The Long Island Cannibal Massacre (1980) Online

After seeing Nathan Schiff's "They Don't Cut The Grass Anymore" I was looking forward to seeing this, but alas, it has none of the energy or gore of that film. The only bit I really enjoyed was at the end, when there is a chainsaw fight and then a group of girls start munching on some intestines. I actually had to watch Long Island Cannibal Massacre over the space of two nights because it was rather boring for the most part. Still, I do respect Nathan Schiff because this is so obviously a no-budget film and was never intended to be released properly.

In comparison, They Don't Cut The Grass Anymore is hilariously entertaining and has tons more gore than Long Island Cannibal Massacre. I would recommend watching that over this any day.

Nathan Schiff, along with his friends, made 4 no-budget underground gore films ranging from the late 70's to the early 90's...this being his second film. Shot on Super 8 with virtually no budget, even the music is borrowed from other films(through out the movie you'll hear music from the original Night of the Living Dead).

I find it amusing that people watch movies with titles like Long Island Cannibal Massacre, Weasels Rip My Flesh, They Don't Cut The Grass Anymore and then complain about the acting and plot(or lack there of) Seriously, why are you watching these kind of movies if that's what you're looking for? Nathan Schiff himself said that if he had had more money and better actors he wouldn't be making these kind of movies. I knew going into this that it was extremely low budget, and the point was to show gore...so I wasn't disappointed.

Cannibal Massacre is probably Schiff's best example of gore..some of the scenes are actually impressive...for instance there is a scene where a woman is disemboweled....all these scenes are shot at extreme close ups, and they linger there...and when the killer is pulling out her intestines(all the intestines used in Cannibal Massacre were real animal intestines acquired from butchers)it is quite effective and believable...another great example of well done gore effects is the chainsaw scene....(like another commenter said) the chainsaw scene was real and was very close to the actor's face...on the DVD Schiff said the only things separating the chainsaw blade and the actor was animal meat, and a kevlar vest.

The DVD release contains some interesting contents- interviews with Nathan Schiff, and two of his long time friends who have acted in his movies...also a full running commentary that I found entertaining because Schiff sounds like Jon Lovitz...I kept waiting for him to say- "That's the ticket"

If you're a fan HG Lewis, Frank Hennenlotter, Tim Ritter, Troma films then you should give Schiff a try...

The good thing About HomeMade shot-on video movies is when there bad there still worth watching like this one. About this movie wow where do i begin first a girl is hit with a pike and has her face run over with a lawn mower by a killer wearing a blue hood and goggles who is one of three cannibals. The main character starts talking to a trash bag full of cut up Bodies A zombie or (mutant leper) with a crusty brown face wanting food and eating some of the bodies in the trash bag. The movie is a mess but it's a funny mess there's lots of gore but no real violence when ever someone is cut with a knife or hit with a hammer it's not shown or cuts away. The Acting and Effects are the worst i ever seen the camera-work is terrible but it's worth a look i saw it online i don't know where to find a tape or DVD of it. We meet the Cannibals father a dark figure with a scary voice hiding in the woods that turns out to be a blue monster.

"You're mad, aren't you? You're mad because I'm alive and you're all chopped into little pieces."

A psychopathic duo mutilate and destroy victims, chopping up their bodies(..mainly the female victims)for their "boss" who needs the human flesh to feed his leprous cannibalistic father! A cop discovers a head in the sand of Long Island(..after the duo sloppily kill a victim on the beach)and after being bribed by the leprous father's son to keep what he found hush-hush, pursues the truth behind the strange situation. Missing people around Long Island, an epidemic that seems to concern the police who have encountered no leads, could sure use a detective willing to find the ones responsible.

Nathan Schiff's super 8 low budget "extravagansa" is loaded with everything a lover of bad cinema craves. I knew right from the start when I saw lines on the film stock, with the sounds of a projector running creeping into the dialogue..I believe I even heard the opening and closing of a door at one point.. with silent film scores(..even some music from old serials, haha)that I was in for a "treat." Using non-actors and home-made grue(..I believe one of the actors in an interview on the DVD said the director used turkeys)this film is bound to capture the hearts of an audience willing to embrace the cruddy visual look and home-movie aesthetic which this has. The movie is essentially a series of attacks, most of them off-screen with the viewer getting nasty aftermaths of bloody meat and torn flesh wounds. I particularly enjoyed one scene where a poor female victim gets her head smashed when the killer(wearing a pillow case on his head with goggles, haha)slams the back door of a van, re-opening it displaying smashed brains and blood splatter all over the place. And, another bit of sick humor shows the pillow-cased killer pulling a lump of flesh caught at the end of his tire-iron after bashing a victim's face in with it.

I think going into this film, we get a direct idea of what we're in for. A school girl is walking down a green forest path home, with books in tow, deciding to relax for a bit when the killer, pillow case on head/goggles across face, attacks her with a lawnmower..he opens the lawnmower bag to remove the head meat revealing her skull! And, not long after we get the beach discovery of the human head as the camera hones in on a maggot-infested eye socket. The film's sound is about as cruddy as the film stock, bringing this effort from Schiff a unique charm film cineasts might not agree with. I think, for that specific audience, this will be a gift..especially the gratuitous chainsaw attack at the end where the cannibalistic father relentlessly tears into his son's body with torn flesh, body parts, and blood ripping apart. You get the removal of a female victim's guts, and we even see the cannibalistic father's son forced into eating from a dead body. The detective, seeking the murdering duo, has sequences with his girlfriend that seem like padding to the rest of the film. He has a hilarious fight scene with the motorcycle riding psycho of the serial killing duo. There's even a "psychological twist" at the end revealing the detective that will have you howling. And, this guy doesn't die easily! And, to cap that off, female children, seemingly followers of the cannibalistic leper(..now with an appearance of a monster whose face and hands are akin to those bad creature concoctions in old-school Roger Corman productions and Grade-Z creature features which burst upon the scene back in the 50s and 60s)eats the guts of his son's mutilated corpse! Pure sick trash with an assured cult following..certainly not for all, or most, tastes.

The Long Island Cannibal Massacre is a movie in the tradition of Herschell Gordon Lewis gore masterpieces. Lots and lots of gore, intestines and blood every were. The movie is slow-paced sometimes and quite boring but the gory climax is superb. The impalation scene and the chainsaw one are pure movie magic. OK, its very low budget. Its shot on 8mm film, the actors are very bad, this ain't no Hollywood, if you expect a Hollywood horror movie, this is not for you. You will enjoy this gem if you like gore movies, no-budget movies and party bloody movies.

6/10

Long before Andreas Schnaas began walking the streets of Hamburg with a camcorder and a bucket of pig's intestines and long before studios like Sub Rosa were releasing any kind of horror junk that they could get their hands on, Nathan Schiff was directing next to no-budgeted gore films that rapidly gained cult status. His first, 'weasels rip my flesh', was a throwback from the cheesy sci-fi movies from yesteryear and proved to be successful enough to give him the funds for a follow up. The resulting feature is widely regarded as the director's best work as a gore auteur and it acts as concrete evidence of what can be achieved on the merest of budgets. A new lease of life on DVD has opened Schiff's work to a wider audience, and interest in his back-catalogue has reached an all time high.

The Long Island Cannibal Massacre is not a standard slasher film like the multitude of horror flicks from this period, but it does include many of the trappings that were prominent at that time. The film starts as it means to go on with a gruesome and audacious excuse to brighten the screen with colourful gore. A young girl that we see sunbathing in a remote field is assaulted and knocked unconscious by a masked assailant (wearing a costume extremely similar to Jason Voorhees' in Friday the 13th Part 2, which would be released the following year). The maniac drags the girl into the bushes and ties her arms behind her back, before disappearing into the trees and leaving her struggling on the floor. He returns with a lawn mower and gives us the first gratuitous murder of the feature.

Next up we meet Inspector James Cameron (played by John Smihula, who would appear in all of Schiff's films); - a hard as nails wild card with a bitterly poetic view of crime on the streets. He soon gets involved in the mass of murders when he discovers a decapitated head on a beach whilst working undercover. When he fails to get the support that he needs from the local constabulary, Cameron quits the force and takes matters into his own hands. The vigilante soon discovers a circle of torture, slaughter and cannibalism that's stranger than anyone could imagine.

As I said earlier, this is not a typical slasher movie and it combines elements from numerous genres. But the inclusion of a masked maniac and various cinematic references to Carpenter's Halloween mean that it has enough of the clichés to slot into the category. Instead of just having the one psychopathic killer, Schiff's plot gives us a gruesome-twosome of malevolent psycho-slashers and even they play second-fiddle to an altogether more gruesome bogeyman. This is where LICM really separates itself from the multitude of its brethren, because its conclusion owes more to monster features such as 'Scared to Death' than it does 'Black Christmas' et al.

Nathan Schiff is a gore director, and the reason anyone watches his films is simply to see as much blood spraying fun as possible - and on that note the movie doesn't disappoint. It's also worth noting that he does attempt to provide an engaging plot and in places the movie succeeds where more heavily financed pictures have failed. The revelation of the killer's identity was certainly unexpected, and credit to the director for at least trying to be ambitious with his story telling.

Shot on Super 8mm, the picture quality is exactly as what you would expect, with the cinematography looking jaded and somewhat murky. Fortunately, Schiff wisely decided to film all the action under the security of daylight, which means the film isn't ruined by a lack of visual clarity. The music was lifted from various bigger budgeted horror classics and it's an enjoyable exercise for enthusiasts to try and recognise where we've heard those famous themes before. Despite the director's lack of experience, he does manage to pull off at least one decent jump-scare and the photography was creative if not visually transparent.

In a feature such as this, the gore is always the most important aspect and here it ranges from the outlandish to the outstanding. As previously noted, the chainsaw murder in the closing is uncomfortably detailed and kudos to the actors, because they took some huge risks with the deadly blades so close to their anatomy. Although there's nothing here that would have forced Tom Savini to seek another profession, the effects are decent and gratuitous enough for fans to enjoy. If you ask your friends to act in your feature film, the performances will be predictably rancid and the cast are as lacklustre as is to be expected. That's neither here nor there however, because LICM is a gore film and everything else is just padding to give the plot an excuse to let the blood flow.

So is Nathan Schiff an unsung horror hero? Not really; but if bucket loads of red corn syrup and dead animal's internal organs are what you're looking for then his movies will rock your world. He's some way off being the next Lucio Fulci, but his cheapo films are fun all the same…..

I don't even know how to comment on this one. LONG ISLAND CANNIBAL MASSACRE is supposed to be awful since it's low budget horror. But the acting in this film is worst than anything I have ever seen. As a result, most of the scenes are unbearable and it is not a very fun movie to watch - even if it is a horror. Nonetheless, if you are able to make it to the end of this film without fast-forwarding, you are in for quite a treat. I'm not to going to give away any spoilers but the conclusion of LICM makes it worth the viewing. I also suggest you check on the special features on your DVD. Director Nathan Schiff clearly thinks he's Jean Luc Godard.

Either way, as a filmmaker myself, I have a huge amount of respect for Schiff and his feature film. As a high schooler, he managed to make what some might consider a cult classic. Good for him. But, make sure you're ready.

OK, what did this film have going for it ? creative killings for one, come on death by lawn mower ? how often do you see that ? I liked this quirk super low budget cheap film. Granted the acting does at times suck but it wasn't a snooze fest like any of the H.G Lewis films or the worst low budget film from the 80's "Geek maggot Bingo". I am just surprised a film like this actually got a showing, probably in some dank sticky theater on the old version of 42nd st or any drive-in. The best thing about this film was the use of stock music to enhance the film. Had it not had any music then would've been total and complete crap. Seek it out if you like your gore films on the ultra cheap corny way. It sure beats any film made on either VHS from the 80's or Digital Video dreck of today.

This was only my first encounter with the work of writer/director Nathan Schiff and, although I can't say I'm very impressed, I'm certainly tempted to give him the benefit of doubt, at least until I have a chance to check out his two most infamous achievements, namely "Weasels Rip My Flesh" and "They Don't Cut the Grass Anymore". "The Long Island Cannibal Massacre" starts out promising enough, with the butchering of a young woman on an isolated sandy beach. God knows what she's doing there all by herself and why, but even before she has the opportunity to strip her top off, some maniac knocks her out with a pick-axe and runs a freaking lawnmower over her face! How's that for an intro? Of course, like often the case in low-budget and amateur-produced horror movies, everything quickly goes downhill after the credit sequences because it is then when people start opening their mouths and demonstrate what lousy performers they are. This movie at least does have some sort of story to tell, but naturally it's not a very intellectual or compelling one. Young couples, and preferably girls, are brutally killed by a duo of crazed bikers and their intestines are offered as food to a small community of lepers who're hidden away somewhere in Long Island. Macho copper Jim Cameron thinks the police investigation moves too slow and thus he quit the force in order to find and execute the deranged murderers all by himself. If you manage to ignore all the pointless and boring parts, as well as the ultra-poor Super-8 cinematography, you'll certainly enjoy "The Long Island Cannibal Massacre" as it contains copious amounts of nasty slaughtering and detailed images of gross disembowelment. Apart from the aforementioned lawnmower, several other inventive pieces of equipment are used to end human lives, like heavy stone bricks, hammers, shovels, meat cleavers and – of course – giant chainsaws. The honorable Mr. Nathan Schiff also has a rather ludicrous interpretation of what lepers look and sound like, because they actually reminded me of rotten versions of Mr. Potato Head. You may also prepare yourself to hearing some of the most inept and (unintentionally?) hilarious situations and dialogs, like for example when one of the lunatics is talking to a bag of human leftovers and asks: "You're mad because I'm alive and you're all chopped into little pieces, aren't you?" The surprise twist regarding Jim Cameron's supposedly heroic character near the end of the film is too retarded for words (although, according to the cast & crew as said during an interview featuring in the extras, it was – and I quote – a stroke of genius), but yet again a literally blood-soaked and indescribably insane finale compensates all the stupidity. In case you're an undemanding horror fan with a passion for no-budget blood, guts and sheer sickness, you can't really go wrong with "The Long Island Cannibal Massacre".

Forget zero-budget, this is the step before that. This is a home movie project with a few friends and an optimistic approach to effects. Unfortunately the script, acting and effects all combine to let this film down. You need to be seriously drunk before appreciating its humour, though I wouldn't get rid of it out of my collection, so it must have some unknown value.

The second flick by no-budget horror gorehound Nathan Schiff. Shot on a super 8 and oftentimes you can hear the camera rolling through the scenes. The acting is below subpar, the plot is ridiculously bad, and the camera-work sloppy. But the gore is what you watch when you decide to sit down to a Nathan Schiff film. What he lacks in terms of money and casting, he majors in giving you the violent gore you so deserve.

And really that's about the only reason you'd ever sit down to watch this. B/c you're a sick depraved bastard who can't get enough of animal intestines being ripped out of a young girl's body and chainsaws ripping through deranged psychos' chests. Yum.

A pair of bloodthirsty killers (a biker and a guy with a pillowcase on his head) sell their victims' dismembered remains to weirdo Jack, who feeds the body parts to a group of cannibalistic lepers, led by his own hideously disfigured father. Inspector James Cameron goes undercover to investigate the murders, but is forced to turn vigilante when normal police procedure proves ineffective.

Nathan Schiff's enthusiasm and dedication to his art is admirable: armed with nothing but a Super 8mm camera, a bucket or two of offal, and a gang of amateur 'actors', he has thrown together several no-budget gorefests that have, over the years, garnered something of a cult following (in contrast, my own home-made horror, Farnham Flesheaters, has wallowed in development hell for 25 years, due to my general apathy—although I did get as far as designing the poster).

Unfortunately, Schiff's devotion to his work is a lot more impressive than the finished product.

The cheapo splatter, which includes a cheerfully crap lawnmower murder, a couple of juicy disembowelments, assorted flesh tearing, two head crushings, and a pretty impressive chainsaw dismemberment, is admittedly fun and the film occasionally displays some ingenuity (such as Jack's crazy conversation with a bin bag full of body parts), but the negatives easily cancel out the positives.

Inane dialogue, awful acting, lousy picture quality, clumsy editing, and dreadful sound (the whirr of the camera motor being clearly audible in many scenes) all mar the production: there are endless bland shots of cars, trees, and scenery that serve no purpose; the script features boring conversations that do nothing to further the plot; logic takes a serious nosedive with the idiotic revelation of the pillow-case wearing killer's true identity; and for a trashy horror, there's a distinct lack of nudity (I suppose it's easier to talk your friends' sisters into getting their heads bashed in than it is to get them to take their kit off).

Still, I suppose there's always the unintentionally funny bits to enjoy: Jack's monstrous father, who talks like he's gargled glass and uses outmoded words such as 'thy', 'thine' and 'thou'; the goof where cop Dave (Michael Siegal) calls his friend Jim (John Smihula) by his own name; and the leprosy guy who looks like he's had his face pushed in manure.

THE LONG ISLAND CANNIBAL MASSACRE is the kind of film that used to get torn apart by the unseen humorists behind Channel 4's 'Exploitica', a late-night comedy show that added captions and comments to lousy old movies and turned them into moving comic strips. Shot on Super-8 for a handful of spare change and technically abysmal, the film begins as it means to go on, with a young girl having a lawnmower driven over her face to the copyright-busting strains of 'Because' by the Beatles (did they know about this?) by some hooded nut wearing welder's goggles. Although this sequence is crudely effective and certainly draws the viewer in, the film falls apart after the opening titles due to the shoddy direction, lousy editing, incompetent sound design (there's a break in the soundtrack every time director Schiff changes angle) and dreadful acting, particularly from the portly Ron Jeremy clone in the camper van. People who think bad movies are outrageous fun would most certainly be cured by the works of Nathan Schiff, a man obviously after the late Andy Milligan's own heart.

Hard-nosed police detective James Cameron (a solid and convincing performance by John Smihula) decides to quit the force and use his own unorthodox methods in order to solve a series of savage slayings committed by several dangerous wackos who supply fresh meat for a group of hideously disfigured cannibal lepers.

Writer/director Nathan Schiff gets a lot of mileage from his paltry $1.50 budget: The over-the-top nasty gore hits the gruesome bull's eye (a gal's head getting ground up by a lawnmower blade rates as the definite disgusting splatter highlight), the touches of wickedly amusing pitch-black humor provide a few sick belly laughs, the game cast of no-name upstate New York locals come across like real scruffy people (Fred Borges in particular delivers a genuinely creepy turn as tormented and unhinged psycho Jack), the pretty rough cinematography manages to be suitably scrappy as well as fairly polished, the barren Long Island locations are put to effectively desolate use, and the stark bleak'n'dreary atmosphere gives this picture a surprisingly potent and unsettling edginess. Moreover, the wild chainsaw climax seriously smokes in no uncertain terms while the uncompromisingly nihilistic ending concludes everything on a properly twisted note. A pleasingly grim'n'gritty little shocker.

In the late 70's, Nathan Schiff brought us an unbelievably bad, unintentional parody of z-grade garbage, Weasels Rip My Flesh. Some years later, this guy brought us a film I hope I never see, They Don't Cut The Grass Anymore. Somewhere between the Weasel movie, and the one about the cutting of the grass, Schiff, with his lack of everything, unleashed this embarrassment of a homage, yet another unintentional parody, this time, of the gore genre. Fake-looking now has a whole new meaning, thank's to Long Island Cannibal Massacre! Another Schiff home movie, appearing to be after a grade, as opposed of a profit, which only tells me this garbage doesn't even count... I don't know, I guess there's a story, record-breakingly unrealistic killings performed by a couple dudes, one of which wears a pillowcase on his head, who have some kind of a deal going with Mr. Mustache, from the Weasel movie. Anyway, the cops don't know what to do, and incoherent conversation after dismal gore effect after painfully pointless scene. Everyone has their limits, and I draw the line with Schiff. I don't know what it is, there's just something about the "work" of Nathan Schiff that gets under my skin, I mean, other than the fact that it's boring, and gives low-budget cinema a bad name. It's certainly not the fact that it was shot on video, I'm down with the super-8... I think it's that mustache guy, I don't like that guy! Don't get me wrong, I probably couldn't have done any better than this, but then again, I've never tried, and I would imagine it wouldn't require film school to do so. If you dig the Z-grade, do yourself a favor and check out something by Tim Ritter, or even Ray Dennis Steckler. So, just turn around, walk away, and forget about Long Island. The gore is much nicer in Florida. 1/10

PLOT

A brutal series of murders has Long Island police baffed. Now its up to tough-as-nails Inspector Cameron (J. Smihula) to solve this blood-spattered riddle , which by the way , leads to an unspeakable secret….

COMMENTS

This is another `non-budget' horror flick by Nathan Schiff which I bought immediately as it appeared on Amazon , Feb. 25. After watching `They Don't Cut The Grass Anymore' I was ready for this one kind of knowing what could Schiff show audience in this flick. Well , I wasn't disappointed. The movie is 92 mins long , and its set better that `They Don't Cut…'. As always there is blood , guts ,organs and everything else all around but at least this flick has sort of a plot. It has some detective/thriller elements , though they are very childish and cannot be taken seriously. The acting is poor as always in Schiff's movies but also better than in `They Don't Cut…' . John Smihula along with Fred Borges give solid performances, enough I think not to fall asleep. Actually you won't be able to fall asleep every time a murder scene starts. Everything is shown up-close and in very graphic manner. Some elements such as cannibal masks , ripped body parts look pretty unrealistic , which is good at some point , for weak-stomached viewers. For gore hounds , other effects such as flesh ripping and cannibalism are very well made and look truly disgusting. Other options of this movie are less successful. Dialogs are short , stupid at times and make you think that N. Schiff wrote them for kids.

Movie is shot with a cheap home camera & doesn't look professional (which is typical for N. Schiff's movies). Every time a new scene begins you can hear a sound of a camera being turned on (or something like that).

Music is annoying and makes you search for a 'mute' button after 25-30 minutes. DVD quality is not really good but watchable. Extras include gallery , trailers for : `They Don't Cut The Grass Anymore' and `Weasels Rip My Flesh' , interviews with John Smihula , Fred Borges and the director himself Nathan Schiff.

OVERALL

Recommended for gore hounds only. Don't expect anything else from this movie. If you like `They Don't Cut The Grass Anymore' and `Weasels Rip My Flesh' , then you will like this one. Otherwise avoid it , don't even bother.