| Cannibal ! The Musical (1996) |
| Directed by Trey Parker. Starring Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Ian Harden, John Hegel, and Jason McHugh. |
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| Although I'm not a huge South Park fan, it's still a hell of a lot better than your average derivative Hollywood sitcom, so I thought I'd give this early Trey Parker/Matt Stone effort a try. This film is a low budget musical comedy based on the exploits of Alferd Packer, the first person ever to be tried for cannibalism in the state of Colorado. |
| The plot is a pretty basic one, with Packer leading a bunch of gold prospectors to a better life in |
| Colorado. Packer and his companions become lost, and have to resort to cannibalism, and performing musical numbers to survive. |
| As a low budget exploitation movie, Cannibal is a hit and miss affair. It seems like Trey Parker tried to make a feature out of a short, and a lot of jokes in this film do fall pretty flat. Still, it has some damn catchy music. The highlights include Shpadoinkel Day, and Let's Build a Snowman. These songs will stay in your head for days. The scene where the gold prospectors encounter a tribe of Japanese who think they're Indians is a highlight, as is the moment of insanity where a crazed prospector suggests that they forget their worries by building snowmen . |
| Although a lot of distributors thought that this was a cheap piece of shit when Parker & Stone were trying to sell it, production values in some scenes are surprisingly high. The filmmakers were even able to use a 'Ye Olde Pissweak World' somewhere in Colorado for the courtroom scenes, etc. In short, if you rent or buy this expecting a work of comic genius, you'll probably be disappointed. If you rent it keeping the fact in mind that it was made in a half-arsed fashion by a few film students out to have a bit of fun, it should make for a great addition to a beer fuelled movie night. |
| Entertainment : 2 out of 4 |
| Watchability : 3 out of 4 |
| Overall : 2.5 out of 4 |
| Reviewed by Blake |
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