Nonureva
Really Surprised!
Jenna Walter
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Sabah Hensley
This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
Leofwine_draca
A typically exploitative '70s shockumentary, made by those darned Italians who apparently cornered the market during the decade by making sick variants on MONDO CANE. These films were designed to gross out and disgust the viewer whilst hiding behind the "safe" genre of the documentary, allowing the film-makers to fill their movies with more sex and violence than is usually witnessed in similar US or British productions. MONDO MAGIC is a particularly strong and graphic example of the genre, focusing almost totally on native and primitive life in Africa and South America.Viewers bear witness to such pleasant sights as decapitated chickens being used for divination, healers urinating on the ill as a method of healing, and that old favourite, the breast-feeding of puppies. In central America we see children having parts of their mouths removed and their skin mutilated due to age-old customs. Elsewhere in the Philippines there are some genuinely impressive and inexplicable examples of "psychic" healing in process, where a healer pulls foreign bodies from the sick and ill and leaves no wound, despite copious amounts of bloodshed. In South America, jungle natives cook large poisonous spiders for their Sunday lunch and eat the bones of old witch doctors to protect their tribe.Over in Africa, children shower liberally in cow pee and witch doctors are left to rot back into the earth after death. Cow dung is used as an insect repellent and in a particularly repulsive interlude, we see an elephant being used as a pincushion as the natives spear it to death. Listening to the screams of pain and watching the blood stream from this proud and giant creature is a test for any emotional or squeamish viewer and to make matters worse, this moment seems to go on forever as the elephant refuses to die. Elsewhere we have a man suffering from a "genital disturbance" being treated by herbs (am I the only one who found this hilarious?) and a possessed child having his genitals wrenched from his body by a rope. The focus of the film seems to be on naked native tribe members going about their business, all loosely linked into some magical element.At around the hour mark, the film seems to lose focus and instead concentrates on the usual round of gyrating native dances, guys lying around on beds of nails, and sex rather than violence. Don't think that for one moment the sight of two sweaty and naked natives fondling each other is titillating though, as this footage is perhaps even more gruesome than the earlier violence that the film offered up. I don't know which is worse. The repulsive barbarity of the first half of the film, or the poorly-shot out-of-focus dullness of the second. I enjoyed the cool familiar song they keep repeating through the film though, it definitely adds a sense of class to some of the scenes they don't really deserve to have. I don't know how much of this film was faked or whatnot, but at the end of the day it's a run-of-the-mill addition to this in-your-face sub-genre.
moycon
This is an odd film. I originally had it in a Clamshell VHS tape format. The cover had a big cartoon eyeball and some other strange graphics like a man being hung by hooks. Wasn't sure what to expect. I think I was expecting more modern settings.What you get in mostly primitive people and their use of "magic", which basically involves running around naked, animal slaughter, hurting each other, pee bathing, and suckling puppies, but mainly slaughtering animals.It's actually a pretty interesting film. It's probably gross to people who are used to fast food, fast cars, and mortgage payments. A lot of the scenes in this film to me just seemed to be documentation of primitive people around the world and their day to day practices that seem gross to us because they are so different. It's hard to believe people lived like what was shown even in 1975. Some of the footage could very well have been from decades earlier than that. If nothing else the flick serves as a time capsule of primitive people, with some goofy newer scene of things like psychic surgery throw in for good measure. I liked it. I've seen it 4 or 5 times over the years. It never fails to astound! It is how you say, Mucho Mondo!
Mike
I must say I didn't enjoy this movie as much as I hoped I would. It was more on the voodoo and ritualistic side than any film by the makers of the "CANE" movies, but its candidness did appeal to me. However about an hour into it I lost interest and didn't finish the rest of it. Another thing is that it felt too fake, sometimes it was too obvious. But if you would like something to spark the imagination and have too much time on your hands, you'll like it.
sick_boy420xxx
This is one of the better of the "mondo" flicks to be produced. The film deals mainly with African tribal magic, and life in general, but also shows a lot of interesting sights the world over. Emphasis here is on graphic and violent footage, and sex, as there is quite a bit of fairly graphic footage, although overall, it does not seem to truly exploit this footage, it merely shows a world quite different from the one that "civilized" man lives in. In doing this, the film creates much more of an impact, and is quite an interesting and sometimes educational film for viewers who can handle it.
