Review of Cannibal Holocaust (1980) by Leonardo - Malacay - S — 26 Dec 2008

Probably the most shocking and disgusting film ever made, or at least up there with the likes of Braindead and Fulci's City of the Living Dead.

The story is pretty simple; four North American documentary film makers head off into the Colombian jungle to do a scoop on "primitive" cannibals. The methods of the filmmakers are unpleasant to say the least, they kill, rape and pillage, just as a "set up" to get good footage for their documentary. Of course, retribution of the Cannibals ensues.

The gore effects are unbearably realistic, and it is no wonder that the director Ruggero Deodato was taken to court because everyone thought, the heinous brutality in the film had been for real. Subsequently, he had to demonstrate how it was all done by effects and that nothing "really" happened. How on earth fx could look so convincing back in 79 I have no idea, it really does look like a snuff movie.

The film is more of an endurance test than anything, the social commentary is VERY simple and could have been made in about 5 minutes. The rest of the film just aims at shocking and disgusting, and certainly delivers. It's greasy, immoral, evil and just a plain out assault on the senses, or as the distributors in the story said about the documentaries of the protagonist filmmakers; "it's a rape of the senses". That is pretty much what this movie is; raping of your senses.

All of this being said I can't deny that the film is incredibly well made. The cinematography and the score are both gorgeous and add a sense of out of place beauty to the film. The acting is incredible, like I said before, it really does feel like a documentary: very real. And of course all the infamous animal cruelty IS real, no fx, which really did make me really nauseous/ Animal cruelty is okay if it's about a disgusting animal like a spider or snake, in which case it's quite fun to see them getting whacked, but monkeys and turtles, that's just sick.