Brutes and Savges is a mondo movie in which intrepid ‘world explorer’ Arthur Davis documents the extremeties of life in Africa and South America. We get to see animal sacrifices, tribal fights, man vs deadly animal and more…

I’m loving that some reviews state that some of this supposed documentary are staged. Of course they are! The tribal fight scene in which the tribesman wear coloured face paint and look like a weird cross between the Baseball Furies and that voodoo guy from Live and Let Die features blood that’s just as fake and bright red as that used in George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The alligator scene is also talked about as if some great riddle has been solved by it being called as to be fake. The alligator in question looks like it was made for some kind of high school art project as do the limbs that have been chewed off.

But, with all of these swathes of the action being staged and Brutes and Savages being more mockumentary than documentary, does this mean it’s any less enjoyable and entertaining? No. I enjoyed it immensely.

Some of the scenes that are most definately not fake are the scenes of animal cruelty (a llama being beheaded, another being slit open and it’s still beating heart ripped out of it’s chest to name just two) but even I can see the hypocrisy of some of the people who will bleat on about this are not even being vegetarian or vegan. You pay to see a mondo shocker, primitive attitudes towards the slaughter of animals is a given.

The only ‘trigger warning’ I would have liked was during the opening scenes in which Davis is seen wearing a *pink* safari suit. Maybe this was the real reason it featured on the Video Nasties list. Sartorial indiscretion.

Very enjoyable and even better when you know that a lot of it is staged for bums on seats. Imagine seeing this film in the late 70’s in a grimy Times Square movie theatre. Priceless.

3.5 out of 5 stars