The death of Pit Dernitz in the 1975 Mondo film Savage Man Savage Beast

The death of Pit Dernitz in the 1975 Mondo film Savage Man Savage Beast 

This sequence is NOT from the 1978 video Faces of Death. It would, however, reappear in the 1993 video Traces of Death.

Lion attack sequence from the 1975 Mondo film Savage Man Savage Beast (original title: Ultime Grida dalla Savana). It was later incorporated into the 1993 compilation video Traces of Death.

Tourist Pit Dernitz leaves his safari vehicle to film a small pride of lions. As he walks closer to the animals, an unseen lion attacks him from behind. He struggles against the animal, but the other lions join in the attack and overwhelm him. He is eventually torn apart and eaten before the animals are driven off.

The scene consists of two cameras' footage spliced together during the editing process... read and watch the video 

The authenticity of the sequence is still debated today. The film does indeed look genuine, especially since it would be much too dangerous of a stunt to stage. However, it is argued that the body of Dernitz looks like a replacement dummy towards the end of the footage. Also, the narrator mentions that the safari vehicles couldn't be used to scare away the lions because of the terrain. However, the terrain around the lions appears flat, and the cars are already only a few meters away. Other professional sources contend that the footage is real, and the errors in narration are due to fabrication by the film makers to make the scene more interesting.

At approximately one minute, ten seconds into the sequence, the audio/video quality improves and Japanese subtitles are added. This is due to two different master sources used to produce the clip.

The first minute is from the Palace Video VHS released in Australia in 1986. This video had this segment cut by the OFLC before released.

The footage after the 1:10 mark is from a Japanese DVD with burnt on subtitles and contains all the footage missing from the Palace Video release.

After the 2:14 mark, the footage returns to the Palace Video release for the duration of the sequence.

The cinema verite style of this clip proved influential on Ruggero Deodato when he made the more notorious Cannibal Holocaust. Approximately one half of Deodato's film is shot in this manner.

Also, the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project was shot in this style.

Whether genuine or not, this sequence may be very upsetting to some viewers. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. If you are in doubt, please don't view this sequence. The creator of this video bears no responsibility for how this video may affect the viewer.

some other points: I'll try not to repeat too much of  has already been said, but here goes:

1. The location. There is no "Wallasee" in Angola or any country bordering Angola. Wallasee could be misspelt (Wallersee, Wallesee, Wallezee, etc.) but none of these exist either. However lots of place names in Africa have been changed since colonial withdrawal, so maybe it did exist at some point. I've also looked at various era maps (BTW oldmapsonline.org is a fantastic resource for this!) of Namibia, Angola, DRC and Zambia and have not noticed a "Wallasee" or anything similar to it on any of them, so I really don't think so.

2. Climate: Old Pit there is wearing long trousers, a blue jersey and a hat. The narrator in the video claims the incident took place at 9:25 am and as is clear from the clip it is a beautiful sunny day. Now Angola is a fairly warm place and February-March is the hottest time of the year. There isn't a location in or in close proximity to Angola where a white man from Belgium would wear a jersey at 9:25 am on a sunny day in February.

3. Wars. Two of them: The South African border war (

 There are no game parks on the Angola/Namibia border (which seems the most likely location based on the dutch-sounding Wallasee and the semi-arid vegetation) that would have been open to international tourists in 1975. It was a brutal ground war. Many landmines. At the same time, the Angolan war of independence was going on (see) and affected all of Angola. Although technically independence was granted in January 1975, so by 18 February that would have quietened down somewhat, but still I doubt any game parks were operational and happily receiving tourists.

4. The number plates. In the clip I saw one number plate is clearly visible 210-909Y in black on yellow. I haven't been able to figure out where the number plate format in the clip comes from, but I've searched on various number plate sites (yes, there are sites like that) and it doesn't resemble anything used in Angola, Namibia, Zambia or DRC around the 70s. Did these tourists import their cars for the safari?

5. The cars. Even today, roads in game parks in this area are rarely passable without 4x4 vehicles, yet we see two 4x2 family station wagons who have driven at least partially into the bush. Extremely unlikely.

6. The cars vs terrain. The man gets out and we see him walking forward. There are no huge obstacles in this sequence and the terrain seems pretty flat an clear. In fact so flat and clear that he proceeds without really looking at where he's stepping. So the claim that the cars could not be used to scare of the lions is absolute rubbish. Also if your husband was being attacked by a lion, I don't think you would be too worried about damaging the car a bit in an effort to help him. Even if the terrain was very bad, you would at least try.

7. The lions' behaviour. Anyone who has seen what a lion can do up close will know that the way these lions are pushing the victim down and nibbling at limbs is just play. Lions don't nibble at live prey, they attack to kill and then eat the carcass. If the lion who originally jumped on the man had any intention to kill him he would probably have been dead before he hit the ground or within a second or two thereafter. The attack is very soft. There's even a sequence in the clip where a lioness pins the guy down on the floor by lying across his chest. Definitely not the behaviour of a lion trying to kill prey. I would encourage anyone who thinks this might be real to go study some footage of real lion kills. They go for the neck/throat as soon as they can and once they get hold of that they don't let go until the prey is dead. For a weak prey like this that would normally be no more than a few seconds.

8. Publicity. The makers of the film don't seem very keen on expressing opinion either way. If the clip was true, they would try to prove it's authenticity because this would increase its value. The fact that they shy away from the subject would indicate that it is false and they're glad for the bit of publicity that the real/fake speculation is creating.

9. Quality. The quality of the clip is simply too good for an amateur with a handheld camera in the mid-70s. I think most of us have probably seen home-made movies from this era, they are MUCH more shaky, MUCH less vivid and have FAR FEWER frames per second. Since this was featured in a film released late in 1975, the filming must have been fairly advanced recording equipment for the era and is almost certainly professionally done.

10. The "victim" doesn't fight dirty. If a lion attacks you and you're not already dead, you're not going to try to push it off with your forearm, you are going to punch, kick, poke at eyes, throw dust in eyes, grab for rocks or similar to hit it with etc. But this victim simply pushes tentatively at the lion with his arms. I don't think that's the behaviour of a man who thinks he's about to die.

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