PopSyndicate.com

Everything you love about Joe D’Amato but a lot less.

When you see the name Joe D’Amato as director on a film, you set expectations either really high or really low depending on how you view his work.  Fans of his films know that you’ll probably see something disturbing and probably illegal in most countries.  Detractors of his work feel the same way.  His films are usually filled with lots of skin and gore.  Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals or Caribbean Papaya (according to the title card) is filled with the prerequisite skin but lacks the cannibals aspects of the title.

Papaya opens with promise of being interesting but quickly amounts to very little.  The film begins with Papaya (Melissa Chimenti) wondering topless down the beach and into a hut where she starts rolling around with a random guy before she bites his penis off and then has the hut burned down. It goes downhill from there.  From there we’re introduced to Sara (sexy Finnish actress Sirpa Lane) attending a real cockfight (relax, it doesn’t show the birds killing each other) where Vincent (Maurice Poli) meets her.  The two scamper off and have sex then go for drive followed for some reason by Papaya and her two cohorts. 

The majority of the film has Vincent, Sara and Papaya explore the island and each other.  There is something to do with a power plant and people trying to stop it.  The plot matters little as D’Amato clearly doesn’t care about it.  Nothing much happens until half way through the film when Vincent and Sara wonder into a slum and discover a nude disco orgy that caps the high point of the film.  Complete with butchered hogs, a man biting a human heart (the sole bit of cannibalism in the film) and lots of nude people dancing about, from there you can pretty much turn the movie off as the last half of the film is a repeat of what you’ve already seen. 

D’Amato does a good job with the photography and shows the islands beauty and gets out of the touristy places.  Papaya is a series of soft core sex scenes strung together with a thread bare plot.  This is a very minor effort from the director and if you’re a completist you’ll want to pick this up.  There is a theatrical trailer included and pretty much shows all the highlights from the film.  D’Amato has released kinkier, stranger and more graphic films and genre fans will be bored with this release.

2