Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Tagline: “The most controversial film ever made”
UK Running Time: 92 minutes

Film Quality: 4/5
Gore Content: 5/5
Entertainment Value: 2.5/5
Originality: 4/5

Introduction

One of the taglines to this film is ‘How far is too far?’ That’s an incredibly apt five words as it’s difficult to think of a more controversial and notorious movie as Ruggero Deodato’s ‘Cannibal Holocaust’. It was banned in more than 50 countries, the makers were arrested and brought up on obscenity charges, courts believed that actors were genuinely killed and the film includes scenes of actual, not staged animal cruelty and death. That said there is something about this film that sets it WAY above any of the other movies in the bizarre and controversial world of the mondo cannibal sub-genre. It has something to say and it shouts it loud, so loud that you may never hear anything else again!

In a nutshell

A group of four filmmakers set out into the Amazon to make a documentary about cannibal tribes and go missing…a year later their footage is found. What the TV studios discover whilst watching the found footage shocks the executives as they find out, not only what happens to the crew but also what they did to seal their own fate.

So what’s good about it?

If the first sentence of the above paragraph sounds familiar then that’s because it is, or at least wasn’t familiar at the time. What we have here is what could well be the very first found footage movie, now so commonplace it’s highly unlikely there’s any missing footage out there left to find. It pre-dates ‘The Blair Witch Project’ by nearly 20 years which is incredible, nothing like this had ever been done before and the controversy surrounding the film is a possible reason why nobody else did for such a long period of time (‘Man Bites Dog’ springs to mind).

Aside from the narrative structure it is one seriously powerful film. At time of writing it’s 36 years old and STILL has the power to shock, it’s genuinely exhausting watching this film. Whereas the ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ went for the ‘’less is more’ approach of leaving everything to the imagination, this goes to the other extreme. Absolutely everything is thrown at you and it is one of the few occasions where it is far worse than anything you could conjure up in your own head. Some of the images, especially the forced tribal abortion and the horrific aftermath of a vertical impalement will not go away and that’s before we even get to the animal cruelty and graphic acts of cannibalism.

This shot had to be recreated in court to prove

it was fake!

The special effects are, in the main, really very good and the use of handheld cameras allows the filmmakers to get away with any effects that are a little ropey. It adds authenticity and realism that was missing from inferior films with a similar subject matter such as ‘Cannibal Ferox’ and ‘Deep River Savages’. It also landed it in serious trouble…this type of cinema verite film style had not been seen in horror before and mainly witnessed in news reports and documentaries, basically ‘non-fiction’ and the authorities had a tough time believing Deodato’s film to be staged. Of course we’ve seen this blurring of fact and fiction before, most notably with Orson Welles’ ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast and BBC’s 1990s ‘Ghostwatch’ but this was the first time a director had been accused of murdering his own actors. You can argue that this is a backhanded compliment and the director had achieved his aim but I doubt even Deodato expected the kind of response and repercussions he experienced here.

More about the themes and aftermath later but a moment to talk about the music which, in complete contrast to the mayhem, carnage and viscera witnessed on screen, is quite beautiful at times. Written by Grammy award winning and Oscar nominated composer (ironically for ‘More’, the title song to ‘Mondo Cane’ – film which Deodato cites as an inspiration for ‘Cannibal Holocaust’) Riz Ortalani. The score adds beauty to an ugly film and just adds to the confusion you feel whilst you’re watching it…are you really enjoying it or are you appreciating an incredibly tough film for what itk is.

What about the bad?

In bad taste - tucking into a bit of raw turtle

It’s hard to get past the animal cruelty. Personally I don’t think there’s any place for it, even in exploitation cinema, Deodato himself re-editing the film recently to remove this aspect stating that he wished he’d never put it in. He claims that the animals killed were used as part of ritualistic meals and ceremonies by the indigenous tribes who took part in the film, one of the reasons why the footage has been largely reinstated to UK prints of the film. Still, the film is powerful enough and hard enough to watch without it.

There has been a lot of criticism about the way the cannibal tribes were represented. Deodato saw fit to use the real names of tribes and ended up portraying them incorrectly as cannibals. Ironically, the message he seemed to be getting across about ‘civilised’ filmmakers staging scenes for shock value and sensationalism can be used as criticism against Deodato himself who creates one of the most shocking and violent films ever made to send a message that shocking violence is wrong. It kind of works on some levels but you’d struggle to argue against a certain amount of hypocrisy here!

Finally, it’s such a well-made film, not usually a criticism but this film is so effective that all but the most hardcore of horror fans will have switched it off after half an hour. It’s upsetting, disturbing, thought-provoking, immoral and is one of the few films that can leave you succumbing to feelings of guilt. It’s really quite astonishing that the film was put together for $100,000…how can a film with such a low budget achieve that level of realism? You may have noticed that I have a genuine appreciation for what Deodato has achieved with this film yet gave it an ‘Entertainment Value’ of two and a half. That’s because despite being well-made and incredibly effective, you really do struggle to actually ‘enjoy’ the film which is a completely different thing to ‘appreciating’ it.

Any themes?

Provoking a response from the 'savages'

Primarily it’s a film about different cultures clashing and how a film crew ‘stage’ certain scenes to be able to get some of the barbaric footage they original intended to get. The film’s message of how ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised’ societies are relative terms is absolutely hammered home when you see what the film crew does to the tribes. They are the real villains of the piece despite the showcasing of particularly barbaric behaviour from the tribesmen, particularly towards women. It’s the complete lack of understanding of a different set of values, regardless of whether they fit in with our own world view, that ultimately sets up our view of other, less developed societies as somehow uncivilised. Yet we’re the ones holding codes to nuclear weapons, wiping out entire expanses of rainforest, leaking oil into the seas and generally creating an imbalance with nature within which the natives depicted in this film have developed an equilibrium.

One of Deodato’s noted inspirations for this film was news reports of a paramilitary group that carried out terrorist activities. He watched these news reports convinced that some of it was staged. It’s this idea that he took into the creation of this film, I suppose it boils down to the old saying ‘The camera never lies’. The camera will always show what’s in front of you but, especially in the wake of Vietnam and the perceived censorship of some of the things that were going on at that time, what isn’t shown can be just as, if not more important in providing that context. In other words yes, the film crew were attacked but bloody hell they did a lot of poking with that cattle prod.

Release history

A terrifying final image

This story is still being told! There are some countries where, even now, you can’t obtain a cut version of this film. When it was first released in the UK by Go Video in 1982 it was pre-cut by some seven minutes and still found itself on the banned list. Nobody attempted to show it to the censors again until 2001 when VIPCO managed to get it passed, albeit missing five minutes and 44 seconds including all of the animal cruelty and most of the rape and gratuitous flesh eating scenes.

In 2011 Shameless had the balls to submit an uncut version to the BBFC and were rewarded with more than they could possibly have hoped for. It did suffer two cuts to one scene, 15 seconds in total to the real death of a Coatimundi, substituted with some stock footage of a monkey, presumably to keep the running time intact for the commentary. It also restored some of the shootings from ‘The Last Road to Hell’ film within a film which was missing from some more complete versions so it was a decent pay off.

What also happened, which some say is to the benefit of the film is a new edit by Deodato who removed all of the animal cruelty footage. This amounted to around 25 seconds which surprised me as it seems like so much more and these scenes are still there, you know what’s happening, it’s just not on film. In my eyes this doesn’t diminish the power of the film, but it does allow you to sleep at night after watching it!

The UK story is pretty typical of the censorship history of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, who knows how many different versions of this film must be out there.

Just as an addition, you have to admire the boulder-sized stones of the Danish film board who saw fit to pass this film uncut as a ‘15’!!!

Cultural Impact

Very cheeky!

Its makers claim otherwise, but this was a huge influence on ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and found footage sub-genre of horror films. The makers of ‘Blair Witch’ claim to be massive fans of horror but also say they weren’t aware of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ when they made their own breakthrough, low-budget masterpiece. I find that very hard to believe! Such a notorious and controversial film is a holy grail for horror fans to seek out, especially since uncut prints were so hard to find, they surely must have known about it, even if they’d not necessarily seen it.

There was no direct sequel but a number of other films were retitled as such, most notably ‘Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story’, re-released in the UK by VIPCO as ‘Cannibal Holocaust 2’. Eli Roth, never one to miss an opportunity to jump on a popular horror film, created ‘The Green Inferno’ which was named after the fictional film within a film in Deodato’s movie. Other than that it is a great example of how problematic the cannibal sub-genre was for censors around the world when it comes to subject matter, depiction of indigenous tribes and on screen violence.

Final thoughts

Arguably the most controversial movie ever made, still causing waves and dividing opinion 36 years after it was released, how many other films can you think of that was so realistic that it was seized by Magistrates, its makers prosecuted and forced to bring in the actors (which proved difficult as they reportedly signed contracts not to appear in other films to increase the possibility that this film might be real!) just to prove they were still alive! Certainly the greatest film in the cannibal sub-genre and an arduous watch regardless of who you are, this is a true one off and holds a genuine ability to shock.

Memorable Quotes

Monroe: “I wonder who the real cannibals are.”

Alan (Feigning shock): “It’s, it’s horrible. I can’t understand the reason for such cruelty. It must have something to do with some obscure sexual rite or with the almost profound respect these primitives have for virginity.”

Executive: “You must admit it’s exceptional footage. I didn’t expect such impact, such authenticity.”

Chaco: “Hey Professor, I recognise these teeth.”

Chaco: “You did it goddamnit…they just invited us to dinner!”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Mondo Cane’, ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Man Bites Dog’