The Scary Cannibal
| The Happy Cannibal Adventure Das fröhliche Kannibalenabenteuer | |
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| Directed by | Helmut Rommel |
| Screenplay by | Helmut Rommel |
| Based on | Forest Cannibals by Sigmund Scharf |
| Produced by | Helmut Rommel |
| Starring | Lisa Albrecht Egon von Möller Peter Butzbach Katharina Vogel Volker Partau Emanuel Niederklaus |
| Music by | Georg Adam |
| Distributed by | Flingor Studios |
Release date | 14 October 1967 |
Running time | 129 minutes (uncensored version) 125 minutes (censored version) |
| Country |  Besmenia |
| Language | Besmenian |
| Budget | BS 3.2 million |
| Box office | BS 13.4 million |
The Happy Cannibal Adventure (Besmenian: Das Fröhliche Kannibalenabenteuer) is a 1967 Besmenian horror film adapted, produced, and directed by Helmut Rommel, based on the 1935 novel Forest Cannibals by Sigmund Scharf. The film contains many bloody scenes of violence and many moments of shock, as a result of which the film was described as "too crass" at its premiere in 1967. The film was banned in Besmenia itself from February 1968 to March 1999.
Plot
The formerly mentally disturbed and now apparently cured Tom Meyer is released from the institution. To celebrate, he, his wife Ursula and the other young couple Adam Holzmann and Larissa Holzmann go on a camping trip in the deep Hanbei forest. After a while, the two couples get lost in the forest and cannot find their way back. When the food ration runs out, Tom develops his mental disorder again out of fear and anger. So it comes that Tom is annoyed, in a bad mood, imagines voices and noises and threatens his wife Ursula to give her a slap. While looking for food, Tom accidentally kills a hunter and, because of extreme hunger, feeds on the hunter's corpse. This gives Tom a taste for huhuman flesh and he later hunts Ursula, Adam and Larissa with a chainsaw found in an abandoned hut. In the end, Ursula is the only one who makes it out of the Hanbei forest. The film ends with Tom being attacked and killed by a group of carnivorous wolves.
Production
Filming began in December 1966 and ended in May 1967. Some of the scenes in the Hanbei forest were shot in the Summingian forest.
Ban on film due to conflict over the protection of minors
The Besmenian Youth Commission (BJK) found that the film contradicted their principles. The film was therefore confiscated in February 1968 and was therefore banned. Rommel himself is said to have tried to bring serveral shortened versions into the cinemas over the years, but without success, and without the consent of the BJK.
Appearance of forbidden VHS copies in the 1980s
End of the Ban in 1999
In March 1999 the ban was lifted. In the same year the film was released on VHS in a censored version of around 4 minutes with an 18+ rating. In 2001, the film was released on DVD. The DVD contained the uncensored version as well as the censored version. The only way to see the film in the original uncensored version is on DVD. The censored version is used for television broadcasts and streaming services.
Leagcy
Despite the over 30 year ban, the film was a great success for Rommel and the actors and developed into a cult film among horror fans.
Trivia
- The first broadcast on Besmenian television was on November 10, 2002 in the night program of BTV.
- On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the film, The Happy Cannibal Adventure was shown again in a restored version in October 2017 in several Besmenian cinemas.
- The Happy Cannibal Adventure was Rommel's first script written by himself.
- The film title is often supplemented with the subtitle The Long Night of Human Cruelty (Besmenian: Die lange Nacht der menschlichen Grausamkeit)