User reviews

Cannibal Holocaust truly is one of the most disturbing and uncomfortable films I've ever seen. Released in 1980, the movie has gained a reputation over the years as being one of the most controversial films ever made, and I think it rightfully deserves that title. Now this is a hard film to recommend, especially considering all of the brutal onscreen violence, rape, dismemberment, genital mutilation, and of course the incredibly hard to watch real life animal killings. However, whether you love or hate the film you can't argue that it's very well crafted. As with most Italian movies the cinematography is great, the soundtrack beautiful and the locations exotic. The tropical scenery truly is stunning to watch and music even greater to listen to.

The film focuses on a group of young film makers who venture out into the Amazon Rainforest to make a documentary on the local tribes, and as to be expected they never return. A professor is destined to recover the lost footage to put the story to rest and hopefully find out what happened to the crew. What unravels next is an example of one of the earliest found footage horror films ever conceived, made nearly two decades before The Blair Witch Project, and similar to that film the director strived to convince the audience that what they were seeing was real, so much so that he had the actors sign contracts to disappear from the media for a year to let the realism of the film sink in which later lead to his arrest, as the courts were convinced that the deaths depicted in the movie were genuine. However once he was able to get in touch with the actors and have them appear in court all charges were dropped, other than a small fine for the animal killings.

From its shocking visuals to its gritty realism Cannibal Holocaust is a very effective film that, like many people have said, is very realistic and has a much deeper meaning to it than one might think. Director Ruggero Deodato's intention (or so I think) was to make a film that deglorified our civilized society, showing the viewer that we, the civilized people, are the true monsters, not the cannibals. The movies' pessimistic tone and negative outlook on society actually makes for an overall depressing and unpleasant experience, a film that truly makes you feel bad in the end.

The movie has quite a sporadic fan base, with famous directors like Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone all supposedly being confessed fans of it. So much in fact that Oliver Stone payed homage to the film by replicating one of the most famous scenes in his movie Platoon (1986) and Sergio Leone wrote a letter of gratitude to Deodato complimenting him on the realism and the ability to produce such an effective and encaptivating movie. If you're looking for a fun horror film to watch with friends this is definitely not it. The movie is very dark and unsettling, making the viewer feel horrible after watching. Approach with caution, this movie is not for the squeamish, faint of heart, or easily offended and I suggest that those younger than 17 should avoid completely, only recommended to the most hardcore of horror fans and exploitation enthusiasts. You have been warned.

This movie could have easily been a 9 or a 10 because it is truly a disturbing masterpiece and really makes you think about what we consider civilized. The reason I'm rating it so low is that it is ridiculous that the animal slaughters were done using live animals, (7 animals were killed in the making of this video, though only 6 are shown) which was completely unnecessary as they clearly had the skills to depict realistic murder/slaughter/rape/gore scenes as shown by all the gruesome events featuring humans. The only good thing to come out of this is that very few movies afterwards ever used real animals becausr of all the backlash this one received.

Yes, this film was banned and heavily censored in a few places for being disturbing. It does have some really well done gruesome scenes but the real censorship came from the cruelty to animals. Let's just say this film doesn't have "no animals were harmed during production" scrolling the end credits. The animal killings include a pig being shot in the head from close range, a muskrat being slit open for no reason, a giant turtle being split open in an overly long scene and a monkey getting his brains bashed in which required two takes so two monkeys were killed during production. These were real killings and not faked. A lot of the actors on the set protested this but the show went on. In fact, one of the lead actors feared for his life thinking this might be a "snuff" film and might meet the same fate. As much as this bothered people, is it really that different then buying meat in a supermarket? At least it made me think. The movie centers around "found footage" of a group of documentary filmmakers. The filmmakers are in South America searching for a tribe of flesh-eaters, hoping that this documentary will win them fame and fortune. The movie was marketed in a way that made viewers believe all the documentary footage shown in the movie was actual footage of a group that really went to South America to do a documentary. Some questionable acting gives it away. And you thought "The Blair Witch Project" was an original idea didn't you!?

It's impossible to talk about Cannibal Holocaust without mentioning The Blair Witch Project. Blair Witch is (wrongly) labelled as 'inventing' the 'found footage' genre, when, in fact it simply 'rebooted' it. Cannibal Holocaust did it almost twenty years previous.

We hear at the beginning how four young film-makers travelled deep into the jungle, only to never be heard from again. A professor, curious as to their fate, retraces their path and finds their footage. What you have here is two stories in one. You have the more 'traditional' Hollywood story-telling of the professor talking to TV executives about showing the found footage on network television and the footage which was retrieved from the jungles (first person, ala Blair Witch).

I only got to see the edited UK version of this film, but the footage, both from the professor who follows them and the film-makers themselves remains as shocking today as it was at the time. Cannibal Holocaust was banned at the time of release and even had claims of being a 'stuff' film (i.e. one where real people are killed on camera). This maybe untrue, but viewers should be warned that, although the people who die are all just covered in fake blood and prosthetics, REAL animals were killed for the making of the film. Those with strong views on this may wish to steer clear.

However, the animal cruelty is only fleeting. What you have are pretty strong scenes of torture which make the Hostel franchise seem tame in comparison. The footage, being shot in the eighties and on 'non professional' cameras, gives the film a deliberately 'raw' feel about it which even the Blair Witch Project can't even match. Plus you have the music which is both creepy and tranquil at the same time.

As you have probably guessed, the film-makers (on film) meet a grisly end at the hands (and teeth, obviously) of the cannibals in the jungle. Although, where we probably felt sorry for those behind the camera in Blair Witch and other such films, here the film-makers were pretty horrible. Some may see that they got what they deserved.

It's hard to 'enjoy' this film in a traditional viewing sense. Yet it remains a deserved lynchpin in the horror genre's history.

Bottom line: for those with strong stomachs ONLY.

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I reluctantly decided to watch the infamous 'Cannibal Holocaust' and found it to be every bit as shocking as people make out. It was by far the most uncomfortable experience I've ever had watching a film. From the sickening violence and killings to the torturing of animals and graphic rape scenes, this film is as morally low as they come.

'Cannibal Holocaust' is not art - it's not even entertainment. How can anybody enjoy watching a coati being repeatedly stabbed as it screams in pain? Or a turtle being decapitated and then pulled to pieces? It's unnecessary, horrible to watch, and no right-minded human being should be getting pleasure out of it.

This film is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff and makes for an extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable viewing experience. Unfortunately, it's also an unforgettable one.

"Cannibal Holocaust" is not the campy little horror flick I expected. It's a "serious" and well-made movie and it's an experience you'll hardly ever forget. According to IMDb's trivia section the movie can "only be seen completely uncut in the EC-UltraBit DVD", which means that I've seen a tamed down version and that, my friends, is insane! "Cannibal Holocaust" is easily one of the most graphic movies I've ever come across. The violence is incredibly realistic. It's no wonder that director Ruggero Deodato was taken to court to prove that he hasn't slain real people for his motion picture. (I still think the real animal slaughtering in the movie was unnecessary. Screw you for that, Deodato!) It's hard to tell if there really is a message or if the "moral" is just an excuse for all the gore. In a strange way the violent scenes somehow speak for themselves and do deliver some kind of message, but that's open for discussion.

If ever a movie deserved the label "disturbing", it's "Cannibal Holocaust". It's controversial, but totally worth watching, if you can take some seriously sick images.

This film is notorious for its intense scenes of graphic violence and real animal killings, it really aims to challenge us with the exploration into cultural imperialism and the depths of human depravity.

This film stands out from other horrors through its fearless exploration of ethical boundaries in film making, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. The story unfolds with such a raw and unflinching intensity that it really had me questioning the authenticity of the film especially knowing going in about the already existing animal ethical concerns. It does not hold back in its depiction of violence and brutality so a strong warning for those that cannot stand gore. Still however this remains a cult classic for anyone willing to explore such disturbing themes.

Cannibal Holocaust was, first and foremost, a disgusting movie with more violence than I have ever seen. Despite this, it is also one of my favorite movies. It gives a feeling of Blair Witch done right, even though there are some very obviously contrived scenes in which nobody is holding the camera, but despite some small cosmetic problems this is the best horror movie I have ever seen.

Unlike most "shock" films, such as the Guinea Pig movies, Cannibal Holocaust has a very well written plot and a definite progression. The focus is still on making the audience ill, but we don't even see any violence until fairly late in the movie, so the emphasis on plot is much stronger. The story told is a deep one, showing the lengths at which people will go for some goal, the example given being fame and fortune. The theme is reflected in parallel story lines through the second half of the movie, as Alan and his crew go to more and more desperate lengths for fame, and the professor struggles against a big media company to suppress the release of their footage. Even in a "meta" sense, we see the theme appear once again in the lengths the director of Cannibal Holocaust itself went, going so far as to kill and butcher four animals on camera.

Now if you are an animal lover - why are you here? Believe me you don't want to see this! You won't even mind for why animals were abused in this. Mostly the animals killed here (yes they actually did that!), were for food. So while especially the scene with the shelled "friend" seems like torture, it is not something that is not happening to other animals most of us eat daily.

I'm just trying to give you a perspective so you won't feel like a hypocrite after you say certain things. Not to excuse what is being depicted in this. And while that may sound like a weird warning to a cannibal movie (and no human was harmed in the making of this - at least not in a deadly way), but it is important to note such things, so you are fully informed when it comes to deciding if you want to watch this or not.

The other thing is the movie became infamous and Ruggero knew what he was doing. Nowadays this is almost unthinkable. Apart from Blair Witch Project, where the filmmaker apparently never had seen this, otherwise he wouldn't have made his movie which changed the landscape ... but this one changed a lot of things too. While the movie pretended that its actors were dead (told them not to involve themselves in other projects after this was finished), the filmmaker got into legal trouble, because people believed this was completely real. The real animal torture killing and the overall realistic looking effects did the rest ... especially one impaling scene! Ruggero has since explained how he did (quite "easy" faked), but still many are awed by how it looks.

So to summarize, this is depraved, this is dirty, this is appaling and this will make many sick to their stomach ... mission accomplished

It's pretty sad people call this art. This was just disgusting. I'm not a person who dislikes gore, I can stand it, and I like it. I'm not some animal rights pusher (I support it, but if it were me or the dog, the dog would die.) Now this was just truly disgusting and cruel. They did things to these animals that is so (I want to cry) horrible. I just think "What was the unimaginable pain of that muskrat, or the turtle, or the monkey." And f***ing a v*gin* with a wooden stake, WTF! Who sits down and comes up with this, and if you do, you don't film it. I love artistic movies like The Tracey Fragments and The Blair Witch Project, but this was by no means "art". This was a journey through a disgusting slaughterhouse. What saddens me is that you people act as if it weren't real. Well honey, those animals died for you entertainment. Now that's what i call "art"

I cant believe some people have scathed this great film. It deserves a lot higher rating.

I got this movie out thinking it was going to be a brainless splatter fest. But after watching it in completion I was bowled over ..I wasn't expecting to be challenged by its visuals as well as with the sociological lessons and questions it raised.

The film is real, genuine and honest to the subject topic: 'Barbarity' can be innate in all humans.

It can be argued that humans coming into the homo-sapiens stage of evolution survived and expanded because of what is now considered barbarous savage ways. Savagery was a survival tool. We came from barbarity...and to an extent we still are savages.

Though the acting is poor in most places ...the film director portrays cannabilism and barbarism ...and portrays it rather intelligently.

Obvious connotations can be made to Blair Witch Project. I'm sure the crew that made BWP was inspired by this movie.

The film follows a Professor investigating the disappearance of an American film team (3 guys and girl) that went into the jungle of South America to film a documentary about the native cannibals.

The Professor with a couple of jungle assistants venture into the jungle to trace the lost Americans footsteps. He manages to get on the trail and slowly uncovers the grizzly ways of the jungle tribes! By carefully befriending these natives he captures the lost film reels and returns back to his skyscraper clad conurbation.

In amongst the film there is the media business cogs turning. The dilemma of TV executives battling with the Professor to air the once lost footage on TV for the viewing public. The professor is reluctant.

The professor seems the only person possessed with moral understanding and compassion throughout the film ..everyone else it seems is after ratings, fame, money or blood.

The film commences its ending by playing back the raw footage of what the expedition team filmed...and it is shocking. Questions arise: Who is committing the real 'evil' savagery here?

As for the animal cruelty scenes: Yes they are real and shocking. But should it be anymore shocking than the beef burger that is served up in McDonalds. Cows are slaughtered everyday. Perhaps one needs to watch a bovine neck getting slit before they take it for granted they are eating a nice juicy steak on their plate. The film portrays the reality of human meat consumption...and yes all kinds of animals are killed for the human appetite, especially in the wild - someone will do it! For those who dispute this film on these grounds 'Can you handle life?' This stuff still goes on regardless of whether u see it happen or not.

This film is absolutely brilliant. A cult classic. I can see it making a revival...but don't know when...perhaps in some years time.

There are many things that are preferable to watching this film again, for it's not a pleasant film to watch. It's very beautifully shot and, with a main theme that exists to provide direct juxtaposition to the images that transpire on-screen, it's deceptively appealing at first glance. In fact, for the uninitiated, it's particularly easy to be deceived into thinking they've come across the wrong film, or that the shocking ride is nothing more than hype. But how wrong they would be.

Cannibal Holocaust is one of the classic found footage films about a documentary film crew that attempt to record a cannibal tribe's activities and wind up falling victim to the cannibals. The film heavily features a crew of individuals who have been sent in to try it find the filmmakers and the horrors they encounter, showing the found-footage film with varying degrees of censorship depending on your region. It's a plot that's been done a hundred times over, but this was one of the earlier ones. It's one of a number of Italian cannibal films to come out in the eighties, and has gone on to be Ruggero Deodato's most well-known film despite the previous film in his cannibal trilogy, Jungle Holocaust, being both better in quality and easier for viewers sensitive to the issues of Cannibal Holocaust.

This film ultimately asks the question of who is the true cannibalistic monster as you see a number of horrible activities transpiring by the crew looking for the filmmakers. It's at this point that the film cannot be taken lightly: there is real animal cruelty depicted relentlessly on the screen, scenes of bloody rape (which, we must assume, are fake) and anything in between that Deodato could find to tell his story whilst making it appear to be a snuff film.

Despite its faults, it was ahead of its time by offering a legitimate message - something to think about - behind the horror. After all, there's a reason why this film continues to endear and stand out in a genre that's got more films than we could possibly count. It's a product of its time, with the horrible depiction of treatment toward women and animals, but it's also ahead of its time for making the audience truly think. It's an ugly film and something no sane person would want to regularly return to for repeat viewing, but it's an important film that has earned its place in history and should be seen by everyone at least one time in their lives.

...and I'm including Krakatowa Powers and the Geyserettes (1997) in there. Cannibal Holocaust has always enjoyed that special sort of notoriety that comes from been banned in various "territories" but whereas some movies get the cull for reasons of self-censorship or cultural sensitivity (A Clockwork Orange for example), Holocaust is a thick soup of voyeuristic, demented violence and gore - censored despite the fact that the sort of people who'd want to see it more than once are precisely the type of malforms that will get a copy anyway whereas most others would either chose not to watch it or start to and realise that it's a load of old crap. Indeed its got internal organs galore but curiously no brains. Banning it serves no purpose other than to give it an aura it doesn't deserve. It is, when all the hype is cut away, say like the guts of a giant turtle, a supremely soul-destroying, pointless experience. Artistically worthless. The only reason to watch it at all is to see how much worse it's going to get and I'm not spoiling anything for you by saying that your looking at quite a scale and the journey is long and tough. The story or hook if you like, is that, some movie makers go into the jungle, encounter a tribe of base savages who eat their fellow man and get horribly brutalised, murdered and consumed but luckily for us the whole thing is captured on film. This is pre-Blair Witch stuff with a great deal more calories, conceived by Deodato, the would-be snuff peddler when those directors were chest-lunching. To say that 'ol Holocaust is hard going is just ever so understating the case. Many movies claim to be a difficult watch but in this case the real holocaust might have been a preferable experience. Men and women have equal reason to fear its many stomach churning sequences. For the boys it'll be the scene in which some poor sod has his penis excised from his genital space and eaten while the baying mob disembowel him alive. Girls, sit back and look forward to the woman mounted vaginally on a spear scene and lets not forget the animal snuff. Pigs, monkeys, turtles - you name it they get it. If you've always thought that Babe was missing the scene in which he gets the bullet or that Finding Nemo might have worked better with a display of turtle guts then this is the flick you've been waiting your whole life to see. Scalped monkeys are the perfect antidote to all those cutesy born free type movies we've had to suffer over the years but the directors a brave man because if the A.L.F ever see this he'll need to be checking the underside of his car with a mirror for life. There was a lot of nonsense when this was made about it being snuff and those sensitive Italians didn't like the animal slaughter (this is the nation that invented fascism!) but the authorities may have wondered why you'd release a film that portrayed you murdering your cast (its damning evidence after all) - why not just murder them? In the end the only people who really get slayed are the audience but not in a funny way - if its this or 'While you Were Sleeping' it's still the Bullock movie...but only just of course.

A group of documentarians go into the Amazon to film warring cannibal tribes. Unfortunately for them, they don't make it back. An anthropologist is sent in to find them, and is horrified when he sees the grisly images they captured on film.

Let me make a confession. Despite being a serious horror fan and having met Ruggero Deodato twice, engaging in some interesting conversation with him, I had never seen "Cannibal Holocaust" before. I had a fairly good idea of what to expect from it, as I was familiar with Umberto Lenzi's "Cannibal Ferox", which I suspected was quite similar (something I suspected correctly). But I think it's safe to say Deodato went further than Lenzi's imitation did.

Starring Robert Kerman (perhaps better known for his many pornographic films), it's not surprising that this film pushes the boundaries on nudity and cruelty. Men and women naked, some of them sexually brutalized... animals killed, including a monkey who gets his face cut off and the infamous "turtle scene". I was actually somewhat disturbed by this film -- at the very least, rather uncomfortable. One scene where an adulteress is punished was particularly disturbing for me.

I don't think those of you who are squeamish will want to see this one... or those who don't like seeing animals killed (yes, Virginia, the animals killed on screen)... but if you want to see a horror film with some sense of reality in it, this is it. There's also a strong social commentary in it about what makes man civilized or not, but I won't get into that... you'll see it.

Murdering animals for trophies is disgusting. But doing I for "entertainment" is even worse. Anyone associated with this movie is disgusting and I will never want to meet irl. It's sick. It's inhumane. I wish what happened to the animals in this movie happened to the people who made it. All of them. DISGUSTING. And to think people actually found it entertaining, also disgusts me. People who found this entertaining need to be evaluated. Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to live with civialized people. Because they are gross. I will never understand how anyone could make, let alone watch, a gross movie like this.

The second word in the title is important. Ruggero Deodato's 1979 meta-snuff movie, far more than a chichi trinket like THE NIGHT PORTER, is the real Holocaust porn. Here the trigger is not frights, or even shocks, or even splatter. Atrocity is the name of Deodato's game--and the genius of this monsterpiece is that Deodato horrifyingly delivers the goods at the same time he coruscates his audience and himself.

This is a hard movie to recommend to any but those who would find it anyway; but it must be said that Deodato here created the most rigorous, critical, almost philosophical movie in the Italian horror canon. The audience's lust for Third World exoticism and envelope-pushing violence are gratified and held up to the painful light of day--and not necessarily in that order. The overwhelming feeling of this picture is of a pornographer pleading, "Stop me before I shoot again."

The conceit of the movie--an academic's journey into the Amazon to find the remains of a Western film crew devoured by cannibals--permits Deodato more Pirandellian boxes within boxes than a double bill of BLOWUP and THE PLAYER. But the atmosphere of the movie, despite scenes of cruelty so extreme you sometimes want to put out your eyeballs, is relentlessly elegiac--capped by Riz Ortolani's theme music. (It can be said with certainty that no romantic ballad was ever used underneath what Deodato stages here.)

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is the farthest edge of Extreme Cinema--as in Extreme Sports. It feels stuntlike, yet the combination of amplified bloodlust and world-weary regret is unique. Like Lucio Fulci's even more personal CAT IN THE BRAIN, it's an affecting enactment of an exploitation artist's conscience tearing apart.

It might make good viewing for Y2K Eve: it puts together the century's two salient words--holocaust and entertainment--as no other film did before or since.