Review - Cannibal Holocaust

Trying to review the infamous Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust is a tough gig because for an exploitation film, it is a competently acted, scripted and is a surprisingly well made film. The music score for the film is also quite outstanding.

The plot - A New York anthropologist named Professor Harold Monroe travels to the wild, inhospitable jungles of South America to find out what happened to a documentary film crew that disappeared two months before while filming a documentary about primitive cannibal tribes deep in the rain forest. With the help of two local guides, Professor Monroe encounters two tribes, the Yacumo and the Yanomamo. While under the hospitality of the latter tribe, he finds the remains of the crew and several reels of their undeveloped film...

Now this is one the first footage films, not all of the films is handheld camera work, just the documentary markers found reels and it works very well.

The footage from the documentary team paints a horrible picture of 'civilised' people exploiting the tribes in the worst ways possible, this is inter cut with the TV executives and Professor Monroe watching a screening of this footage, complete with responses to the repellent material, making it all the more uncomfortable and icky.


He asked for medium rare...



Now comes the analytical part of this review - Whilst the message of Cannibal Holocaust is quite clear - Who are the real savages? - It does have to be noted that the film crew making this film and the actors seem no better than the documentary makers that film is decrying. Several animals were really killed for the film, on film and graphically, the exploitation aspect of the film taken to horrifying levels by these acts. Which raising any number of moral and ethical questions and which can't help but taint the films qualities.

On the fake side of atrocities in the film, well the whole gammut is run through - Rape, torture, hacked limbs, smashed in skulls, forced abortions and of course flesh eating, is in abundance. All over these faked effects are truly astonishing for a late 1980 production, some of the effects are so good, that you geniunely worry for the actors in the film (The film was thought to be a real snuff film but was later proved in court to be a legitmate film).
So whether you think this film has merit or is just another piece of video nasty trash, it is undeinable that it will evoke a response in you and that is a mark of a good film.