Karamoja (1954) User Reviews

Early Mondo

[haildevilman · 5/10 · 20 June 2006]

A real vacation travelogue later gets entered into the 'Mondo Cane' clone sweepstakes.

Most of the scenes here pre-dated Mondo Magic for their grossness. I found a lot of this hard to watch. And remember, this was vintage early 50's.

The rites and rituals were actually real. But I wondered if the good dentist passed some loot around to give him a front row filming. It didn't seem too staged, but the camera work was a little TOO perfect.

One tends to find this one buried with the Faces Of Death and Mondo copies in a large video warehouse. It's worth a check, but don't pay too much.

An early MONDO attempt

[rattman_3 · 19 March 2003]

Lets go back in time... Back to the days of milk and cookies and an abundance of Mondo films. This movie "Karamoja" is an early attempt to get "Schock value" from the audience. While this film presents its information with more of a plot it still seems like its missing something.

***SPOILERS AHEAD****

This tape claims to contain actual events shown in graphic detail although I have my doubts about one or two of the scenes. Starting out with a dentist explaining:

"It was the promise of death that brought me here, to a land where the promise of death lurked everywhere"

Lets just say the movie goes downhill from there. It seemed to me like the producers wanted a "shock mondo" film....but also wanted a "Hollywood Favorite" which if you have EVER seen a mondo movie, you know the two cannot coexist.

Thats not the say the movie is G rated of course, it does have some really good highlights, like uncut Body Piercing and Tattoo Cutting right in the skin. We also see the people chop, eat, and skin various animals (Anyone want some KFC?). The narration at times is a little dull although he explains alot of the scenes (something TRACES OF DEATH is missing).

What is strange about Karamoja! that most movies lack is that Karamoja! sets out to be a documentary of how these people really live. It doesnt present its material as only being "SHOCKING". I must say that I did learn alot about the way ancient cultures lived.

The problem arises because the 63 minute tape has too much "Filler" time, which means some scenes are 15-20 minutes of them dancing or just standing around talking in Karamojian (subtitles would have helped a little).

This movies claim to fame is the "Front Teeth Extracted without Anesthetics" which was a shocking scene. If the movie ended there it would have been fine.

Overall I give Karamoja! a *****(5) out of 10 stars, while shocking me a little it just misses the point. Its still worth checking out and can be bought in bundle packs with "MONDO CANE"

African adventure...MONDO style

[sick_boy420xxx · 12 June 2001]

An American dentist on an African tour films this interesting documentary that acts as a view into the life of the primitive cultures of people living there. As with most mondo films, there is some potentially graphic and violent footage, making this one not for the weak of heart. Overall, the effect here is not purely exploitation, and the film is actually quite revealing and at times educational, as a true documentary should be. Definitely worth a look if you are interested in this type of thing...one of the best of these types of films.