damato horror film be notorious from it placement on the uk video nasties list and and certain scene in it do push the viewer into the outer reach of stomach churn disgust . the film also have a reputation a one of the bad film on the list and with accusation that it be boring and inconsequential and absurd . it doesn not even seem to be popular amongst damato aficionado . yet it a striking work full of atmospheric tension and horrific vision and the caustic misanthropy about contemporary society which be damato stock in trade . the film begin in the luxurious setting of a greek island and where a couple of german tourist swim wear clad and equip with the mod con accoutrement of the early 1980s be sunbathe and swim only to be attack and murder by a mysterious figure . this offer a prologue to the main action and in which the same attacker menace a large group of italian tourist who be island hopping and who happen to stop on the killer island because they have pick up a boat hiker who be go to be work there a the companion of a blind girl . a usually happen in a stalk and slash film and the killer a giant cannibal play by regular damato collaborator george eastman ( who also script ) pick the tourist off one by one and murder by munch into their neck and chomp on their flesh . the tourist be a typical bunch of middle class twenty somethings and concern with sightseeing and their relationship and grab some sun . one of the party happen to have an interest in tarot card and and she read those of one of her companion and a pregnant woman . unhappily and she see nothing in the card and which she take to suggest that the querent have no future . this prophecy have an echo of the sex pistols corrosive refrain in their god save the queen and a song which predict the same no future for english consumer society of roughly the same era . and like the pistol great anti monarchist song and damato film identify the cause of no future a come from those at the top of the social pile . we discover that the cannibal be a scion of a wealthy merchant family and who live in what look like a typical mercantile and colonial mansion on the island . this fellow have be involve in a shipwreck and and find himself force to squabble with his wife in a lifeboat over the body of their son and whose carcass be now the only meat they have . the wife object and and the man stab her in a desperate struggle for survival and after which he seem to have develop a taste for human meat which he satisfy on his murderous spree . but there something about the scene in the lifeboat which be emblematic of the struggle for survival and the darwinian survival of the fit which capitalism foists on u all . in encounter the cannibal and the tourist be encounter the truth about the system which allow them to afford such luxurious holiday in the first place . damato emphasise this sense of character encounter the truth about themselves through their encounter with the cannibal by a series of shot in which they see themselves reflect shortly before see him . the german tourist see himself reflect in the cannibal knife and the first dead italian confronts a mirror shortly before death and later the boat hiker have to smash a huge mirror in which she be reflect in order to find her way into his lair and discover his secret . the cannibal and a in sondheim contemporaneous 1980 broadway musical sweeney todd ( later film by tim burton ) be a ideal image of a capitalistic society in which man devour man and a rampage of anthropophagy which end here with the cannibal literally chew on his own entrails and a self devour monster . the film most infamous scene depict the fate of the pregnant woman and whose unborn baby be rip from her by the cannibal and the foetus devour and fresh from the womb . there can be no more visceral an image of a child bear into the world of no future than this and yet those who see it a mere unnecessary nastiness on damato part might reflect that it have a partial real life analogy in the treatment meted out to sharon tate unborn child in the manson gang murder as well a a rather more classical forebear in the famous goya painting of cronos devour his child ( in damato film and the father look on a his child be eat by the cannibal and but if the mirror analogy hold and he be look at an image of himself ) . often in damato film and white european be see a curse with a culture which be deadly and cannibalise and exploitative . in set anthropophagus on a greek island and damato trace that cannibalistic tendency back to it source in the classical civilisation of the greek and here strip of it romantic and idealized association and see a a devouring demon a minotaur in it island lair and feast upon the young who be deliver by ship for sacrifice .