Useless Movie Reviews: Cannibal Holocaust

Cannibal Holocaust(1980) is widely considered one of the most controversial movies ever made, and rightfully so. With it's combination of gruesome visuals, and arresting on film slaughterings of live animals, this is one fucked up movie.

The film begins with one of the most beautiful opening credits sequences i've seen in a long time. Director Rugerro Dedato chose the perfect locations for the opening scenes. For a film about human cruelty to the highest degree the opening credits give the viewer a sense of peace. For a while anyway. But what really makes the credits is the underrated score by Riz Ortolani.

Watch The Main Titles Here...

After the opening credits we are introduced to a fairly innocent and naive looking documentary crew laughing it up with their nature guide, and having some old fashioned fun. As their plane takes off into the sky we are relocated to some major city in italy which happens to have a giant billboard of Dracula(1979) starring Frank Langella. Anyway, some reporter is talking about the sad story behind the disappearance of those documentary filmmakers...

Act I

The first act involves a university professor who heads over to the amazon jungle with a crew of a experience guide, a military officer, and a civilized native to find out what really happened to the missing documentary team. Where the film really begins to pick up steam is before the professor shows up. A group of military goons armed to the teeth go on a shooting spree, and kill every cannibal native they see. Eventuallty capturing one alive so they can use him to lead the crew to the natives den.

Once the professor arrives the crew go on a nature hike through the jungles and rivers of the amazon searching for the Yanomamo and Shamatari tribes, who just happen to like snacking on some freshly smoked human meat..

Then we get the pleasure to see one of the most unsettling sex scenes ever filmed. If you get a boner watching this you are one sick mother fucker. the professor and the crew hide in the bushes and watch a native male punish a female native by anhilihating her vagina with a stone penis. And he isn't done after that..he then takes a big rock, shoves jagged sticks into the mud covered rock and drives it mutliple times into her happy place. Then he promptly bashes her head in.

During this sequence the director does not cut away from any of the extreme violence. it is shown in graphic detail, and it is one of the many sequences in this film that are hard to watch.

After this senseless and brutal murder, we are briefly given the chance to witness the lighter side of the cannibal tribes. The professor bathes naked in the filthy river with the fellow naked native women, and shares a hunk of human liver with the tree people. But not all is fine and dandy in the happy cannibal reservation..the professor and his crew look around the tree fort and finally find what they were looking for, and then some...Act two ends with a close up of a crude mobile of human skulls, and tiny tin cans which happen to be film canisters.
(Other stuff happens in act one as well like the guide kills a muskrat(?), Various sequences of the natives running around naked, and having multiple orgies..and it's not very sexy.. and they share some white crap in a bowl..)

Act II

Act two begins after the professor and his crew return back to the city with film in hand. Now of course the various different production companies are curious about what is on the film, and decide to give it a rough cut screening for various different big wigs, and employ the professor as the host. Now everything seems just fine until the rough footage starts to play...

the rough pseudo-documentary called The Green Inferno begins with actual stock footage of Edi Amin's atrocities by firing squad. Then we get introduced in person to our intrepid crew..

Jack Anders- A Blonde Mustached Pretty Boy Who Happens To Be Able To Use A Camera..

Alan Yates- The Director Of This Film, And The Boy Toy Of The Script Girl.

Faye Daniels- Boy Toy Alan Yates Lover, And She's Got A Nice Ass Too..

Mark Tomaso- Another Freakin' Cameraman, And A Horny Asshole To Boot.

Chaco- South American Guide, Amputee Victim.

The documentary flock then heads off into the steamy amazon jungles to search for the cannibal tribes. But in order to survive the long trip, the crew decides to look for something to eat. And what follows is one of the most upsetting, and intense scenes of animal cruelty ever seen on film.

Jack, And Mark capture a live river turtle and slowly cut it's shell of it's back. What makes the scene even more cringe worthy is that the turtles legs are still kicking while they're slicing it open. When Faye throws up, it is not fake. The actress herself literally blew chunks watching the actors who played Jack Anders. And Mark Tomaso cut open the river turtle.

But the senseless slaying of the turtle isn't the only scene of graphic animal cruelty in Cannibal Holocaust. Here's a list of the animals that were slaughtered for the sake of cinema.

Tree Spider- Crushed with a machete by Alan Yates(Happened to be a rare species of spider at the time.)

Squirrel Monkey- Decapitated with a machete.

Snake- Decapitated with a machete and left for dead.

Pig- Kicked multiple times and shot in the head.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING FOOTAGE IS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC AND SHOULD NOT BE VIEWED BY ANYONE WITH A FAINT HEART, OR A WEAK STOMACH. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

After they have their turtle lunch the crew finally finds the cannibal natives camp. And when they find out that there's not enough action for a possible academy award winning documentary about cannibals, worthy of the title The Green Inferno. So they committed one of the most atrocious acts I have ever seen on the screen. In order to spice things up they light the natives camp on fire, and corral a bundle of natives and lock them in a hut, and burn them alive. Afterwards they blame it on the opposing native tribe and film a still breathing native whom they burned alive, to add some emphasis on their lies.

But they don't stop there..Jack and Alan decide to rape one of the natives. Which makes for yet another uncomfortable sequence of profoundly disturbing lust. while Jack and Mark are fulfilling their carnal desires, a native male is hiding in the bushes watching it all(which explains the adultery punishment we saw earlier..)

The films last 2o minutes are a brutal assault to senses. One by one the documentary crew are mercilessly butchered and eaten alive. But the camera still keeps on rolling even when Jack is castrated by the cannibals. The brutality continues with the natives cutting Jack in half, and feasting on his organs. Up next is Alan who is also castrated and eaten. Then Faye is not only beaten with sticks, but raped and then decapitated. The final sequence is the cameraman Mark Tomaso getting ambushed and beaten to a bloody pulp. We are also shown the iconic image of a female impaled upon a spit through her mouth.
(Act two had other things happen as well but most were just backstories on the documentary crew, and meetings with the professor and the production companies.)

As a whole Cannibal Holocaust is a relentless display of the darkest side of man. A cinematic tour of the disgusting and perverse. Cannibal Holocaust is all of these things, but one thing it isn't is poorly made. It features fantastic direction by Ruggero Dedato, and any film that takes as many chances as CH does deserves some recognition. Cannibal Holocaust is a film that everyone must see at least once. If they can stomach it that is..

***1/2