LIVE FROM THE COUCH / Greg Walton

MEAT GROUP

Joe D’Amato’s Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals is more of a sausage fest.

Not that the world couldn’t use another scathing expose on the dangers of nuclear power in third world countries—you just wouldn’t expect it to come under the title Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals (Severin Film, 89 minutes). And certainly not from Joe D’Amato, a director whose previous career highlight involved a woman jacking off a Clydsedale. But this 1978 skin flick gets so sidetracked on social issues and island politics that it forgets to deliver on the title’s promise of death and debauchery. Things start promisingly enough with some foreplay involving the aforementioned tropical fruit and a surprise castration, but our guide through the overly plotted story, Sirpa Lane (infamous for her own animal act in Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast), is far from masturbatory material. Co-star “Melissa” spends most of the film topless, but her sex scenes are such a timid touch ‘n grope act that the occasional flash of full frontal male nudity is actually a welcome break in the monotony. In the plus column, D’Amato composes some classy shots and the editing is intermittently inspired. That’s still not enough to make Papaya worth watching, but composer Stelvio Cipriani funktastic score makes the whole thing worth listening to, anyway.

Straight outta the third most dangerous city in America—Saginaw, Michigan—Greg Walton writes from a basement bunker. His only window to the outside world is a sweet surround sound set-up and 65" inches of hi-def glory.