Mondo Cane (1962)

All The Scenes You Will See In This Film Are True And Taken Only From Life...If Often They Are Shocking It Is Because There Are Many Astounding, Even Unbelievable Things In This World.

This film is not shocking. It's boring, and there's a difference.

The Story: Mostly archive and stock footage of weird things. That's it. It's called a "shockumentary" but it's really not shocking. The first thing you see is a dog being dragged through a kennel and thrown in with some other dogs that immediately attack it, it's a rather long take and makes you think that the film can only get worse, but it soon becomes apparent that it doesn't. There are a few shock moments here and there, but they're few and extremely far between. For the most part the footage is just boring and pointless, do we need to see five minutes of drug addled Germans? Does anyone really care about sailors looking at women? Most of this film comes off as just being silly, due in large part to the goofy over the top narration.

The Cast:

Stefano Sibaldi ... Narrator (voice)

He's cheesy and over the top. He doesn't add to any shock value here, if anything he detracts from the emotional impact many of these clips are supposed to have.

One to Five Scale: 1

It's said that this film has spawned several sequels, and is even what inspired the Faces of Death series. Maybe this was shocking back in 1962, but I have no doubt that Mondo Cane is far more tame than any of the "shockumentary" exploitation films it inspired.

Tyler

12-5-10