Dr. Margo Hunt (Shannon Tweed) is a professor of feminist studies at Spritzer College. She is approached by Ford Maddox (Barry Primus) from the Department of Agriculture and Colonel Mattel (Paul Ross) from the National Security Commission of Avocado Affairs. Maddox explains that 98% of the avocados produced in the United States come from a jungle area of California called the Avocado Jungle. The jungle spreads from Bakersfield, California to the Mexican border. Colonel Mattel says that avocados are vital to the nation’s security interests. The communists control the avocados grown in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. The California avocados are the last grown in the free world.
The California avocados are only harvested from the perimeter of the jungle. The interior of the jungle is wild and uncharted. Anyone who ventures too close to the interior of the jungle never returns. According to legend the interior is ruled by a tribe of jungle women known as the Piranha Women. The Piranha Women are an ancient tribe of feminist women that have sex with their men, kill them and eat them with guacamole. Any soldiers the government sends into the jungle never return. The only thing found are their dog tags, covered in guacamole. The government wants to send Dr. Hunt to try to negotiate with the Piranha Women. They want to move the tribe to a reservation in Malibu. Margo refuses to take the assignment until Dean Stockwell (James MacKrell) convinces her.
Margo takes with her a young airhead student named Bunny (Karen M. Waldron). She then hires a male chauvinist guide named Jim (Bill Maher). Deep in the jungle they first come across a tribe of subservient men called the Donnahew tribe. They then meet some women from the Piranha tribe and are taken to see their empress. The empress of the tribe is Dr. Kurtz (Adrienne Barbeau). Kurtz was a radical feminist and former colleague of Margo’s who disappeared in the jungle. Margo has her work cut out for her when Bunny decides to become part of the tribe and is given the job of sacrificing Jim and eating him. Then Margo learns that the government’s secret agenda is to tame the Piranha Women by means of Cultural assimilation.
“Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death” was released in 1989 and was written and directed by J.F. Lawton. It is an action-adventure comedy satire and a jungle movie.
There are some amusing parts as well as parts that will just make you groan (mostly Bill Maher). It is both stupid and brilliant and appropriate even for today. Supposedly the film was inspired by Joseph Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness”. If you are looking for any of those “based on a true story” cannibal films, then you are out of luck. The title alone should give you some idea of the ridiculousness of the film. Ridiculous yes, but still basically humorous.