Mondo movie madness

One hell of a topic!

by Christer Persson

Why does people wanna see real accidents, suicides, murders, mutilations, explotions, war atrocitys and naked flesh? I don´t have the answer, I just know that the subject of death and gruesome images has an impact on a lot of people. In public most people will say that they don´t watch that kind of "sick stuff", but if there wasn´t a demand after it, the films wouldn´t be produced. Just the same as people don´t want to admit in public that they watch porn, listen to Elton John, read poetry or really thinks that George Bush jr is one of the most capable presidents ever! The same is with this kind of movies. Many have seen at least one, but no one admits that they like it.

My reason to watch and write about these kind of movies is honest and simple. I´ve been a horrorbuff since childhood and in the eightees and early nightees I swapped crappy VHS-copies of splattermovies with a lot of people. One thing accured to me after a while. Each and every videolist I read from other swappers had their share of zombies, cannibals, monsters and the notorious Faces of Death. The most intriging thing about horrormovies for me (apart from hopefully being scared) was to admire the workmanship of the cameraman, director and foremost the F/X crew. So I kept clear of the mondomovies for years. Why watch the real thing? Later in life studying film at the local university I wrote an essey about one of my favoritemovies Cannibal Holocaust, in wich ways Ruggero Deodato mastery used different technicues to lure the audience to belive that the "film within the film" was real. After that essey I decided to focus on on mondomovies. The process of making the essay wasn´t easy, and I really challenged myself many times to watch some of the footage that appeared in the films I saw. Of course, a lot of the footage fake, but for every fake scene there is at least two real.

The subject matter of mondofilms may vary, from third world atrocitys, war footage, accidental footage of accidents, strange rites and of course a lot of nudity! From the innocent Mondo Cane via the awsame Mondo Topless to the grim Death Scenes, the mondomovies never ceaes to entertain, frighten and slap the viewer right in the face. From a personal standpoint, I rather be slapped in face by a pair of tits than an axe. But that´s just the kind of guy I am!

It´s been a while since I did stuff like this and the majority of the material of this page consits of old stuff. Being halfway to hell (I´m 35 years old) I still love movies and think that some of the things I´ve learnt thoughout the years very well might interest someone. I attended the university for 3 semesters and did learn much about film that really wasn´t interresting, and I also got to understand that every movie, even (place the worst film you ever saw here!) deserves the time to look at. Even though you might not see it, every film really has a lot of work behind it. Even though the guys behind the Bangbus-series may not spend as much money on F/X as George Lucas did in his "whats-their-name-now-again?" spacemovies, you can bet that they spend a lot of time to chase down girls and to make everything look "real". But both the spacemovies and the Bangbus movies are just real as the alligatorattack in Faces of Death. So, how does a filmmaker make you belive that their vision is something to be belived? That´s one of the things that interesed me back at the university, and though you might not belive it, books really are a god source to knowledge! Or, perhaps, you can take the time and read some of the stuff here! You never know, you might read something you like!