Kwaheri

"See: An African Witch Doctor perform Brain Surgery without Anesthetic, Drugs, or Hypnotism! See: The Burning of a Tropoki Virgin Alive in the Fires of Puberty! See: Dazzling Dwarfs who want to be Tall, Gigantic Giants who wanta be Small!" Which are just a few of the ultra-hyper ad lines — written by none other than "Mr. Showmanship" himself, exploitation king H. KROGER BABB — that lured audiences into Kwaheri. And, believe it or not, Kwaheri actually delivers on those lurid promises. Subtitled Vanishing Africa and ostensibly a documentary about the encroachment of the modern world on Africa’s most primitive cultures, Kwaheri is actually an outrageous mondo-style assault on the senses which works overtime to make audiences gasp, groan, and gag.

And it doesn’t waste time. At about six minutes into it, we’re confronted with people suffering from various disfiguring diseases including a little boy with a gigantic tumor popping out of his eye socket — a sight guaranteed to make you, your friends, families, and even small animals go running out of the room while this lovely footage plays on your TV screen.

With the soothing voice of narrator LES TREYMANE (veteran of such faves as The Angry Red Planet, The Slime People, and Larry Buchanan’s Creature of Destruction) describing scenes of animal slaughters spider who feeds on birds caught in its 30-foot web (!), the odd Okapi, and lots of native nudity (mandatory in a mondo), Kwaheri also establishes a plot of sorts in that it decides to go in search of the above-mentioned "brain surgery!" This involves a quick visit to the real-life Mr. Kwaheri, "Africa’s most famous witch doctor," who has an impressive 49 wives and 200 children, before pygmies guide us into "the land of the witch doctor" (and carry the filmmaker’s boat Fitzcarraldo-style across jungle, through a cave, and up a waterfall!) until we witness a medicine man gorily slicing open a woman’s scalp and removing a chunk of her skull as she remains conscious the whole time! Keeeee-rist!!!

Then, as a rude punchline, the film ends with a frantic "tribal orgy of mind and body" during which a virgin sacrifice is allegedly burned alive....

Producer (and Executive Producer) DAVID CHUDNOW was a music supervisor and composer (The Mad Monster) on scores of low-budget Hollywood quickies from the late 1930s through the early 1950’s.He also produced two films for H.G. Lewis (Just for the Hell of it and How to Make a Doll, both 1968) — hey, where else can you go after Kwaheri? — as well as the three "Doberman" films (The Doberman Gang, 1972, The Daring Dobermans, 1973, and The Amazing Dobermans 1976), which, all things considered, is one hell of a career curve. Digitally remastered from a 35mm print "That S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s Your Eyes!" And, please, "Tell No One What You See!"
—Handsome Harry Archer