PAPAYA: LOVE GODDESS OF THE CANNIBALS

Never afforded the fan worship or critical estimation of such European genre specialists as Lucio Fulci or Dario Argento, filmmaker Joe D' Amato deserves at least a footnote in the annals of exploitation cinema. While his vision never bled with the obsessive thematic unity of the above, and several of his movies are sloppily written and filmed, his fetishistic shock shows throb with a genuine love of the decadent that continues to endear him to fans of spectacle. D'Amato worked fast and hard, churning out movie after movie with stylistic fever and a charnel parade of gross if often cheap FX, heaving breasts, and shaky hand-held shots. Devoted to breaking taboos of cultural taste and aesthetic acceptance, this cinematographer-turned-director evoked surprisingly honest sensations of eroticism, horror, and repulsion from minuscule budgets. The closest he ever came to wedding physical viscera with unearthly atmosphere and mature characterization was the offbeat and dream-like Death Smiles At Murder, a poetic nightmare of sensationalism and surrealism. Never again attempting this hybrid of 'art house' and 'grind house,' the profiteering director devoted the remainder of his career wallowing happily in the celluloid filth of sex and violence, merging death and ecstasy in some of the genre's most tasteless offenders.

Lacking the fine tuned technological principles of Bava or the poetic lyricism of Argento, D'Amato was more interested in exploiting primal human hungers/fears than in developing characterization or sound plots. This is obvious in just a glance of some of his more memorable projects, including everything from fetus eating madmen (Grim Reaper) and raped Nuns (Sins in a Convent) to the tender love story between a young man and a corpse (Beyond the Darkness). Attempting to mate business savvy and crass if pure showmanship with exploitable trends, it isn't surprising that the man who was bold enough to feature lovely ladies fondling horse dicks would try his hand at the Cannibal craze that had every Italian film company gnashing at the teeth to churn out a 'gut muncher' jungle epic. The result is confusingly tame, especially considering the physical degeneracy and emotional harshness that D'Amato had already committed and the permissiveness of this particular sub-genre. Fans will surely eat this up but general horror audiences and may well wonder what all the fuss is about.

The plot of Papaya resembles a slow moving crime 'who done it?' with several softcore romps thrown in for variety. The gorgeously captured island setting is more often a character than the actors, with the lush, sweat-drenched tropics more engaging than the human talent. Erotic island native Papaya (Melissa/ Melissa Chimenti) lends her aid (and sweaty body) to two young native men, seducing a businessman before mangling his penis in one of the few cringe-worthy scenes. It isn't long before this fem fatal integrates herself in the relationship of tourists Sara and Vincent, who are enjoying a business vacation (Vincent is planning the construction of a nuclear power plant). When a night of sex reveals the charred corpse of one of Vincent's employees in their room, one expects the action to increase . . . instead the couple inexplicably become entranced with Papaya, whom they follow around the village, led, at last, to a voodoo ceremony where they are asked to drink blood as the natives slaughter a hanging pig (followed by one of the film's few other riskier scenes). Papaya is the character around which the meagre plot flows, seducing the couple into a ménage a trois and other bits of assorted bed play until Sara discovers the reason for the barely contained rage simmering behind the native's plastic smiles. It seems that Vincent's projected power plant will kick villagers out of their homes, and Papaya isn't about to let that happen.

Bloody spectacle was D'Amato's meat and drink, and in such grim pleasures as Blue Omego and Anthrophagus he gorged himself. Revelling in the intimate exploitation of such basic, animalistic human behaviours as violence and sex -- and in such emotions as repulsion and desire -- D'Amato's daydreams don't fall into the category of art, nor was he aiming for that lofty (and totally subjective) goal. For all their crassness, his most disturbing and enjoyable films are those that disregard conventional wisdom or dictates of good taste. If he found a perfect franchise with which to spin his cum-drenched spectacles in the Emmanuelle series, creating in the seductive Laura Gemser a physical embodiment of a living peep show, one would be excused for thinking that he was the ideal showman -- the perfect exploitation monger -- for milking every ounce of fear, fascination, and repulsion from such a topic as cannibalism. He did this, to an extent, in Emmanuelle and the Cannibals, yet even with that picture the base thrills were handled less convincingly (and with less aplomb) than in many of his other works. With Papaya, he somewhat drops the ball, exchanging the sheer violence and sexual sadism you would expect for an overabundance of soft core fondling. In Papaya, all the right notes are hit but lack the feeling, the gusto, necessary to evoke our outrage or fear. The meat and potatoes of this disrespectable yet at times politically bold genre make a weak impression. D' Amato treats the violence as an afterthought, negating the devastating impression that this type of story depends on for thrills. Still, if this cheaply produced gut-chomper lacks the mean spiritedness or brutal naturalism of Cannibal Holocaust or Cannibal Ferox, it should still appeal to fans of D'Amato's Emmanuelle films, serving up its sparse helpings of cannibalism with plenty of skin.

Severin gives Papaya the first US release of this title on disc in still another remarkable transfer. The 1.85:1 aspect ratio features solid picture quality. While the picture occasionally shifts from soft focus to crystalline clarity, this is the result of the director's cinematography, not the transfer. Colors are for the most part bold and lush and skin tones realistic. The Mono soundtrack is engaging enough to warrant the release of Stelvio Ciprinai's score, which is captured crisply and without background interference. Sadly, the only extra is a Trailer.

Review by William Simmons