by Kris Katz
Brief spoiler-free entertainment reviews

Monday, September 17, 2007

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Don't see this movie. Please. Save yourself the trouble. I took one for the team here, so let that be the end of it. I saw this movie so you don't have to. In its ninety minute run time, I witnessed sex, attempted genocide, stomach churning body mutilation, several rapes, and of course several instances of cannibalism (sometimes accompanying the rapes). Then there are the real things shown, such as horrific animal cruelty—not staged, faked dummy-animals filled with sausage and dye, but honest-to-goodness killing of several woodland creatures on film for the film—as well as several minutes of real execution and mass grave footage courtesy of then-Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Buried somewhere in this repugnant mess of a movie is a decent question of whether it's our modern society, or that of the cannibalistic tribes who are the more savage. If nothing else, this analysis is effective, but sitting through what is basically a horror-snuff film to get to that message is more than a person should have to bear. This is considered one of the most controversial movies of all time (which is what drew me to see it), featuring sex and violence of a nature I can only begin to describe without making my stomach do backflips; this is among the most disgusting, depraved, repulsive films I have ever laid eyes on—I wish I could unsee it. I really do. And if IMDB's trivia page is to be believed director Ruggero Deodato regrets ever making it. Do yourself a favor: stay away.

This film does not deserve a number.

Note: I should point out that I have no trouble with the survivalist and abatoir types doing what must be done for people to survive and eat. I understand that for people to eat, something must die, and sometimes brutally. But seeing animals killed for no other purpose than to be filmed for supposed "entertainment" crosses a line for me. A remake of this movie is apparently due out in 2009. If anyone would like to start a picket line, e-mail me.

1 comment:

Jacob said...

I have actually seen this movie recently.

I agree that it is horrible to watch, and that it may be exploitation cinema at its lowest moral form, but I take issue with the comment about animals being killed solely for entertainment. These realistic (that is to say completely real) slayings - and there are only three of them - are no worse than the butchering that happens every single day times thousands in slaughter houses across the country. No one to my knowledge needs top sirloin to survive, but they choose to pay good money to eat it. Is that any less wrong?

If an animal dies so someone can watch it dying, that doesn't seem right to me, but that brutality is one of the only redeeming aspects of this film, because it confronts the viewer in a way that almost none of the fake violence can. Far from wanting to see more of it, I was repulsed by it and by the perpetrators, each an example of "modern humanity," far more than I was by the cannibals.

Whatever legitimate point was buried under the layers of exploitation cinema comes to the surface because of these scenes. It was the most effective reveal of the true nature of the protagonists. I was glad when (spoiler removed)...something bad happens to them.