Cannibal Holocaust

Ruggero Deodato took the Cannibal movie sub genre that he and Umberto Lenzi ruled over to the extreme with his 1979 cinema verite style opus, Cannibal Holocaust.

Three men and a woman comprise a documentary filmmaking team that heads deep into the jungles of South America in search of evidence of actual cannibalism. The deeper into the jungle they get, the more feral and primitive things become and eventually, they're reported as missing in action.

A rescue team is sent in after them and while in the jungle, this second group meets up with a tribe of natives who live in the area. Eventually, the rescue group finds the footage shot by the documentary team and brings it back to New York City where it is screened, and we find out exactly what happened to the film crew that went into the jungle.

This simple premise is basically the story in a nutshell, and it's what ended up happening to the film crew that really kicks the movie into high gear, transforming it from a grim jungle adventure film into a truly shocking film that pushed the envelope in terms of what could and/or should be shown on screen in the name of entertainment.

In fact, the effects in the film are so convincing in some spots that Deodato was supposedly taken to court in his native Italy to prove that they were in fact special effects and not actual atrocities captured on film. Deodato's testimony didn't prevent the film from being banned in his homeland though - the numerous graphic depictions of actual animal slaughter made sure that the film was banned not only in Italy but in a few other countries as well.

Worth noting is the fact that there are roughly two seconds worth of footage cut from the film. The infamous ‘road to hell’ sequence, on certain other releases (via one release from Substance - which is a poor quality bootleg - or the three from EC - which are legit), featured some execution footage and Mondo style deaths. It’s a brief cut, but it is there, and it does take away a small bit of the films impact. This cut does cause the audio to hiccup very briefly as well. If you didn’t know that the footage was there, you probably wouldn’t catch the cut and would probably just assume that it was a sloppy edit or something, (except for the brief audio hiccup) but like I said, the cut is there.

Probably the hardest aspect of the film to get past, and certainly the most controversial, is the actual on screen killings of animals. A snake has it's head lobbed off by a machete, a boar is tied up and shot point blank, and a turtle is gutted all for the sake of shock value. Some claim that the animals that were killed were eaten afterwards but that hardly changes the fact that they were essentially killed for entertainment purposes. Without getting into the semantics of it, it's an appalling display of all too real cruelty and it's pretty hard to justify it.

But the atrocity exhibit hardly stops with our beloved furry friends, no sir. All manner of human degradation is on display here, including but not limited to rape, castration, more rape, shootings, impalement, decapitation, castration, and of course, last but not least, cannibalism. All these things and more are shown with reckless abandon by the filmmakers and the camera doesn't once shy away from any of it.

That being said, the film still has a lot of power and a lot of impact and in that regard, it's very well made. Deodato's decision to shoot the 'recovered footage' using a handheld gives the film a raw and realistic feel that wouldn't have been possible using more professional styles of shooting.

The film is also well cast, with a stand out performance from Robert Kerman (a. k. a. porn star extraordinaire R. Bolla) as the professor, but everyone involved does an exceptionally good job of getting into character, and by the end of the film, you realize that the crew really did get what they deserved, after setting up some atrocities for the sake of making their movie (which, ironically enough Deodato himself does with the animal violence here).

Is the film a statement about the cruelty that humans inflict on each other? Was it Deodato's satiric response to the mondo film phenomena, specifically Jacopetti and Prosperi's Africa Addio, where the two filmmakers, much like the characters in this film, are rumored to have set up some actual executions to film for their documentary? Opinions differ drastically on this one and few films are able to divide audiences so severely as this one can. Whether Deodato was saying something important or not with this film is extremely debatable but what is concrete is the fact that this is the film that he is best known for and that's probably never going to change.

For those who haven't seen it, the film is a powerful and shocking vehicle that stabs you in the gut and twists the blade around before pulling it out - it goes all the way and rubs it all in your face, making you question why you're watching it in the first place. Love it or hate it, Cannibal Holocaust is strong stuff and succeeds in what it set out to do.

Video	4/5

Audio	3/5

Extras	4/5

Overall	3.5/5