Consciousness Stream - Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death

With a title like Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, there's no way this movie can be good! And no, I didn't leave an "'t" off there. Let's put on our peril-sensitive sunglasses and begin I guess.

"Cult Video Feature Presentation. Guacamole Films." Yup. "and Bill Maher as Jim." I can see how being in a movie called Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death can lead directly to one being famous for not believing in god, yeah. OK, we're starting for real now, and we have two guys in a Raiders of the Lost Ark type opening finding a single avocado hanging off a branch, which they have apparently been searching for. They then proceed to a waterfall, and boobs. OK, 2 topless girls frolicking about and we're only what? 1 minute in? Seriously, they're bathing in a waterfall and tossing a beach ball around. Guy A waves, suddenly we have 3 fully clothed amazons unconvincingly firing arrows into his heart. Guy B runs, straight into a snare trap that goes "Boing!" He is surrounded and we abruptly cut away to a feminist college professor talking to an amazingly pink-clad girl and- wait what?

Was this guy seriously introduced as being from the "National Security Commission- Avocado Affairs" here? I realize it's in the title, but this is seriously our plot here? Let me see if I can bring myself to summarize this. The entire U.S. supply of avocados comes from a dense impenetrable jungle in southern California, which is home to a radical feminist commune who, when men venture in to gather avocados, sleep with them, cut them into strips of jerky, and eat them with guacamole. The military is unable to do anything about this because their modern high tech weapons are no use against their knives and spears. So Dr. Hunt here (our feminist professor) has to go in and negotiate with them. This movie actually exists. This is actually the plot. In context it's even cheesier than I am making it out to be. This is amazing. It's like this movie exists solely so someone like me can do something like this with it. Why am I doing this again?

So anyway, Pink girl is named Bunny and insists on coming along on this dangerous expedition. Dr. Hunt goes to the college's teaching supplies depo and requisitions several legal pads, dictaphone cassettes, and rounds of ammunition, along with other stuff, but those are the main gags. So they drive, via Indiana Jones line from Malibu or so, to San Bernadino, to find a mercenary to guide them through the jungle. This movie actually exists! "I'm from the Department of Feminist Studies at Spitzer College! I'm searching for a mercenary for a highly dangerous job!" Volunteer 1 is essentially Rambo. Volunteer 2 is a ninja. Volunteer 3 is a big bald musclebound freak in a black mask who can bend iron rods and take bites out of them. Upon hearing that the mission is to make contact with the Pirana Women of the Avocado Jungle (of Death), they all make up pathetic excuses and run. Dear gods! So then Bill Maher dressed as Indiana Jones steps out from the shadows and gives an amazingly stupid speech. Turns out they used to date. Dr. Hunt and Bill Maher that is, not the cartoonish mercenaries. Ah, correction, they had a single one-night stand and he's overly dramatic. You know, this movie is more intentionally stupid than The Toxic Avenger. It's a lot more watchable, but still, this is an astounding level of intentional stupidity here.

So yeah. They head out. Bill Maher is incompetent. This is firmly established. More cheesy feminist rambling. Bunny is an idiot. This is even more firmly established. So Bill and Dr. are just shouting names back and forth, and I'm just going to let you know if the bad feminist vs. non-feminist talk ever stops. It should also be noted how the jungle here totally does not come across at all like a jungle. It's a bright sunny field with some trees and an arbitrary leopard. So anyway, there's a river they're going to follow which should be 23 miles that way, which Bill immediately falls into when stepping away. Of course. So anyway, they find the wreckage of a boat. Here's another of Bill's stories ending with "After that I crawled into a whiskey bottle and never looked back." That's like, #3 or 4 of those since he's shown up. Incidentally, much like Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity, by these same people, we have a constant unending stream of astoundingly stupid dialog which has me tempted to just transcribe the whole script. Also, our heroes, while piloting their newfound boat down the river, are attacked by a deadly offscreen hippo, which they unceremoniously shoot. Then there's some movement in the trees, as the amazons, or someone else, start attacking them by throwing hand-knit doilies and pot-holders. Again, every word of what I'm writing is absolutely true.

Oh dear gods. Apparently, the jungle is also home to a bunch of primitive male dorks, who make handy crafts, cook fancy cuisine, and speak only in names of celebrities, and are thus left alone by the Pirana Women. You'd think they would be flamboyantly gay on top of all that, but no. They're just wimpy dorks. Bill decides to sew rebellion into them by having them all chug cans of beer he brought with him. Cue 2001 music. Seriously. They toss empty cans up in slow motion and everything. Also, I can't get over their incredibly elaborate and just plain weird hats. Anyway, this works, Bill passes out, the crowd advances on Bunny phonetically quoting bad pickup lines, before Dr. Hunt scares them off with her gun. Anyway, next day, moving on.

Eventually, their motor jams and they're forced to pull the boat around, through waters infested with, GASP! Catfish! Yeah. OK, we end up in another dialog scene here. Later, while sitting around eating Fritos with guacamole, Dr. Hunt begins to ponder cannibalism. Of course. This triggers more dialog. Unable to tolerate dialog, Dr. Hunt starts chasing Bill around with a knife briefly. You may have noticed I never mention anything Bunny is doing. The answer is always sitting there being incredibly stupid and pink. Anyway, they finally find the Pirana Women, who speak "a strange difficult to understand language" (which is French). They take our heroes to their home in, a uh, big cubist-greek art museum type place. Anyway, it turns out that Dr. Kurtz (meaningful name) the previous Feminist Professor sent in (did I forget to mention that plot point?) who is played by Adrienne Barbeau, who is really famous for uh... something. Oh right, being in a huge number of cheesy movies! Anyway, yeah, as should be obvious from having the last name Kurtz, upon meeting them, they make her their new leader.

So Bill gets dragged off to be marinated, Dr. Hunt pulls her gun out "Go ahead! Fire on another feminist! Fire on another anthropologist!" and she surrenders. Of course. As everyone gets dragged off in various directions Bill shouts out to Bunny "Don't worry! You'll save me!" OK, incredibly stupid movie or not, that's a pretty funny line. Anyway, as a loyalty test, Dr. Hunt and Bunny have to sacrifice one of their slave men the next day. Specifically the men bringing them food. "This is good, what is it?" "Jaques." The next day Dr. Hunt is outfitted in jungle garb (Glistening Chests page 59, but green), and asked to sleep with and kill her random slave guy, Jeanne-Pierre. She refuses to kill him, "I'm fine with sleeping with him though!" but is told it has to be both. Around now Bunny volunteers to join their tribe because "I want one of those cute outfits!" She's told she has to sleep with kill and eat Bill to join, "OK! I've done worse at frat parties!" Anyway, we transition into a full-blown ultra-cheesy "wow this bath water smells great! You could probably use it for soup stock!" sorta deal with Bill. Wow.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hunt flees, and encounters the Barracuda Women, sworn enemies of the Pirana Women! They are horrified at how the Pirana Women kill men and eat them with guacamole. They should be eaten with clam dip! Dr. Hunt is horrified to hear this. There's no reason such a trivial difference should cause such derision! So she starts yammering diplomatic advice on how they should come to a compromise on the subject. Also they sneak into the Pirana Women's art museum to, I guess, rescue the idiots. Meanwhile: "Oh my god! The strange elixir of the Pirana Women has changed the color of your eyes!" "No, these are just contacts." Anyway, Bunny has last minute second thoughts about killing Bill, causing Empress Kurtz to just kinda roll her eyes.

Then Dr. Hunt bursts in and challenges Kurtz to a battle for leadership of the tribe. "That is your right." And... they start having the worst choreographed duel scene from anything ever, while exchanging some more dialog, which, again, is hilariously stupid. Halfway through this Dr. Kurtz accidentally walks into Dr. Hunt's sword, fatally stabbing herself through the stomach. I really do mean halfway through this too. She continues to go on for a really really long time explaining what her evil plan was (to write a book about her experiences leading the Pirana Women and promote it on the talk show circuit). Anyway, after finishing her long speech, she rolls into the pirana pit they were fighting next to.

So, Dr. Hunt now in charge, she delivers a speech to the assembled cannibals on how, as Omnipotus would say, maybe not eating people is the first step towards making friends! They go home, Dr. Hunt scares off the Government Dudes intimidating the college to get her to take this mission by, essentially, threatening to explain how stupid the plot of this movie is to the media. Meanwhile Bill and Bunny go off and get married, and Jean-Pierre enrolls in a bunch of feminist classes at the college. And... it's over.

OK, not sure where to rank this one relative to Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity there. On the one hand, the only thing objectionable for reasons beyond being REALLY stupid was the brief gratuitous toplessness a minute in, and we have like, actual talented actors (at least, relatively speaking), and even a semi-coherent plot. On the other hand, we have absolutely no undead orcish cyborgs at all. That's a pretty big mark against it right there. Also, this is one of those movies with the really special DVD menus. "Special Features, Avocados, Scenes, Play Movie." What does Avocados do? Why, it slowly fills the entire screen with avocados of course! So yeah. This thing actually did a really good job of being an intentionally so-bad-it's-good sort of movie, but I really can't encourage that sort of thing. Honestly, even if you're good at it, doing something like this is never going to turn out as funny as trying to actually make a good movie and failing miserably ... says the person who created an RPG that's all about intentionally doing stuff as cheesy as this. OK, fine, but at least I went with a different medium.


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