For those familiar with Andreas Schnaas’ epic Violent Shit saga, and just add Nikos the Impaler to the list, know pretty much what to expect: Amateur-hour overkill extravaganza all the way through. And his remake of Joe D’Amato’s Antropophagus isn’t much different. It’s Violent, it’s Shit, and lots of tasteless, inept fun.
The film starts with a group of Interpol agents who have discovered a cave with human skeletons. One of the agents spots a diary which he takes a further look into to maybe get some answers. Then we flashback to a family of four on a boat-trip: dad Nikos (not related to Nikos the Impaler) with his younger daughter and pregnant wife (UH-OH). Shit happens when they get hit by a storm which leaves them stuck on a lifeboat where Nikos goes insane and eats his whole family. Since then, he’s paddled himself to the mainland to some remote village where he’s eaten up most of the people.
Our first body counts are a young couple who are about to have sex in a tent. We’re a few minutes in where the cinematography is non-existent and the overall quality reeks of amateur homemade porn. And don’t expect it to be any better. However, Nikos is soon about to pop up where he deletes them both with an ax and rips their faces off.
We jump to a train station where we meet our main characters (or just body-counts, if you will), a group that I’d guess were some middle-aged Anonymous Alcoholics, gathering for an intervention. It’s less serious than that though, as they’re here on vacation. The place is supposed to be in the countryside of Italy, yet the only post listed on the IMDb trivia section tells us that the film was shot in Austria. Whatever.
They continue the trip with an RV where they struggle to find the destination, a town called Lorenzo (if I remember correctly). They ask a local for help, a hobo, who strongly warns them to NOT go near Lorenzo. The pregnant woman pukes straight at the hobo’s hands, which he slurps and smears over his face. Uh.. OK.
It’s pretty straight-forward from here on with the same plot points as the original. The pregnant woman mysteriously disappears (and we all know what lies next for her), the body counts enter an empty village where they stumble upon (what is supposed to be) cadavers. Don’t let the cheap Halloween props fool you. This is the real thing. They get spooked and surprised by a blind screaming lady in a basement. The classic fetus scene is of course here, and instead of using a skinned rabbit, we actually have a real baby. Just kidding, they used an animatronic baby doll.
We also have some new fresh ideas with a quick side-plot of a gay couple hiking in the local woods, only to amp up the pace and kill count. And instead of the obligatory taking-a-piss break, we … are having a smoke. Because Andreas Schnaas tried to go for a far more serious tone with this one, if you can even imagine – and it falls completely on its face on all fronts. If the acting wasn’t bad and amateurish enough, with the same juvenile and frantic backyard-filmmaking approach as his previous films, the film is also shot on video. A fugly combination that never looks appealing. So don’t look for any visuals or atmosphere like the original.
That being said, Anthropophagous 2000 doesn’t fail to entertain. It’s a fun retarded so-bad-it’s-good trash fest that could exist in the Violent Shit universe. I said the same about Nikos the Impaler. Just replace the killer with Karl the Butcher, and there you have it. It makes zero difference. The gore is over-the-top, messy and comical, as Schnaas is known for. Some look decent while others look fake, like a plastic turd. Also watch out for a Cannibal Holocaust reference. Andreas Schnaas plays, of course, the cannibal, where he acts more like a cosplay version of George Eastman. It’s like watching a mouse trying to be an elephant. But as always, he seemed to have a jolly fun time playing yet another boogeyman.
Director: Andreas Schnaas
Writer: Karl-Heinz Geisendorf
Country & year: Austria/Germany, 1999
Actors: Oliver Sauer, Cornelia De Pablos, Andreas Stoek, Sybille Kohlhase, Achim Kohlhase, Andre Sobottka, Britt B., Andreas Schnaas
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202233/
Original:
– Antropophagus (1980)
Faux sequel:
– Anthropophagus II (2022)
Anthropophagous 2000 (1999) – Trailer from Movies From The Crypt on Vimeo.