Skip to main content

Cannibal Holocaust *SPOILERS*

Oh, we are so close, number 4 on the list! I'm not sure it gets much more infamous than this.
In fact, whilst talking to my dad recently, he actually informed me that he believes this is the film my mum asked him to not let me watch, but he had forgotten. Urm, yeah, sorry about that!


Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 film by director Ruggero Deodato about 4 American film makers who decide to go deep into the Amazon, into the Green Inferno, to document the tribes there; however, they never return, and a rescue mission returns only with footage of their story.

It's a Mockumentary, but the camera work is still pretty good. The audience are treated to beautiful shots of the rain forest, and this is the first older film I've reviewed so far that might be gritty, but it doesn't look cheap. It also has a fantastically used score, at times unnerving, at other times, used to create a stark contrast. The pacing is so so, it could be seen as a slow burner, because when s**t hits the fan, it goes everywhere, but it takes a long time to get anywhere.

In the UK, 2 versions of this film exist. It was released in 1980, but banned as part of the Video Nasty genre, it continued to be banned until 2001, when a DVD release was allowed with all the animal cruelty cut out. In 2011, someone pointed out that there are many other films with animal abuse that is not faked, that have been allowed a release completely uncut, so they released it with only 6 seconds of footage missing. I have the animal friendly one, so go me. There's a huge amount of controversy concerning this film, the director was arrested because it was thought that people had genuinely died, they hadn't, but the large amount of animal slaughter within the film did get them into a lot of trouble though.

The acting is pretty good for the most part. But then, when most of the actors in your film aren't actors, but real native tribes, it's not hard for them to act like tribes people... Cannibal Holocaust feels natural, because so many of the characters are not actors at all, they are just people living their normal lives.

The effects are, as you probably guessed, pretty good. Someone did point out that the woman on the stick was actually placed in entirely the wrong way for the pole to come out of her mouth though. But aside from angles, really believable, and mean spirited. In fact, the entire film is quite mean spirited. It's harsh and it's cruel, like the surroundings it's filmed in. Even without the non simulated animal abuse, Cannibal Holocaust is brutal.

Towards the end, the viewer is shown what happened, and we get a twist with a social commentary that still holds true today. It is always believed that it is the tribes who are the bad people, but we are given a scene where the 4 Americans barbarically burn down the homes of a tribe, and the viewer is posed with a question; who are really the uncivilised ones? The Americans came and slaughtered a tribe for pure glee, far worse than anything we see from the tribes, until they murder the Americans in revenge. A fitting punishment.

Really, Cannibal Holocaust still holds up today, and has spawned many unofficial sequels and spin offs. It is the pinnacle of the Cannibal genre, and one of the strongest, most thought provoking films made during the Video Nasty period.

I do recommend this, if you've got the stomach. If you're worried about the animal abuse, any DVD from 2001 to 2010 will be the safe version, so feel free to sit and watch it without being subjected to any visuals you don't want to see.

7.5/10

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Atroz (Atrocious) 2015 *SPOILERS*

It has been approximately forever, but I'm here with more reviews. Would you believe it, but I'm currently quarantined in my house! So I've taken the opportunity to watch a few films I hadn't yet seen, Atrocious, or Atroz in its native Spanish, was recommended to me by a kind internet stranger, so thank you internet stranger! In a continuation of my disturbing films reviews, I'm back with this! Before I get into the review, I would like to put a HUGE WARNING on this one. This is a very in depth review with talk of many atrocities (hehe). Atroz (Atrocious) is a 2015 Mexican film, it's a found footage style extreme film, quick plot summary: a woman is hit by a car and dies, the perpetrators who hit her have their car searched by police, who uncover some quite disturbing footage on a camcorder. Nice and vague to start with, well, I'm sure you're all dying to know, just how Atrocious is... Atrocious? Well, truthfully, I liked this film, it was acted a...

Liseberg Halloween Event *SPOILERS*

So after visiting Xtreme Scream Park at Twin Lakes last weekend and being incredibly disappointed with the staff's inability to batch a maze properly, hence running into the group in front and forming a damn conga line throughout each AND EVERY maze; we visited the beautiful country of Sweden this weekend just gone. This is going to be a slightly different review to normal, as it will basically be a trip report with thoughts and opinions on mazes, scare zones, park-wide theming, and rides! Hence, it's only partially horror themed, but it will be an interesting change to my usual film or game reviews.