CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, released today
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Cannibal Holocaust
jriddle73 — 1 year ago(February 08, 2025 01:09 AM)
Released on this day–7 Feb.–in 1980, Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. Coming toward the end of a cycle of Italian cannibal flicks and pioneering what would become the "found footage" subgenre, the movie features a group of disreputable documentarians going all Ugly American on a tribe of cannibals in the Amazon and finding out the hard way what a bad idea that is. Counterpointing the rather beautiful score by Riz Ortolani, it's brutal, nasty, pitiless–one of the most horror-iest horror movies ever made.
Deodato was an acolyte of Neorealism, and he shot the film like a documentary. Real animal-killing, which were featured regularly in Italian jungle movies of the period, upset censors but it was the alleged people-killing that really caused a stir; the killings in the film were so effective that Deodato was actually charged with murder! That's just about the highest tribute one could pay to a horror movie director. The fact that the actors were alive and well cleared him but the film was banned in many countries and eventually came to use this as a selling-point.
The movie includes a sort of self-indictment of itself as a movie that is often dismissed as purely cynical but is actually rather thoughtful. Not for the faint of heart, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST can challenge the arterial function of even the heartiest of horror fans, and all the years between it and today haven't dulled its edge a whit.
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/