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A professor travels to a South American jungle inhabited by cannibalistic tribes to find out what happened to a lost documentary film crew.
As this film was starting out, I had my worries that it wasn’t going to turn out good. For one thing, the acting didn’t seem to be much above the standards of Troll 2; there were some lines involving marriage, for example, that were downright cringe-worthy. For another, I thought that the whole film was going to be a found footage movie, and so I was wondering who the hell was filming the army guys.
As it turns out, nitpicking about the army guy scene would just be pointless, because at least 75% of Cannibal Holocaust is shot like an actual movie. Also, the acting got better after the intro. I’m guessing that the aforementioned marriage talk was shot only once before they moved on.
Now the last movie I reviewed in this series was Man Bites Dog, a film which I described as “disturbing.” Cannibal Holocaust made that movie look tame - in fact, it almost made it look like a children’s film. I mean, this was actually mind numbing.
There are scenes in which real animals are being killed onscreen, the most controversial of which is the turtle. Early on, there’s a moment when a muskrat is being killed, which is pretty damn disturbing, and for a while I was wondering why everybody talks about this turtle but never mentions the freaking muskrat. But then the turtle scene happened, and I knew why. It was more memorable, that’s for certain. Following that, there’s also a snake, a pig, and a monkey. There were a few times when I wished the camera would just cut or turn away, and it refused to do so.
As horrible as the animal scenes were, I can understand from an artistic standpoint why they were filmed. If the audience sees animals dying before their eyes, they’re more inclined to believe that the people in the film are dying as well. So it’s easy to see why the producer and director were in trouble with the law for this movie. Granted, the human death scenes weren’t nearly as brutal, but this is a low budget movie from 1980.
Something that I did not see coming at all was that I felt bad for the cannibals at one point. As Harold, the professor, discovers the fate of the lost film crew, he asks himself what sort of crimes these people must have committed to deserve such punishment. And when he recovers their film canisters and brings them back home to watch, his question is answered. Also, it becomes evident why this movie has its title.
There’s a recent film called Welcome to the Jungle which has a similar premise to Cannibal Holocaust, and one of the many things I didn’t like about that movie was its cast of unlikable characters. But while the people in that movie were just annoying and the film was completely underwhelming, I genuinely despised the film crew of this movie. I wanted to keep watching just to see how they would get it in the end.
Cannibal Holocaust is a film that I will not be re-watching anytime soon, but I do respect it as a picture that is fascinating, disturbing, and emotionally effective. If my previous words haven’t convinced you already, I do not recommend watching it if you are easily sickened or horrified.
8.5/10
As this film was starting out, I had my worries that it wasn’t going to turn out good. For one thing, the acting didn’t seem to be much above the standards of Troll 2; there were some lines involving marriage, for example, that were downright cringe-worthy. For another, I thought that the whole film was going to be a found footage movie, and so I was wondering who the hell was filming the army guys.
As it turns out, nitpicking about the army guy scene would just be pointless, because at least 75% of Cannibal Holocaust is shot like an actual movie. Also, the acting got better after the intro. I’m guessing that the aforementioned marriage talk was shot only once before they moved on.
Now the last movie I reviewed in this series was Man Bites Dog, a film which I described as “disturbing.” Cannibal Holocaust made that movie look tame - in fact, it almost made it look like a children’s film. I mean, this was actually mind numbing.
There are scenes in which real animals are being killed onscreen, the most controversial of which is the turtle. Early on, there’s a moment when a muskrat is being killed, which is pretty damn disturbing, and for a while I was wondering why everybody talks about this turtle but never mentions the freaking muskrat. But then the turtle scene happened, and I knew why. It was more memorable, that’s for certain. Following that, there’s also a snake, a pig, and a monkey. There were a few times when I wished the camera would just cut or turn away, and it refused to do so.
As horrible as the animal scenes were, I can understand from an artistic standpoint why they were filmed. If the audience sees animals dying before their eyes, they’re more inclined to believe that the people in the film are dying as well. So it’s easy to see why the producer and director were in trouble with the law for this movie. Granted, the human death scenes weren’t nearly as brutal, but this is a low budget movie from 1980.
Something that I did not see coming at all was that I felt bad for the cannibals at one point. As Harold, the professor, discovers the fate of the lost film crew, he asks himself what sort of crimes these people must have committed to deserve such punishment. And when he recovers their film canisters and brings them back home to watch, his question is answered. Also, it becomes evident why this movie has its title.
There’s a recent film called Welcome to the Jungle which has a similar premise to Cannibal Holocaust, and one of the many things I didn’t like about that movie was its cast of unlikable characters. But while the people in that movie were just annoying and the film was completely underwhelming, I genuinely despised the film crew of this movie. I wanted to keep watching just to see how they would get it in the end.
Cannibal Holocaust is a film that I will not be re-watching anytime soon, but I do respect it as a picture that is fascinating, disturbing, and emotionally effective. If my previous words haven’t convinced you already, I do not recommend watching it if you are easily sickened or horrified.
8.5/10
