Margit Evelyn Newton in Hell of the Living Dead

Just because a movie has a beautiful woman in a grass thong, topless and barefoot in the jungle, doesn't mean it's a jungle girl movie.

Margit Evelyn Newton

as

Lia Rousseau

     So, your searching through the internet, looking for stuff about jungle girls and jungle women. Don't worry I wont judge you. I do it myself all the time. Maybe you even use the keywords grass skirt or grass bikini and you come across the picture below. Looks interesting, it's a topless woman in a grass skirt running in front of a jeep. Must be a jungle girl movie, right? Wrong, It's not. The movie in question is called Hell of The Living Dead or it might not be. I'll explain later.

   
     Hell of the Living Dead is a 1980s italian cannibal/zombie horror movie. 1980s italian cannibal/zombie horror movies have a few things in come. At least the ones that I have seen. They are all really bloody and really gory. In fact this one is eye poppingly gory. They also use a lot of stock footage of real animals being hunted and killed. You can tell when it is stock footage because the picture quality goes way down.

     The movie starts off with a chemical leak in a factory in Papua New Guinea. A swat team is sent to find out what happened at the factory. Along the way, they come across journalist Lia Rousseau and her camerman boyfriend, who's group has just been attacked by zombies. Rousseau and her boyfriend travel with the swat team. The group realises that the road there on goes through a native village that isn't exactly friendly. But, it's OK because Rousseau lived with them for a year (I really wish they would have made this backstory as it's own movie) and will go ahead and get permission for the rest of the group to enter the village.
     Wearing only grease paint and a bikini thong made of leaves and grass, Rousseau enters the village and talks to either the chief or the medicine man. They never say which. After an hour the swat team enters the village and Rousseau tells them that the village has been infected. And then it's night time and a fully clothed Rousseau and the swat team are partying with natives.

 
     Unfortunatetly, this sequence is the very difinition of gratuitous. Oddly, I don't think this sequence was used in the marketing of the movie. Although full disclousre, it is why I bought the DVD.
     The DVD and blu-ray call this movie Hell of The Living Dead. However, it looks like it was orginally released in Italy as Virus. It was also called Apocalipsis Canibal, Night of the Zombies and Zombie Creeping Flesh.
     Speaking of the DVD, on the DVD the squence starts at chapter 11 Grease Paint and Grass Skirt.
     Speaking of the movie, it's not considered one of the best movies in the itaian cannibal/zombie genre. Also, every lira the production spent is seen on film. Both of them.

     The Blu-ray of Hell of The Living Dead also comes with a horror movie called Rats. Both were directed by Bruno Mattei. Definitely get the blu-ray version. The picture quality is vastly superior to the DVD.

Rousseau goes topless, wearing only a thong bikini bottom made from leaves and grass. She also wears grease paint and yes, she goes barefoot in the jungle.

Title: Hell of the Living Dead

Year: 1980

Name: Lia Rousseau

Actress: Margit Evelyn Newton

Age of Actress: 18

Etthnicity/Nationality: White - Itailian

Hair Color: Brown - curly

Hair Length: goes just below her shoulders

Nudity: Topless

Category: Other

Location: Papua New Guinea

Start of segment: 36:48

Length of segment: 7 minutes 12 secounds

Movie Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

Media: Movie

Country: Italy

Available on: DVD - Blue-Ray

Valerie Greybe in Cavegirl

The prehistoric woman who thought Cindy Ann Thompson's Eba was so yummy, she wanted to have Eba, and her tribe, over for dinner.

Valerie Greybe

as

Attila

     Previously I wrote about Eba played by Cindy Ann Thompson in Cavegirl but there are also three other women in the movie. In some future post I will write about the other two women in Eba's tribe. This post will be about the bad guy, or I should say bad girl, of the movie. Towards the end of the movie a tribe of cannibals captures Eba's tribe. I call them a tribe but there are only two of them so technically it's a couple and the woman bosses the guy around, so their probably a married couple. Long story short, they get chased away. (For a slightly longer description of the plot, check out the post about Cindy Ann Thompson.)

     Of course it goes without saying that she dosen't do to much in the movie. She only has about two minutes of screen time and only appears at the 1 hour 6 minute mark. Although the actress must have some fire eating training because she does this to scare and intimidate her captives.

     Attila wears a brown sleeveless fur vest and a grey fur wrap around her left wrist. A brown fur loincloth that is shaped like a V that ends just above her knees. She also wears brown fur shoes.

Title: Cavegirl
Year: 1985
Name: Attila
Actress: Valerie Greybe
Age of actress: ?
Ethnicity - Nationality: ? - American?
Language speaks: native language
Hair color: Black with brown high lights
Hair length: Just above her armpits
Nudity: No
Category: Cavewoman
Location: Prehistoric California
First seen on screen: 1 hour 6 minute mark
Screen time: 2 minutes
Movie length: 1 hour 21 minutes
Media: Movie
Country: USA
Available on: VHS - DVD

Screen caps are from the DVD.

Cindy Ann Thompson in Cavegirl

Cindy Ann Thompson

as

Eba

During a high school field trip to an old abandoned mine that prehistoric cave paintings have been found in,  Rex, the class nerd, accidentally gets transported to prehistoric California. He immediately meets the lovely cavegirl, Eba. Eba clearly is attracted to Rex but the rest of the tribe is leery and treats him with little rspect. Rex spends his time teaching Eba english and also trying to have sex with her. Although, not in that order. Rex also studies Eba's tribe in order to write a book about them. His motives are more for his own personal gain of fame and fortune rather than for actual academic reasons. One day Rex and Eba get seperated. While looking for Eba, Rex realizes that not only is he physically attracted to Eba (who can blame him) but that he loves her too. He eventually finds her. Unfortunately, a nearby tribe of cannibals find her first. Using the last of his equipment, Rex is able to muster up his courage and scare the cannibals away, freeing Eba and her tribe. Eba’s tribe now respects Rex. Rex finds the cave that sent him to the prehistoric past and goes back home. Realizing that there was nothing for him in his own time, Rex decides to go back to Eba in the past.

The humor in Cavegirl is like all teen comedys in the 1980s. Low brow. Think Revenge of the Nerds or Porky's. There is a running gag in the movie. Rex keeps trying to teach Eba to say "Can I sit on your face?". Only in a 80s teen comedy could the "good guy" try to teach a woman to say that. However, it doesn't look like Rex ever tries to teach her what that means or even demostartes how to do it. Eba does however seem to realize that it must be something sexual. But, that might be giving the movie to much credit.

Cavegirl is one of my favorite cavegirl movies for one simple reason, Cindy Ann Thompson. She has such a cute face with such a cute smile. And she looks good in a fur outfit. She is in a lot of the movie but her part is pretty much there just for the character of Rex to play off of.

Sadly, Cindy Ann Thompson died in 2009. She was only 50.

     Eba has shoulder length curly blond hair. She wears a two piece outfit. The top piece is a fur bikini top. The bottom piece is a ragged fur bikini bottom with a longer piece in the front. She goes barefoot the whole movie.

Movie: Cavegirl

Year: 1985

Name: Eba

Actress: Cindy Ann Thompson (also went by Cynthia Thompson)

Age: 26

Ethicity/ Nationality: White - American

Language Speaks: native language - learns english

Hair Color: Blond

Hair Length: just above her shoulders

Footwear: barefoot

Nudity: yes (2 brief scenes)

Category: cavewoman

Location: prehistoric California

First Appears: 22:38 into the movie

Total Screen Time: about 27 minutes

Length of Movie: 1:21:00

Media: movie

Country: USA

Avaible: VHS - DVD

All images are screen caps from the DVD.

Poppy Mehendra in Papillon

Poppy Mehendra

as

Zoraima

In my last blog entry I talked about Ratna Assan in Papillon, the 1973 movie starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Huffman. Considered one of McQueen's best films. Researching the film online (OK I confess, I was looking for more picture of Ratna Assan from the movie), I discovered that there was a remake in 2017. Well, technically not a remake, just another adaptation of the book. This one starred Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) and Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody). Fine actors but I was more concerned with who played Zoraima.

So, I got the DVD from the library and watched it. You know how people say that they don't make movies like they used to. Well, they're talking about this one. Sure it looks like it has a bigger budget but it looks like a movie. I very glossy movie. The original one has a certain realistic grittiness to it. You get a real since that McQueen's Papillon is surviving on pure determination. Hunnam's Papillon is surviving because he is the star of the movie.

But lets get to the important part. Poppy Mehendra as Zoraima. Take a look at the picture at the top of this post. The length of time that you will look at that picture is the same length of time Mehendra is in the movie. In fact the picture is a screen capture of the scene. Towards the end of the movie Papillon wakes up and she is standing over him. For about 5, maybe 10 seconds, she just stands there.  And that is it. That's all she does.

Now i'm not an expert in South American native wear but oddly Zoraima's costume, not that we see get to see much of it, does seem to be more accurate than in the original film.

Also, i'm not sure what the actress' correct name is. In the credits she is billed as Poppy Mehendra. IMDB lists her as Poppy Mahendra.

Images are screen caps from the DVD of Papillon (2017).