Ultimo mondo cannibale A.K.A. Last Cannibal World, Cannibal, Jungle Holocaust (1977)

An Italian horror adventure directed by Ruggero Deodato.
Oil prospectors land a plane in South America to find the team who are supposed to meet them have been killed. One of them is captured by a native tribe and escapes with a woman.
I can see the roots of Cannibal Holocaust forming in this film. The hour and 26 minutes went by quickly with lots of action and quick editing pace. There were some areas of the plot that were vague or important information in "blink and you miss it" sections. The B-roll also got out of control a few times. The characters were not deeply developed and did not have extensive back-stories, but that is not what this film was made for. The sparse dialogue seemed fine to me and the acting was done well. I think that the acting of fear and pain came through realistically. The sets or location looked like a real jungle with caves to my eyes and there was a definite lack of costumes. Most folks were naked. Visually, the film resides between Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust. Ferox was lo-fi and Holocaust was HD, with this somewhere in the middle. What some may see as special effects in this turned out to be real. Yes, those are actual animals being mutilated. The audio was all extremely loud. Animal sounds and pre-Cannibal Holocaust Umbaldo Continello (not Riz Ortolani) music will let you know for sure what Ruggero made 3 years later. Stylistically, I would lump this in with Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox in the "good cannibal films" group just for shock value alone. IMDB has this rated at 6.2/10, AllMovie has 1/5 AllMovie rating with 3.5/5 user ratings and Rotten Tomatoes has a 52% audience score for a 51% average. Apparently, not everyone sees the merit of shock value. I rate this good because I do see that merit.

The Barbarians (1987)

An Italian American fantasy adventure directed by Ruggero Deodato, starring Peter and David Paul and Michael Berryman.
A pair of orphaned brothers are captured from a troupe of entertainers by an evil king. They are raised in a prison/work camp to be strong and hate the guards who torment them in masks. Eventually they are caused to fight each other by wearing the masks. They realize the trick, escape and must rescue the entire society of previous entertainers.
This was pretty cheesy. The plot drew a lot form Conan the Barbarian (1982) in the way that the brothers were raised in captivity by their enemy and become strong warriors. The characters were shallow, but the brothers were developed relatively well. We see their trials and tribulations with concise narration. These actors were clearly the main focus of the film and they played side-by-side in every other film they were in as well. They had a running gag of wanting the prop the other was holding and then changing their mind: "I like this one more". Just by faces, they both looked like Brendan Fraser to me. The video looked more '60s than '80s for the amount of grit, blur and over-saturation. It all looked like it came off pretty easily and casually. Nothing looked forced or unnatural. When the brothers kill the dragon was a classic scene that must be viewed to be appreciated. The audio had audible dialogue, heavy narration and an appropriately Conan-esque soundtrack. There was also some '80s pop-rock music. Overall, this is good for low-thought entertainment. I rate it adequate because I like the genre and year.