Mondo Magic/Review

I remember watching a certain "Mondo" movie over at a friend's house many years ago. The only two scenes I remembered from it was a seance sequence where a guy was able to make contact with spirits (with the addition of some crude effects) and the other scene involved a Voodoo priest who was able to levitate himself (again, with the possible inclusion of crude effects), so I went into Mondo Magic thinking this might have been the title of that particular flick. What I got instead was a completely different take on the kind of "Magic" primitive tribes use for both rituals and cures.

The movie starts out as a fairly interesting travelogue of sorts when when we meet the Mundari tribe of Sudan. And what's the first thing that we are supposed to consider magical to the tribe? Cow urine! Yes, indeed. Cow urine is used as a repellent against insects and members of the Mundari repeatedly wash themselves in it. Given that I've watched a few Discovery channel shows in my day, I knew that cow feces was often used for building huts for other African tribes, but what I didn't know was that the Munrai also use it for a sleeping drug! All you have to do is burn a great pig pile of it, and it will put you to sleep. Again, this is what the film's narrator tells us. That's often the beauty of Mondo movies. Most of what you see (and hear) isn't entirely true, but it sure is fun to try to figure out what's real and what isn't. After a stay with the Mundari, we're off to Brazil to visit the Yanomamo tribe. Probably the most shocking feature of this segment is the penalty for adultery. We've seen the female side of this matter taken to the extreme in Cannibal Holocaust, but here, we see the male's side of the punishment--Which is just a damaging whack to the top of the head by a stick! We continue to bounce around the rest of the world for some bizarre practices. Including the infamous faith healing (by way of bare-handed surgery) in The Philippines to practical, but pain-inducing, curing methods in Ethiopia.

I do want to point out that the only version I've seen of this movie is an 84-minute cut. Even though the movie,reportedly, had a running-time of 100 minutes. A rumor consists that there was more focus on "Sexual magic" being caught on camera and I'm believing that this is true since the movie seems to end on a whimper. Knowing that "money shots" for Mondo movies were usually reserved for the very end. But what's left on the edited version is still a worthwhile entry for mondo movies, especially if it's among your first. Some of the usual ingredients are there. Such as a catchy, romantic theme song (provided by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino) plenty of animal snuff (though not quite as graphic as Africa Addio, thankfully) and enough blood, urine, acupuncture and nudity to make one dizzy.

Reviewed by Laydback