Brutes and Savages | 1978 | USA | Arthur Davies

From Derann Video who were already in trouble for their releases of Mardi Gras Massacre and Deep River Savages, Brutes and Savages is the only other mondo film to be caught up in the DPP’s crusade against violent videos. Much more of a traditional mondo compared to the death-centric Faces of Death, this film follows a narrator (British actor Richard Johnson) as he follows the supposed ‘real’ documentarian efforts of Arthur Davies, who travels worldwide to study various indiginous tribes, cultural behaviours, sacrificial rituals and modern exploitative practices such as the drug trade. Whilst most of the film is obviously simulated, such as the gaudily-dressed Arthur Davies himself and a plastic crocodile attacking a native, the inclusion of real animal slaughter involving a turtle and a llama would have automatically had this release consigned to video nastydom.