Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death

Infobox Film
name = Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death


images size = 200px
caption = DVD cover for the film
director = J.F. Lawton
producer = Gary W. Goldstein
writer = J.F. Lawton
starring = Shannon Tweed, Bill Maher, Karen Mistal, Adrienne Barbeau
editing =
music = Carl Dante
cinematography = Robert Knouse
distributor =
released = 1989
runtime = 90 mins
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0094834

"Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" is a 1989 film starring Shannon Tweed and Bill Maher. The film is a campy send-up of pop culture motifs and societal trends, including feminism (and feminist movements' fragmentation around issues that to onlookers may seem trivial), B-movies (particularly "Cannibal Holocaust"), and California. It was written (under the pseudonym J. D. Athens) by J. F. Lawton, who also authored "Pretty Woman", the "Under Siege" series of movies and the television show "V.I.P.".

Plot

The U.S. government grows worried for the nation's avocado supply after some confrontations with the "Piranha" tribe of cannibal women, who live in the mysterious "Avocado Jungle" (westernmost outpost: San Bernardino) and ritually sacrifice and eat men. The government recruits Margo Hunt (Tweed), a professor of feminist studies at a local university, to travel into the Avocado Jungle and make contact with the women to attempt to convince them to move to a reservation/condo in Malibu. Along the way, she and her travelling companions -- male chauvinist guide Jim (Maher) and ditzy undergraduate Bunny (Karen Mistal) -- meet a tribe of subservient men called the "Donohue" (a reference to talk-show host Phil Donahue) and face dangers in their path.

Eventually, the group meets the Piranha women, including Dr. Kurtz (played by talk-show psychologist-celebrity Adrienne Barbeau), Dr. Hunt's former colleague in feminist studies and now her nemesis, who has joined the tribe of Piranha women with her own exploitative agenda. The two argue about the morality of sacrificing men and the exploitation of the Piranha women, and Bunny decides to join the tribe, her first sacrifice being Jim. Bunny cannot go through with the kill, however, and Dr. Hunt makes her escape, aided by the handsome, intelligent, and sensitive Jean-Pierre (Brett Stimely), who also was to be sacrificed. Dr. Hunt finds in the jungle a rival tribe of cannibal women who are at war with the Piranha women due to differences over which condiment (guacamole or salsa) most appropriately accompanies a meal of sacrificed man. Hunt returns to the Piranha stronghold with this other tribe, rescues Bunny and Jim as well as Jean-Pierre, with Dr Kurtz perishing as she falls into a pit filled with water and piranha fish. Having discovered the government plot to domesticate the Piranha women through aerobics classes and frequent exposure to Cosmopolitan magazine, Hunt refuses to bring the Piranha women with her, and instead persuades the warring cannibal tribes to reunite, maintaining the peace by means of consciousness-raising groups.

The film ends happily for the trio of main characters: Bunny and Jim are to be married, and Jean-Pierre has enrolled at Dr Hunt's university as a feminist studies major, becoming in the process the ideal companion for Hunt.

Allusions

The film's plot parallels very loosely that of the novel "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad as well as "Apocalypse Now", the latter of which was based on "Heart of Darkness". Both "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now" feature a character named Kurtz who has gone deep into the jungle to become the deranged leader of a group of "savages" engaging in barbaric rites as an alternative to the rigid and restrictive values of the outside world.

"Cannibal Women" alludes to and/or satirizes a broad array of literary and pop-culture phenomena, including:
*the "Indiana Jones" and "Star Wars" films
*Disneyland and its Jungle Cruise ride
*"Gulliver's Travels" (the warring feminist tribes paralleling the conflict between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians, and in the sacrifice scene the iconic image of Maher's character tied down like Gulliver)
*"Cosmopolitan" magazine
*Phil Donohue
*Alan Alda
*Consciousness-raising
*Feminism
*the film "10" and its use of Maurice Ravel's composition "Boléro"
*"Playboy" magazine (Shannon Tweed is a former "Playboy" model, and the character Bunny's name alludes to the phenomenon of the Playboy Bunny)
*the film and its use of the Richard Strauss composition "Also sprach Zarathustra"

External links

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