THE INFURIATING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA

I'm hiding right here until every living human has forgotten that terrible, terrible cannibal flick I starred in.

Here we have a photo of an angry—well, is she actually angry, or it more like murderous watchfulness? Anyway, Italian actress Sabrina Siani. She’s flown to the most secluded tropical island on Earth, then for good measure hidden herself under a pier until people stop asking her what level of financial desperation she reached that made her star in La Dea Cannibale, one of the worst movies of 1980. We understand she wants to move on, but the world will never forget that film, in part because bad people like us won’t let that happen. Look here.

Sabrina Siani is the queen of hearts. Livers, spleens, and kidneys too.


There are a surprising number of cannibal sexploitation movies out there. La Dea Cannibale is one of the better known entries. It’s an Italian production with Sabrina Siani in the title role as a little girl found by jungle maneaters who grows up to be fine as hell and becomes the queen of the tribe. As per usual in these movies, an expedition to locate her is mounted by cityfolk. These lunch items comprise the father who lost Siani in the first place—along with his arm—accompanied by several witless adventurers. Or maybe it’s fairer to call them brave rather than dumb. But when the group come across stray body parts and gnawed upon corpses yet keep right on trekking into the heart of schlockness, what would you call that? Dumb, right?
 
Pretty soon the cannibals start picking them off with darts and poisoned arrows, but a few stubborn souls eventually reach the evil village, whereupon daddy is shocked to discover his daughter has grown into a bleached blonde bombshell cavorting in only a thong. The question at that point is whether he can wrench her from the clutches of the godless flesheaters. They won’t give her up easily and you can really understand that—other jungle tribes in 1970s cinema have white girl goddesses so why shouldn’t they? We’d almost recommend this one for laughs if there were a digital transfer out there, but sadly the version we saw looks like the film footage was discovered in a toilet. Sort of like its plot. La Dea Cannibale, which was also called Mondo cannibale, opened in Italy today in 1980.

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