Caribbean Papaya

Exploitation icon Joe D’Amato made nearly 200 films in his career. Despite his prolific output, Caribbean Papaya is the first of D’Amato’s films I’ve seen. It’s not a good entry point. This is a lesser entry in the D’Amato canon. Made just after his success with the Black Emanuelle series, Caribbean Papaya feels like he’s ripping himself off. There are two notably extreme scenes in the film. But despite these scenes, my overall experience with Caribbean Papaya was one of boredom. Where’s the passion, Joe?

The first 15 minutes of Caribbean Papaya set my expectations too high. The film starts with the titular Papaya fondling herself on a beach. Then, we see her take a man back to her beach hut. They get a bit sexy with a piece of fruit for a minute. But then, Papaya bites his dick off! We then cut to a scene of cock fighting. Which was probably real. So right off the bat we’ve got violence, sexuality and animal cruelty. The exploitation film triple crown!

That energy sadly doesn’t extend through the whole movie. We get a lot of plot filler about journalist Sara and her boyfriend, Vincent. Vincent is part of a team who are unhousing the indigenous population to make room for a nuclear power plant. The couple meet Papaya and follow her to a festival. Delving deeper, Sara and Vincent encounter the second notable scene in the film. Following this brush with cannibalistic ritual, the couple are casually kidnapped. Sara wants to leave, but Vincent is too taken in by Papaya’s wiles to consider his own safety.

There is little lesbian content until the last minutes of the film. Up until then, all we get is some very impractical threesome bathtub foreplay between Vincent, Sara and Papaya. But just as I was ready to write this movie off as “not gay enough,” we get two lesbian scenes for the price of one. Papaya seduces Sara and they writhe around in a bed. But Sara is also fantasizing about frolicking and fondling Papaya on a beach. Unlike Papaya’s previous seductions, this one doesn’t end in Sara’s death or genital trauma. In fact, the film ends with Papaya and Sara driving off together. Of all the films to get a happy, lesbian ending, I sure wasn’t expecting Caribbean Papaya to have one. Good job, ladies! Hope you have a happy life defending Papaya’s culture by seducing and killing men together.

I don’t even know if Caribbean Papaya counts as a horror movie. Very little scary shit happens in it. There’s truly only two notable scenes. The first is in the opening, when Papaya bites a guy’s dick off. That’s definitely horrific. The second is when Sara and Vincent view a ritual. The ritual involves first, the disembowelling of a pig. This is 70’s exploitation so you can be sure that’s a real dead pig they used. This then leads to a human sacrifice and the consumption of the sacrifice’s heart. Okay, that’s pretty extreme. But the last part of the ritual is a lengthy naked dance sequence. The music can only be described as funky. As extreme as the scene began, it just ends sort of silly. And that’s really it for things in the film that could be considered horror.

Cannibal Holocaust was one of the first exploitation films I ever watched. It set the bar way too high. Cannibal Holocaust is actually a good horror movie with a focused critique of colonialism. Caribbean Papaya also tries to make commentary. It’s less successful. But, I give them points for trying. On the one hand, Papaya’s indigenous culture is othered and fetishized. The culture also engages in casual human sacrifice and light cannibalism. But problematic as this indigenous depiction is, the film still wants you to be on their side. Vincent is definitely the least likeable character in the film. You’re definitely not supposed to agree with his views on how he treats this island and its residents. The film seems to want to say that colonial influences are bad and to leave the indigenous population alone. But, it’s still an exploitation film so that commentary isn’t exactly the first priority.

An alternate title for Caribbean Papaya is, “Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals”. That title promises way more than the film delivers. There is very little cannibalism here! There’s very little of much note, really. There’s exactly two extreme scenes, some sexy scenes and a whole lot of filler. Sadly, it’s the filler I remember most. I can’t believe I’m saying this about a film that had a human sacrifice that descended into funky naked dancing, but Caribbean Papaya is pretty boring. I’ve seen better made films and I’ve seen more extreme films. Joe D’Amato has certainly made films better or more extreme than this. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go figure out which of his films those are.

Overall rating: 3.4/10

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