continue to furnish UK-based fans with nice releases of interesting genre titles.

By Stuart Willis