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If there’s ever been a film that had a disturbing impact on me, Cannibal Holocaust is undoubtedly the one. While I’ve seen plenty of borderline torture porn’s filled with a plethora of grotesque scenes, Holocaust brings that to the table, but does NOT hold back, showing things even a killer himself wouldn’t be able to handle. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but see if for yourself to gain the full affect of what I’m talking about.
Before even becoming available to the public, Cannibal Holocaust took much criticism, and was banned from many countries and states. Director Ruggero Deodato was accused of actually killing his actors, due to how realistic the brutal deaths were portrayed. He was eventually arrested and put in jail for a minor ten days, and was further suspended of his filmmaking privileges, but not too long afterwards created more pictures. His footage was proven to be only just a movie, not real slaughters, as he went to court to prove his innocence. However, a lot of people around the world still aren’t exactly happy with this man, finding his film to be plain disrespectful and inappropriate. Having said that, some of the scenes in Holocaust actually are authentic, including the few animal killings they shot. The crew was able to get away with it due to the lack of law authority in that area, and the director just said “what the heck, let’s make this look real”, and went forward with the scenes. I couldn’t stand the actual murders of native animals, including the giant turtle, in which was the most brutal, gut-wrenching thing to watch throughout the duration of the movie, as the documentary crew dragged it out of the river, cutting it open down to it’s complete insides……and eating every bit of it. There are many other disturbing things throughout the movie, but that one really got to me.
Surprisingly, the story in Cannibal Holocaust is somewhat deep, and much larger than first appearing. Going into it I was thinking it would be some people simply roaming into the jungle, running into some cannibalistic natives, who eventually would kill and eat them. While that may be true, Holocaust actually features three main storylines. The documentary crew, that travels to a jungle, with the goal of creating another controversial movie. And then you have the office of film distribution, including the man who recovered the crew’s lost footage, and the group who went deep into the jungle to find out what in the heck was going on. Each of the three are pretty equally split up, and that makes Holocaust seem less like a “snuff” film. Towards the middle of the film I was questioning myself about who was in the wrong. Are the cannibals the ones who really deserve so much criticism, or the horrible, idiotic people who antagonized the natives, rummaging through their homes, killing their meals (animals), and completely ruining their culture? It’s a tough decision, and had me thinking.
I sort of regret saying this, but I highly enjoyed Cannibal Holocaust. Yes, the whole premise is unbelievably wrong, disturbing and massively disrespectful, but I love horror films, and I found this one a notch smarter than a lot of the films out right now. Once you get past the grotesque visuals, you’ll realize that it actually has more to it, including somewhat of a history lesson. I most definitely wouldn’t recommend this flick, as most who see it will undoubtedly be immediately turned away, and I don’t blame them, because it truly is a SICK film beyond words, and most will be shocked. “The most controversial movie ever made” actually turned out to be good, from my perspective. I’ll probably get trashed for liking this, but I don’t mind.
7.5/10
