Cannibal Holocaust

I been wanting to watch this movie for awhile now, knowing how notorious the film is. Today I just happened to be a bad enough mood where if the movie was disturbing I probably wouldn't feel it. This ended up being the case. So keep that in mind: If you're in a crappy enough mood, watch some soul wrentching film. It'll leave you unchanged.

So "Cannibal Holocaust". Some backstory before I get to the review. The director Ruggero Deodato, after the movie was released, was arrested and was going to go to prison for life for murder and filming it. The kill scenes in this movie are that realistic. Deodato proved it's only a movie by having all the actors appear in court and say "Hey, I'm alive!"

With that out of the way, the story focuses on a group of American film makers who are going to some remote jungle to film a doctumentary on some savage tribes. Six months have gone by and no trace of them. The company that hired the crew hires Professor Monroe to go looking for them since he knows a thing or two about tribes people. He flies to the jungle, hooks up with a guide, and they go looking for them.

While looking for them, they find one tribe (not called Quest, sadly enough) and after establishing they are friendly, they root around looking for the film makers. Not finding anything, they move on and find another tribe called The Treedwellers, who live in...well you can probably figure that out.

After earning their trust, they find the rotting corpses of the film makers. And some cans of film hanging around. Monroe manages to get the film from the tribe and fly back to New York City with the footage. The TV Studio that hired the film makers want to air the footage uncuts but Monroe is like "Uh...." and shows them the footage. The last half of the movie is the footage and what happened to the film makers. Just like "The Blair Witch Project!" (That's probably gonna get me flamed. Fuck it, I don't care right now.)

So the film makers, three dudes and a plain looking girl, head to the jungle and start filming themselves goofing around. A trantula scares the girl. They find a turtle and kill it, gut it, then eat it. Oh by the way, all the scenes of the animals getting chopped is in fact real.

Eventually, they find the first tribe (still not called Quest) and because they're asshole film makers, they terrorize them by stealing their food, burning their huts down, and even going so far as raping the women. They're doing this around the scenes they're gonna edit to make themselves look like heroes and them more like savages.

The network executives, being jerkwads, still wanna show the footage. Monroe is like "Well, wait until you see THE MURDERS!" So more footage reveals that the film makers killed some people and made it look like the tribes killed them in these brutal ways. Sick of their shit, the tribes attack them. They cut off one dude's dick and then eat his body. Then they grab the girl, rape her, then cut her head off. Then they beat the other guys to death, all with the camera rolling.

With the footage over, the executives are like "Point made, Monroe" and he orders he footage to be destroyed. Monroe ends the film with the question: "Who are the real savages?" Hmm. Makes you think.

I'm not gonna lie. If I was in a normal mood, this movie would be severely fucked up. Knowing the human murders aren't real made it somewhat ok but it still looks real enough. Plus it made me wonder how they did some of it. This movie isn't for everybody. If you were disturbed by me describing it, don't watch. If you're morbid enough to check it out, I say do it. It's kind of an important film in a way. Plus, there are people who like "I Spit On Your Grave" so keep that in mind while watching.

-Jason