Cannibal Holocaust

In my ongoing Disturbed October, let's delve into a little Italian sub-genre, shall we?  That's right, this week, it's a cannibal movie, one that caused no end of trouble for it's poor director, Ruggero Deodato.  It's Cannibal Holocaust and it's one of the first 'cinema-vertie' movies ever!




Here's the story:  A film team has been sent deep into the Amazon, on a mission to find some of the native tribes.  So, the anthropologist who sent the team, takes a team of his own to retrace their steps to find his missing comrades.  As they make their way deep into the jungle, what they discover is tribe of people who have never seen white people, and figure that they might taste good!!!!
 
The real charm (if charm can really be used with a movie like this) of Cannibal Holocaust, is that it's presented mostly as 'found footage', this is the film that the teams took while on their respective trips, and we get to see some truly disturbing stuff...and some of it is actually real.  You see, Deodato had the brilliant idea to film the local people eating local cuisine, and killing it too!  So, we get to see a tortoise ripped from it's shell and several other animals killed and disemboweled...things that are pretty hard to watch, but the real footage of animal killings make the faked deaths of the people seem more real.  In fact, after filming, Deodato ordered his stars into a sort of exile before the film was released, to keep the believability about it.  The film was so seemingly realistic that Deodato was arrested and hauled before the Italian courts, and was forced to produce his cast to prove that he hadn't produced some twisted snuff film!
 
Now, if you're a bit squeamish, you'll probably want to avoid Cannibal Holocaust completely, but, if you're up for the dare, then I recommend the Grindhouse Releasing version, this gives you an option to skip through all the animals that were killed and just enjoy the human deaths!  Because, if you're like me, you'd much rather watch the people being tortured than the animals!
 
Cannibal Holocaust gets 4 out of 4 cigars for it's sheer lack of any redeeming value, it's gritty, disturbing and difficult to watch...and that's also what makes it great!  So, until next time, when I'll be eyeing my neighbors...they look like they might taste like chicken...remember that the best movies are bad movies.