Documentary cinematographer turned director Antonio Climati takes an enlightened trip into the GREEN INFERNO, on Blu-ray from 88 Films.

A year ago, Professor Korenz (Bruno Corazzari, THE BLACK CAT) vanished in the Amazon while searching for the Imas tribe. Having discovered evidence that suggests that he might still be alive, Reality Beyond Fact radio reporter Jemma Demien (May Deseligny) plans to set out on her own expedition to find him. Without the support of her show, she depends on medical student friend Pete (Pio Maria Federici) who secures transport from pilot Mark (Fabrizio Merlo) and his Florida Everglades tour guide buddy Fred (Marco Merlo, THE CROSS OF THE SEVEN JEWELS) who must steal Mark's plane back when the mechanical shop he works for sells it off to an architect to use as an oversized ornament for his new building. While Jemma is driven by the possibility of a journalistic scoop and Pete by the possibility of scientific discoveries, Fred and Mark learn from Pete that the Imas are believed to guard the location of the lost treasure of El Dorado. Upon arrival in Port Angel, their trip is immediately derailed by the need for a fuel supply which takes them to Don Pedro who captures and sells monkeys to an American scientific institute. A detour into the jungle to snare and trap monkeys lands them in hot water with the local tribe for whom the monkeys are their food source. They arrive at a missionary village in the aftermath of a raid by gold prospectors who have tortured and killed the men, including Matamani who knew the location of the Imas. Survivor Kawala (Jessica Quintero) offers to tell them in exchange for rescuing her sister from the prospectors, and their subsequent adventure leads to their capture by smugglers who kidnap native children for organ harvesting and then caught between an all-out war between the prospectors and the Imas.

Although known in some territories as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, THE GREEN INFERNO goes out of its way to not be an imitation of the Deodato film; indeed, it plays as a subtle indictment of the Italian cannibal films and the Mondo films from which they spawned. Cinematographer/director Antonio Climati had photographed MONDO CANE, WOMEN OF THE WORLD, AFRICA: BLOOD AND GUTS, and GOODBYE UNCLE TOM for Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi before co-directing the pair of Mondo-esque documentaries THIS VIOLENT WORLD and SWEET AND SAVAGE with editor Mario Morra, and here appears to have been very sensitive to criticisms of the Mondo films and the Deodato model for the cannibal genre. Here, the lead quartet encounters various European and non-indigenous parties exploiting the resources and even the people in the service of greed. Although the heroes help the locals for the most part, freeing a jaguar from a trap when told it holds the spirit of a recently-deceased elder, rescuing Kawala's sister as well as the children in the hands of the smugglers, it is not lost on the viewer that the main characters also engage in degrees of deception with the tribes they encounter but also effect some negative changes. It would be very easy for the film to move towards a downbeat conclusion with the embattled Imas being unable to distinguish them from the prospectors; but this is ultimately a somewhat lighter-hearted film (with a fair share of bloodshed) that is more about the journey, with one of the guys even cracking that their current predicament reminds him of ROMANCING THE STONE. None of the later cannibal films could come close to the impact of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST – including the "other" GREEN INFERNO that was more a remake of CANNIBAL FEROX – but Climati's film has other things in mind entirely.

Unreleased in the United States, GREEN INFERNO first became available in English-friendly form as a BBFC-cut DVD in the UK from Vipco followed by an uncut fullscreen transfer from Italy's NoShame featuring the English dub in mono and an Italian 5.1 track. 88 Films' all-region Blu-ray comes from a new 2K scan of the original camera negative and the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen transfer is quite attractive to behold with rich jungle greens and sky blues while detail is quite good throughout thanks to Climati's often breathtaking photography. Only three successive shots totaling five seconds appear to have been inserted from an inferior source. English and Italian LPCM 2.0 mono tracks are offered with optional English subtitles.