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. Upon returning to New York City, Professor Monroe views the film in detail, featuring the director Alan Yates, his girlfriend Faye Daniels, and cameramen Jack Anders and Mark Tomaso. After a few days of traveling, the film details how the crew staged all the footage for their documentary by terrorizing and torturing the natives. Despite Monroe's objections, the television studio Pan American still wishes to air the footage as a legitimate documentary. In order to change their minds, Monroe shows the station's executives the film's final reels, so they could see first hand how the crew's fate came to be. On Putlocker - watch Cannibal Holocaust 1980 in HD 1080p with high speed link.

Cannibal Holocaust is nasty,sometimes VERY hard to watch,arguably sick,horrible,you name it. It's also a near masterpiece by it's director Ruggero Deodato {who never came near the quality of this film again}. It's a horror film in the most literal sense. It's not scary in the slightest,it doesn't attempt to make you jump. Despite it's scenes of horrendous violence,it's not even a simple 'gross out' a la Braindead. What Deadato attempted with this film is to disturb the viewer, provoke a reaction and make him or her THINK. The film has a powerful message about man's cruelty and violence,and Deodato just tackles it totally head on. This,and the fact that it is so well made{lets face it,some of the so-called 'video nasties' seem laughable now}are probably why the film has had so much censor trouble. Even if you hate it,it sticks with you,it's horrifying images staying in the mind for ages.
And they are indeed many. People being ripped open and eaten,including even a penis being partially torn off. A woman having a foetus torn out of her and it buried in mud. Another woman raped with a dildo and than having a mudball with nails on thrust between her legs too. A brief fake documentary showing disturbingly realistic executions. The list goes on. You would be forgiven for thinking that this is just exploitative nastiness. However, {and this is just one of the many things that separates this film from the many other films of the cannibal subgenre],we are being shown this stuff to get us to think,not just about mankind's violence to each other and his ignorance of other races but also about violence in the news {and oddly enough,the glut of 'reality'shows on TV today also make the film pertinent}. And it also toys with our sympathies in a devilishly clever way. Cannibalism seems horrible to most of us, but at the end aren't we almost pleased to see the protagonists eaten by the natives when they have spent the previous half hour mistreating and abusing them?
The film is oddly structured,with the second half being basically the 'film' which the characters in the first half of the film find. The second half has the most power,even if there are shots which couldn't actually have been taken by the filmmakers. Deodato actually shows great skill in many of the gory effects scenes by showing just enough of the effects to be effective but not dwelling on them so the fakery starts to show,and the climatic orgy of cannibalism is all the more shocking because much of it is only partially glimpsed,making more of an impression. Riz Ortolani's often bleakly beautiful score is superb and even the dubbing of the {good if not great}actors is not bad.
The one thing about the film that is hardest to defend is the animal cruelty {unless you see the UK DVD,which removes it}. In one particularly notable scene a large turtle is dragged out of the water and in what seems like real time is disembowelled. It probably is sickening that animals were killed for a film,yet this IS how the natives of many places survive,by killing animals and eating them,and is this really any more sickening than the way chickens are couped up in factories, stuffed with food and basically bred to die? Answers on a postcard please.
Cannibal Holocaust is quite simply essential viewing not just for fans of extreme cinema but for adult fans of cinema full stop,as long as of course they can stomach it!

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Professor Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman aka porn star Richard Bolla) travels into the jungles of South America to try and discover what happened to a group of three documentary film makers who have been missing now for some time. After locating a primitive tribe Monroe manages to strike a deal and salvage what is left of Alan (Gabriel Yorke), Faye (Francesca Ciardi) and Jack (Perry Pirkanen).
They say there is a fine line between genius and insanity and I think in ‘Cannibal Holocaust' director Ruggero Deodatto made that line as thin as possible. To call this movie depraved and sick would only give it half the credit it deserves because ‘Cannibal Holocaust' is meant to be sick as it shows how sickening our own society is but in the most morally corrupt way imaginable. Featuring numerous repulsive acts such as a real live turtle flaying, a foetus being ripped from a woman's body, rape, castration and impalement the film sets about to portray the `civilised' documentary filmmakers as no better than the primitive cannibals. Even though the actors are barely competent enough to do their job it becomes almost enjoyable (in a very sadistic way) to watch them suffer at the hands of those they have wronged. However, from a moralistic standpoint even watching this movie is wrong.
I don't think this is the type of movie you either love or hate on an entertainment basis but you either agree or disagree with how it presents its case. ‘Cannibal Holocaust' is certainly nothing short of an endurance test in viewing as the senses are raped by the foul imagery constantly portrayed within. Filmed on a shoe string budget with virtually no production values evident, ‘Cannibal Holocaust' has a disturbing realistic grittiness that is almost unparalleled by any other movie and a huge influence for ‘The Blair Witch Project' almost twenty years later. I feel that because the movie is so badly made and the very fact it was produced is more damning to society than the events portrayed within many people feel that it is nothing more than a senseless bloodbath with no redeeming features and a hypocritical storyline – and to an extent they are probably right! Whether the viewer appreciates or despises this movie is totally dependant on the viewer and it is unfair for anybody else to make judgements on that person based on their opinion of this movie.
‘Cannibal Holocaust' is not about a sharp storyline, great acting or superb special effects (though the unsimulated effects are generally good). Instead it is about humanity in general. If you believe you can cope with violent and repulsive imagery and scenes of unbelievable cruelty then go ahead and watch it but otherwise it is certainly one to avoid. Some people will probably find the moralising over such repulsive subject matter offensive and I can't say that I blame them. However, there is a message there and this movie makes an extremely bold statement. The question is though whether it was right to make the statement in this way? From an artistic standpoint it holds no real value but remains an interesting movie. My rating for ‘Cannibal Holocaust' – 6/10.

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'Cannibal Holocaust' is not the campy little horror flick I expected. It's a 'serious' and well-made movie and it's an experience you'll hardly ever forget. According to IMDb's trivia section the movie can 'only be seen completely uncut in the EC-UltraBit DVD', which means that I've seen a tamed down version and that, my friends, is insane! 'Cannibal Holocaust' is easily one of the most graphic movies I've ever come across. The violence is incredibly realistic. It's no wonder that director Ruggero Deodato was taken to court to prove that he hasn't slain real people for his motion picture. (I still think the real animal slaughtering in the movie was unnecessary. Screw you for that, Deodato!) It's hard to tell if there really is a message or if the 'moral' is just an excuse for all the gore. In a strange way the violent scenes somehow speak for themselves and do deliver some kind of message, but that's open for discussion.
If ever a movie deserved the label 'disturbing', it's 'Cannibal Holocaust'. It's controversial, but totally worth watching, if you can take some seriously sick images.

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I cant believe some people have scathed this great film. It deserves a lot higher rating.
I got this movie out thinking it was going to be a brainless splatter fest. But after watching it in completion I was bowled over .I wasn't expecting to be challenged by its visuals as well as with the sociological lessons and questions it raised.
The film is real, genuine and honest to the subject topic: 'Barbarity' can be innate in all humans.
It can be argued that humans coming into the homo-sapiens stage of evolution survived and expanded because of what is now considered barbarous savage ways. Savagery was a survival tool. We came from barbarity..and to an extent we still are savages.
Though the acting is poor in most places ..the film director portrays cannabilism and barbarism ..and portrays it rather intelligently.
Obvious connotations can be made to Blair Witch Project. I'm sure the crew that made BWP was inspired by this movie.
The film follows a Professor investigating the disappearance of an American film team (3 guys and girl) that went into the jungle of South America to film a documentary about the native cannibals.
The Professor with a couple of jungle assistants venture into the jungle to trace the lost Americans footsteps. He manages to get on the trail and slowly uncovers the grizzly ways of the jungle tribes! By carefully befriending these natives he captures the lost film reels and returns back to his skyscraper clad conurbation.
In amongst the film there is the media business cogs turning. The dilemma of TV executives battling with the Professor to air the once lost footage on TV for the viewing public. The professor is reluctant.
The professor seems the only person possessed with moral understanding and compassion throughout the film .everyone else it seems is after ratings, fame, money or blood.
The film commences its ending by playing back the raw footage of what the expedition team filmed..and it is shocking. Questions arise: Who is committing the real 'evil' savagery here?
As for the animal cruelty scenes: Yes they are real and shocking. But should it be anymore shocking than the beef burger that is served up in McDonalds. Cows are slaughtered everyday. Perhaps one needs to watch a bovine neck getting slit before they take it for granted they are eating a nice juicy steak on their plate. The film portrays the reality of human meat consumption..and yes all kinds of animals are killed for the human appetite, especially in the wild - someone will do it! For those who dispute this film on these grounds 'Can you handle life?' This stuff still goes on regardless of whether u see it happen or not.
This film is absolutely brilliant. A cult classic. I can see it making a revival..but don't know when..perhaps in some years time.

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Yes, this film was banned and heavily censored in a few places for being disturbing. It does have some really well done gruesome scenes but the real censorship came from the cruelty to animals. Let's just say this film doesn't have 'no animals were harmed during production' scrolling the end credits. The animal killings include a pig being shot in the head from close range, a muskrat being slit open for no reason, a giant turtle being split open in an overly long scene and a monkey getting his brains bashed in which required two takes so two monkeys were killed during production. These were real killings and not faked. A lot of the actors on the set protested this but the show went on. In fact, one of the lead actors feared for his life thinking this might be a 'snuff' film and might meet the same fate. As much as this bothered people, is it really that different then buying meat in a supermarket? At least it made me think. The movie centers around 'found footage' of a group of documentary filmmakers. The filmmakers are in South America searching for a tribe of flesh-eaters, hoping that this documentary will win them fame and fortune. The movie was marketed in a way that made viewers believe all the documentary footage shown in the movie was actual footage of a group that really went to South America to do a documentary. Some questionable acting gives it away. And you thought 'The Blair Witch Project' was an original idea didn't you!?

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Cannibal Holocaust was, first and foremost, a disgusting movie with more violence than I have ever seen. Despite this, it is also one of my favorite movies. It gives a feeling of Blair Witch done right, even though there are some very obviously contrived scenes in which nobody is holding the camera, but despite some small cosmetic problems this is the best horror movie I have ever seen.
Unlike most 'shock' films, such as the Guinea Pig movies, Cannibal Holocaust has a very well written plot and a definite progression. The focus is still on making the audience ill, but we don't even see any violence until fairly late in the movie, so the emphasis on plot is much stronger. The story told is a deep one, showing the lengths at which people will go for some goal, the example given being fame and fortune. The theme is reflected in parallel story lines through the second half of the movie, as Alan and his crew go to more and more desperate lengths for fame, and the professor struggles against a big media company to suppress the release of their footage. Even in a 'meta' sense, we see the theme appear once again in the lengths the director of Cannibal Holocaust itself went, going so far as to kill and butcher four animals on camera.

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Cannibal Holocaust is very deserving of it's controversy, but it is definitely not tacky and for pure shock value, something I half expected (I discovered this movie while reading about the August Underground movies and was way more intrigued by a controversial movie with meaning and plot). It's in your face, it at least seems real (and is real in some parts). Never have I ever seen such convincing special effects in a movie and this was a low-budget 70s movie, CGI will never recreate it. But beyond the special effects there is a message and meaning and very engaging story.
I'll break down the review into sections.
Plot/story (9/10): Think of The Blair Witch Project, except not trying to put itself off as real. A group of 4 documenters go into the amazon jungle to film the 'savages' and cannibals that live there. They do not return and it is up to an anthropologist to find them or at least what was left of them. Throughout the movie we learn of the documentary crew's tendency to push and bribe people into committing extreme acts of violence through actual footage from people being killed by soldiers in Nigeria. The movie portrays it as if it was a documentary shot by the crew in which they payed the soldiers off to kill innocent people execution style. As the story progresses the viewer is forced to try and comprehend who exactly are the real savages. Not to mention the social overtones of how modern society ties into all of this. It loses a point, though, because the dialog sometimes is very iffy, even though you can tell they were trying to be realistic, but this hinders the actors, especially with their lack of experience.
Acting (7/10): This is where the movie suffers. It gets better as the movie progresses and things get more intense (this may be do to the actual moralities of the actors and how they felt about the movie showing through in their characters). But when it starts out, I'm almost reminded of campy b-movies. The cinematic presentation and pure intrigue is what kept me going. Again, though, the script writing obviously provided some challenges for the actors.
Cinematography (10/10): Speaking of cinematic presentation, this movie does it beautifully, even from the opening shot from a helicopter flying over the rain-forest. The studio and movie-style aspects of the film are very convincing and very well-done. Hollywood couldn't do better with a 10 million dollar budget. The creativity and use of close-ups really pulls you in, and you begin to question the reality of even the part of the movie that is presented as fictional. And that doesn't even cover the great mockumentary work. The director's understanding of how documentaries are made and how they work is extremely convincing. the use of normal scenes of the crew kind of doddling around really help to present a feeling of reality. And the aspects of limited film and the amateurish/spontaneous filming style are almost convincing enough to make the viewer think they used real footage to build a fictional movie around.
Audio (10/10) Again, I'm reminded of Apocalypse Now. The music is melodic and somewhat peaceful, adding a real eerie tone to the serious and macabre theme of the movie. It is very 70s though, and I would not expect to here the same soundtrack in a new movie, although some of the musical flavors are indeed timeless. And there are some more intense scores in the film, but they are not over-intense like most Hollywood today. Then we get into sound design, which is very convincing, the tearing and the screaming all sound real, or as I would expect them to sound. The new mixing with stereo is well and really helps immerse the viewer.
On the animal violence: This is something that I thought would disturb me. The animal scenes in Amorres Perros disturbed me even though they were not real, but this was real and I wasn't that perturbed by them. People have said that the killing of the animals is useless and doesn't help the plot of the movie, but I feel otherwise. It brings into light that you do have to kill to survive. The documenters kill 6 animals (one is a spider, which some may not count, I do) on screen and 1 is killed off screen. And it obviously irks the actors a little bit (note: when you see vomit, it is indeed real). But the animals are eaten. And all of this adds to the reality of the documentary. It would have been hard fake some most of that. Plus, think of the meat industry today. Hundreds of thousands of cows and pigs slaughtered and millions of chickens and turkeys slaughtered every day in gruesome ways, just so we can eat them. 'Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen'. Our society frowns upon killing animals, but that burger doesn't magically appear. Blood had to be spilled for our dining pleasure.

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Cannibal holocaust is a truly charged viewing experience; in all its 20 years of existence no other non mondo film (until maybe Men behind the sun) had such a reputation to shock, even today it is believed by some at the UKs trading standards to be an actual snuff film. CH is not the goriest film ever made, but in terms of themes and narrative its still the cruellest, most fascinatingly harsh piece of filmaking in the horror genre. Ive seen all the Traces of death, the men behind the sun films, and the Guinea pigs and I still think this is king. It is simply so well made, acted, atmospheric and the brilliant score by Riz Ortalani sets the scene so well. The fake documentary style never slips up. But perhaps the most unsettling thing about CH is that it is an exploitation film, and the scenes of animal cruelty (and even human) unsettle because they are being shown to promote a response..should you look away or not?Like I said Cannibal Holocaust is a truly unique experience, not some Gory novelty like Cannibal Ferox, and in this time of increased media coverage of true life atrocity maybe its pertinent? Maybe its just nasty cruelty, maybe it even dissapoints you..you just have to see it to gauge you're own response. For me at least its a classic.

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What haven't I heard about Cannibal Holocaust? Only that it's one of the most disturbing movies of all time and still to this day manages to shock it's audience. Honestly I'm surprised that it took me this long to watch it, but I found the film on Google because I was cautious on paying 20 dollars for a film I never saw. Cannibal Holocaust thankfully is much more than just shocking but actually has a great message to it. The film isn't as shocking as I'm sure it was when it was released but it is a jaw dropper. Mainly due though to the real killings of the animals which is a bit too much to handle. At the time the director was also accused of murdering the three lead actors, talk about motivation, however he made the actors break the contract of silence, since he wanted the audience to think that this was a real film, in order to prove his innocence. Before the Blair Witch Project, there was no film like Cannibal Holocaust, I don't think a film has even touched it's ground since then.
There is a television documentary about a missing United States film crew, who disappeared on an expedition to the Amazon to make a documentary about indigenous cannibal tribes. The team was Alan, the director; Faye, script girl; and two cameramen, Jack and Mark. Harold Monroe, an anthropologist, has agreed to lead a rescue team and flies to the Amazon to meet his guides. There the team meets hostility and learn that the film group had caused great unrest among the people. The Ya̧nomamö invite Monroe and his team to their village, where they are treated with suspicion. A group of Ya̧nomamö women take him to a shrine, which he learns holds the bones of the missing American filmmakers. Monroe confronts the Ya̧nomamö about this. After playing a tape recorder for them, he trades it for the first team's surviving reels of film. Back in New York, executives invite Monroe to host a broadcast of a documentary to be made from the recovered film. Monroe wants to see the raw footage first, finding out who might be the real savages after all.
Did the animal killings bother me? The turtle scene definitely did, I understand that the meat was used for meals, but it was a bit too much for me to handle the brutality of the killing. I won't go into details, just if you're an animal lover like I am then fast forward through that part too. However, what I did appreciate about the film was how realistic it did look, the director did a great job of finding locations, actors and the over all feel of the film as you feel dirty and embarrassed watching such horror on the screen. While I may not agree with the animal killings, this message of who are the real savages really got to me. I loved that this wasn't about just grossing people out but showing how crazy people can get over money and power. It's really sad and it's weird to think that the documentary crew that went into the project that you thought were originally the victims of such violent tribes were actually the one's who are wild animals and in some sick way deserved the justice that was served to them. While it's a hard movie to watch, I would say that it was worth it, again not for the faint of heart, but a true classic and I'm sure will still shock for many generations to come.
8/10

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I first heard about Cannibal Holocaust, through the internet. My initial curiosity and desire to see the film was because it was supposedly the most violent and gory film made, which is a subject matter than can be debated. But when I eventually got a copy of this I was blown away.
The opening of the film has probably some of the most beautiful music I ever heard,while filming shots of the Amazon from bird's eye view.
I was surprised to see that this film was much more than a violence fest. I would be lying if I said that the violence in the movie is insignificant to it's underlying message because it's not. There are real animal killings which are pretty brutal to watch, but on the lighter side, the animals killed were eaten by cast and crew after filming, so they did not die for the viewer's entertainment or whatever.
Cannibal Holocaust can be called ahead of it's time, due to the fact that makes you question watching reality as entertainment, and where to draw the line. Also themes of consumerism, the media, and what it means to be civilized are present within the killings,flesh eating,rape,sexual assault,torture,and other such extreme things filmed. I would compare this to Clockwork Orange in the means that there is a message in the madness.
And it was quite obvious where the Blair Witch creators got their inspiration from, this movie.

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Cannibal holocaust. A group of 4 filmmakers and their guide take a trip to the rain forest a.k.a. 'the green inferno' to shoot a documentary about the native 'cannibal' tribes. After a short period of shooting they discover that the footage they have shot so far is not spectacular enough so they decide to stage the whole thing. Their misbehavior is put at an end when they come across one of the 'real' cannibal tribes of the region. When the home front discovers that the crew shows no sign of life they decide to send out a rescue mission. These people (an anthropologist and his guides) retrieve the original footage that the missing crew has shot and they bring it back to the US..
I decided to wait for the uncut European version of the film because i am not a fan of censorship (each individual should be able to decide for himself what he wants or doesn't want to see) but this can ONLY be the case with FICTION. This film however contains actual footage of animal killings (a snake is beheaded, a spider is squashed, a monkey is scalped, a turtle is beheaded and after-wards eaten, a pig is shot in the head,..)and this is not the essence of a horror film. Horror movies are supposed to be fictional stories with great special effects and effective story lines that entertain or scare you with their originality. Movies like this one give the horror scene a bad name and why..? This film is 'famous' for it's 'great' special effects; the special effects in this movie are so bad that every scene that contains one of these 'so called' effects is shot out of focus (the filmmakers get away with it because they can use the excuse that it has been shot using small portable cameras). The only times the gore is convincing is when they use actual guts from real animals and make it look like it came from a human body. The story line of the movie is completely unbelievable (with footage of rape and torture that are just thrown in without adding any originality whatsoever- the mere reason they put this in is to 'shock' the viewer even more/ they didn't succeed), the make-up effects are weak (just some guys painted white and wearing wigs made out of straw) and the acting is probably the worst acting in the entire history of cinema. The only positive thing i can say about this movie is that it contains some great images of the untouched fauna and flora of the rain forest. This is however not the reason why i have bought this film. It is said that Deodato regrets that he has made this film and he should be; it is a total waste of time and money.

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directed by italian maestro ruggero deodato, 'cannibal holocaust' is a haunting, beautifully filmed masterpiece. deodato, known for a spattering of mostly laughable eroto-horror, hit the mark with a few wonderful pictures, notably 'house by the edge of the park,' 'jungle holocaust,' and this, his greatest film. contrasting powerful, horrific imagery with a gorgeous, melodic soundtrack by composer riz ortolani. the most impressive aspect of the film, however, is it's remarkable super-realism. i have seen very few horror films, if any, that are acted with such passion and naturality. the film is exploitative, extreme, brutal, and marvelous.. see it!

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The second word in the title is important. Ruggero Deodato's 1979 meta-snuff movie, far more than a chichi trinket like THE NIGHT PORTER, is the real Holocaust porn. Here the trigger is not frights, or even shocks, or even splatter. Atrocity is the name of Deodato's game--and the genius of this monsterpiece is that Deodato horrifyingly delivers the goods at the same time he coruscates his audience and himself.
This is a hard movie to recommend to any but those who would find it anyway; but it must be said that Deodato here created the most rigorous, critical, almost philosophical movie in the Italian horror canon. The audience's lust for Third World exoticism and envelope-pushing violence are gratified and held up to the painful light of day--and not necessarily in that order. The overwhelming feeling of this picture is of a pornographer pleading, 'Stop me before I shoot again.'
The conceit of the movie--an academic's journey into the Amazon to find the remains of a Western film crew devoured by cannibals--permits Deodato more Pirandellian boxes within boxes than a double bill of BLOWUP and THE PLAYER. But the atmosphere of the movie, despite scenes of cruelty so extreme you sometimes want to put out your eyeballs, is relentlessly elegiac--capped by Riz Ortolani's theme music. (It can be said with certainty that no romantic ballad was ever used underneath what Deodato stages here.)
CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is the farthest edge of Extreme Cinema--as in Extreme Sports. It feels stuntlike, yet the combination of amplified bloodlust and world-weary regret is unique. Like Lucio Fulci's even more personal CAT IN THE BRAIN, it's an affecting enactment of an exploitation artist's conscience tearing apart.
It might make good viewing for Y2K Eve: it puts together the century's two salient words--holocaust and entertainment--as no other film did before or since.

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I'll keep it short. This is not one of the scariest movies ever. This movie isn't scary, period. You will not be scared by this movie.
What you may be, is disgusted. What passes for horror in this movie is shock, and instead of seeing anything even remotely resembling a scary story or scary scenes, you will see animals being dismembered, cut up, mutilated.
I'm not a member of PETA, I eat steak. But in this movie you will see a muskrat get split open, a giant turtle get cut apart piece by piece, a jaguar shot, and so on. These aren't special effects, there is no 'there were no animals hurt during the making of..' notice, there isn't anything special about this movie..don't be fooled.
When taking a break from their porno/blair witch style 'plot', you get some nonsensical ramblings about cannibalism, some HORRIBLE acting, some third grade style camera-work, and when you're about to be bored to death, they start to cut up an animal or too.
The people who like this movie? The same people who watch video of kittens getting microwaved or other animal torture.
Take my advice, and skip this movie.

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What you have in Cannibal Holocaust is a story about a group of people from NYU that go to document a culture of cannibals and never come back. Not that the story matters. Having watched I think three cannibal movies now (this is three more than the average healthy adult's lifetime recommended dosage), it has become clear to me that they are nothing more than exhibitions of movie violence and sickness. And in that area, the movie succeeds brilliantly. It is so tasteless and so disgusting that it's amazing that things like this ever get made.
And not just for the animal mutilations or the feces flinging (yeah that really happens in this movie. It's not just a t-shirt for smartass teenagers) or the orgies of misogynistic violence, but of course there are tons of naked natives in the movie, many of them obviously underage. But I guess that is just not a concern in whatever country the movie was distributed from.
I am guessing we are meant to be impressed by the feeding scenes, since logic would lead you to believe that that is what a cannibal film centers on. If so, maybe that explains why all the natives must smear their food all over their faces before they eat it, although I am at a loss to explain why women are regularly mutilated, dismembered, fornicated with and THEN eaten.
It becomes clear early on that surely someone in the group of NYU people must snap, unable to take what they're seeing anymore, and of course it does happen.
One guy, since the natives 'distrust' them (maybe it was all that shooting?) decides to strip naked to 'become like them.' Evidently this man has never seen the whiteness of his naked self before, but the island girls don't seem to mind. As soon as this awkward white guy strips off his khakis a whole group of naked girls run up to him and start grab-assing for a little while. Hey, maybe cannibals aren't so bad after all…
Oh, but minutes later, the group are forced to eat human, as is to be expected. The natives gleefully shove entrails in their faces as they inexplicably turn into savages for the purpose of this bizarre plot. Why the instant and total descent into barbarism? I have no idea, the movie isn't intelligent enough to explain such a thing, all it knows how to do is show you something that you would be much better off never seeing.
A giant turtle is torn apart alive with bare hands while the cameraman zooms in for an extreme close-up so as not to miss a single revolting detail, a monkey gets its face cut off, a backwoods amputation is cauterized with a hot machete and, when the poor amputee immediately dies, the rest of the crew forget seconds later, laughing and joking in the subsequent footage.
This is, of course, all documentary footage that they're watching of a past film crew. It seems that these mental giants went into the village and started screaming and shooting their guns and burning the village, and then wondered why they were massacred. It is not exactly a massive intellectual surge when one of the new crew says 'these people probably think WE'RE the savages!'
Yeah, what tipped you off? The burning of their village or the fornicating in the ashes?
Clearly this is meant to be the movie's thinly disguised message. White people are savages at least as much as the people that we think of as savages. Oh and in case you didn't happen to catch that message when it smacked you in the head numerous times like a ton of bricks, at one point the 'civilized' people grab one of the native girls and rape her, trying to show her the errors of her ways. Clever.
These people are nothing like any manner of civilized people, they are absolute degenerates and should be imprisoned. They even shout for joy when they find a woman impaled on a pole. What the hell is this garbage?
But in watching a movie like this, it seems to me that it is the people that would make and distribute something like this that are the savages.
At least horror movies are FUN, even bad ones. And this is not a bad horror movie. It's not a horror movie at all, I don't know what you would call it, but it is truly horrible.
A mother gives birth to an infant in the movie, for example. The baby is taken away from it's mother, drenched in blood and then buried in the mud while the mother is beaten to death with rocks.
There is a point in the movie where the utterly talentless writer, evidently unaware of how breathtakingly obvious his story is, has one of his characters spoon-feed you the real meaning of the movie:
'Today people want sensationalism. The more you rape their senses, the happier they are.'
This sentence betrays a staggering lack of understanding of film-going audiences, but at least it is a flawless description of the thought behind the movie. Too bad you have to watch it to learn that you should never have watched it…

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The original purpose of the Video Nasties list drawn up in the UK in the 1980s was to assuage media driven hysteria originating from movies in the unregulated video market and with explicit and exploitative depictions of gore and/or sex and which, as a result, were seen as a threat to public morality. These days it all seems ever so shrug-worthy as, stripped of the hysteria, most Video Nasties invariably fail to have any effect on the viewer and are revealed to be the bad films they are. 'Cannibal Holocaust' bucks this trend in a major way in both having an intelligent point to express about humanity's savagery (as relevant then as much as now) and doing so in a manner which, despite some patchy acting and directing, retains the power to challenge and shock even the more jaded modern film buff, i.e. me.
The plot of the movie sees Professor Monroe travel into the South American jungle to find out what happened to a group of three documentary film makers who have gone missing. He eventually finds a primitive tribe who seem to have the documentary crew's lost film reels and through befriending the tribe manages to retrieve them. Back in the city the film-reels are shown to some executives and the full horrors of the expedition are revealed. So far, so typical exploitation Video Nasty…but both the realistic depiction of some of the horrors via the found footage format (which this movie basically started and which would go onto to spawn the likes of 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999) and 'Cloverfield' (2008)) are so well done that there is a story that upon finishing the film and returning to Italy the director was suspected of actually killing the actors in the film and had to track them down to prove that it was not a snuff film. Apocryphal or not, the story captures the mood of the film and, indeed, the animal cruelty scenes are actually real and may sincerely disturb some viewers.
However, the violence is not for no good reason. The movie is not about entertainment in any respect and instead sets out to provoke the audience into looking at society with a critical eye as well casting the same critical eye on our own dirty reflections. The film does this by playing with the sympathies of the audience and showing that rather than the cannibals being the primitive savages we imagine them to be at the outset, the 'civilized' film-makers and executives are equally, if not more, barbaric and heartless. Furthermore, the film avoids the trap of heavy-handed moralizing and instead shows the sickness and brutality inherent in us all. Heavy stuff, and really not for those of a nervous disposition or those who delight in typical video nasty splatter-fest romps.

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Although no people were hurt in the making of this film, a number of animals were unnecessarily tortured.
This film should therefore be banned. We cannot permit people to make entertainment from the pain of our fellow-creatures.
A rat was skinned on camera, squealing in pain.
A turtle was decapitated, dismembered and eaten.
A monkey was trapped and had its face cut off with a machete.
Although I have no problem with the depiction of violence in films, and I do not believe that free speech should be subject to censorship, this film indeed 'goes to far'. Free speech does not include torture.

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I hate to talk about the films that i hate, but a person who loves movies don't have any alternative, for that reason, as i enjoy talk about the movies that i love, i think that sometimes i can talk about the films that i hate, but this time, is the hated film until this moment (I don't think that anyway suppers this piece of garbage).
'Cannibal Holcaust' is about 4 filmmakers who do documentaries (3 Men and a Woman) who go to the deep jungle in south American to film about the different hide cannibal groups that i think that now are extinct. The supposed 'filmmakers' don't appear. Time later, a doctor go in their search only for found that they are eaten by the cannibals, but they found too a tape. Then, back in the city, the doctor try to convince then to others that the film not must be showed. And we going to see why..
For much, this film is one of the best ever made (???), for me and for much others, this is just a exploitation film that go to the extreme. Disguised as a social film, if you see the real intentions of Ruggero Deodato, it was only to make a Cannibal film, but not as a social commentary, if only as a horror film. I can say that this film is not even bad. Of course that its wonderful that movies treat social topics, about different cultures, about media abuse and domination (For that you can see 'Shock Treatment' or 'Network'), 'Cannibal Holocaust' seems to bring that message, but really don't. Its only another gore film, that don't have any intent more than give repulsive moments; the film don't have any intelligent horror. This film don't going to scare you, it goes to make revolve your stomach.
'Cannibal Holocaust' for me is trash, is not cinema and is not art. Not even a regular soundtrack by Riz Ortolani can save it. And much time i get surprised seeing all the people who defends a movie like this. Of course, is likes, and i respect them. And believe me, i always try to don't say bad commentaries of films so quickly, but i don't see any reason to save it.
At all, if you want to see an horrible film, totally inhuman, with real animals which suffer until death (It is worth to clarify that all the polemic of real human deaths was just rumors and is not truth), this is the film for you. If you want real art, a real social commentary, a real horror film, or just a good film.. don't even think about it.. don't watch it.
Soldier warned, don't die at war.
*Sorry for the mistakes..well, if there any.

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Cannibal Holocaust is garbage at its absolute worst.
First off, this film is commonly referred to as 'disturbing.' Truly, the only two things truly disturbing about this flick are the animal killings, and the appalling atrocious acting, directing and writing. First, there was absolutely no need to have actors kill real animals. This is hack work (both literally and figuratively) at its absolute worst, at the sacrifice of defenseless beasts. Watching a turtle get decapitated and eviscerated does not fall into the category of enjoyable viewing for me.
As for everything else in this film, what a crude, barbaric, amateurish attempt at film-making. People talk about the special effects as being so convincing. I was so convinced, in fact, when I saw the cannibals blatantly miss stabbing the girl with their spears that I would have laughed, had I not been so awestruck by just how pathetic this movie is. And why oh why are these 'documentarians' out to destroy villages, kill innocent villagers and rape women? Aren't documentary makers supposed to avoid interacting in the fates of their subjects? The four filmmakers were so obnoxious and downright cruel and evil, that I actually enjoyed when the cannibals killed and ate them.
Deodato's masterwork is a cheapjack con job which in the hands of a talented director could have been disturbing. I'm only disturbed that I took 1 hour and 37 minutes to watch this atrocious garbage when I could have been saving a turtle.

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..and I'm including Krakatowa Powers and the Geyserettes (1997) in there. Cannibal Holocaust has always enjoyed that special sort of notoriety that comes from been banned in various 'territories' but whereas some movies get the cull for reasons of self-censorship or cultural sensitivity (A Clockwork Orange for example), Holocaust is a thick soup of voyeuristic, demented violence and gore - censored despite the fact that the sort of people who'd want to see it more than once are precisely the type of malforms that will get a copy anyway whereas most others would either chose not to watch it or start to and realise that it's a load of old crap. Indeed its got internal organs galore but curiously no brains. Banning it serves no purpose other than to give it an aura it doesn't deserve. It is, when all the hype is cut away, say like the guts of a giant turtle, a supremely soul-destroying, pointless experience. Artistically worthless. The only reason to watch it at all is to see how much worse it's going to get and I'm not spoiling anything for you by saying that your looking at quite a scale and the journey is long and tough. The story or hook if you like, is that, some movie makers go into the jungle, encounter a tribe of base savages who eat their fellow man and get horribly brutalised, murdered and consumed but luckily for us the whole thing is captured on film. This is pre-Blair Witch stuff with a great deal more calories, conceived by Deodato, the would-be snuff peddler when those directors were chest-lunching. To say that 'ol Holocaust is hard going is just ever so understating the case. Many movies claim to be a difficult watch but in this case the real holocaust might have been a preferable experience. Men and women have equal reason to fear its many stomach churning sequences. For the boys it'll be the scene in which some poor sod has his penis excised from his genital space and eaten while the baying mob disembowel him alive. Girls, sit back and look forward to the woman mounted vaginally on a spear scene and lets not forget the animal snuff. Pigs, monkeys, turtles - you name it they get it. If you've always thought that Babe was missing the scene in which he gets the bullet or that Finding Nemo might have worked better with a display of turtle guts then this is the flick you've been waiting your whole life to see. Scalped monkeys are the perfect antidote to all those cutesy born free type movies we've had to suffer over the years but the directors a brave man because if the A.L.F ever see this he'll need to be checking the underside of his car with a mirror for life. There was a lot of nonsense when this was made about it being snuff and those sensitive Italians didn't like the animal slaughter (this is the nation that invented fascism!) but the authorities may have wondered why you'd release a film that portrayed you murdering your cast (its damning evidence after all) - why not just murder them? In the end the only people who really get slayed are the audience but not in a funny way - if its this or 'While you Were Sleeping' it's still the Bullock movie..but only just of course.

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It's pretty sad people call this art. This was just disgusting. I'm not a person who dislikes gore, I can stand it, and I like it. I'm not some animal rights pusher (I support it, but if it were me or the dog, the dog would die.) Now this was just truly disgusting and cruel. They did things to these animals that is so (I want to cry) horrible. I just think 'What was the unimaginable pain of that muskrat, or the turtle, or the monkey.' And f***ing a v*gin* with a wooden stake, WTF! Who sits down and comes up with this, and if you do, you don't film it. I love artistic movies like The Tracey Fragments and The Blair Witch Project, but this was by no means 'art'. This was a journey through a disgusting slaughterhouse. What saddens me is that you people act as if it weren't real. Well honey, those animals died for you entertainment. Now that's what i call 'art'

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What can I say .. I would like to rate this movie a 20 out of 10 for the pure horrofying, shocking, heart devouring impact it had on me and a 50 out of 10 for its attempt to approach the reality of a documentary - because at first that's what I thought it was - but then I read somewhere that in the making of this movie the animals were actually tortured and that this part was no SE work. In total six animals are brutally killed on screen: - A large, screaming coatimundi (often mistaken as a muskrat) is stabbed multiple times in the neck by an actor. - A large turtle (about three feet long) is captured in the water and dragged to shore, where it is then decapitated and its limbs and shell removed. The actors proceed to cook and eat the turtle. - A large spider is killed with a machete. - A snake is killed with a machete. - A squirrel monkey is captured by a native actor portraying a tribesman, who cuts the monkey's face off with a machete while it is struggling and then eats the brains. - A pig is kicked and then killed with a rifle when shot in the head by an actor.
Although I'm the kinda guy that likes to be shocked now and then and have his blood being pumped faster through his veins by a film, this is not quite what I'm looking for when I consult the horror section.
When I found out a couple of years ago that CH was not a real documentary of people molesting, hammer smashing, killing and eating each other, that was a relieving thought and a weight of my chest and heart. However I will not support any film that includes the intentional harming of a creature in order to capture its screamings in pain on tape! Sickening - NO THANKS!

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Cannibal Holocaust truly is one of the most disturbing and uncomfortable films I've ever had to sit through. Released in 1980, Cannibal Holocaust has gained a reputation over the years as being one of the most controversial films ever made, and rightfully so. It's hard to recommend a film like this, especially considering all of the brutal onscreen violence, rape, dismemberment, genital mutilation, and real animal killings. However, whether you're a fan of it or not, you have to admit it is a very well made film. From it's shocking visuals to its griddy realism Cannibal Holocaust is a very effective film that successfully gets its point across. It shows us a very ugly, dark side of humanity which most people would like to believe doesn't exist. The movie also has quite a sporadic fan base, with famous directors like Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone all supposedly being confessed fans of it. If you're looking for a fun horror film to watch with friends this is definitely not one of them. It's very unsettling and makes you feel horrible after viewing it. This movie is not for the squeamish, faint of heart, or easily offended, only recommended to the most hardcore of horror fans. You have been warned.

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Ruggero Deodato's repulsive masterpiece in horror is probably the most controversial horror film in existence. I've heard and read about it for about five years before finally sitting down and watching the uncut version; the delay was through my own fear of not having a strong enough stomach to be able to sit through the endless scenes of barbarity and sadism. The film strongly divides audiences and I too am divided in my opinion of it; as a piece of 'entertainment' it doesn't work at all, because the downbeat nature of the narrative and the graphic gore can hardly be enjoyed. But then the film must work as a 'horror' film, a true 'horror' film that can evoke feelings of anger, disgust, even sickness and fear. Undoubtedly the novel filming methods (after the deliberately slow pacing of the initial set-up, the latter half of the movie becomes a mock documentary as in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and just as horrifying) make it the best of its bunch and the most effective of them all. It's the only cannibal film that comes close to resembling a mondo movie, and the final events involving the student film-makers are truly and horribly believable. The only way to watch this film is to live the lie, and the result is a challenging and disturbing but somehow rewarding viewing experience.
The movie is professionally made in that the filming seems unprofessional, lacking gloss and shine, and therefore more realistic; the various expeditions into the jungle simply convey the humid atmosphere, the constant danger from deadly wildlife and hidden tribes. The first half of the film is slowly paced and gradually builds up to the horror, with glimpses at a maggoty skeleton (the camera zooms into the grub-infested eye sockets of the rotting skull) and a tribal rape which is effectively powerful stuff. However, in comparison to the last half an hour, this is child's play. The supposedly real video footage shot by the students is harrowing and disturbing, but doesn't engage the senses as much as one might think - mainly because the students themselves are far worse than the cannibal tribes they seek! Their actions are a catalogue of torture, rape and even worse, as they impale an innocent girl on a spike (a painfully realistic - but simple - special effect) and burn down a whole native village for the hell of it, actions which of course act as a catalyst for the ugly conclusion.
Every five minutes something pops up which is likely to offend or shock a viewer somewhere, whether it be graphic moments of sexual violence (possibly the hardest parts of the film to sit through, or at least the most uncomfortable) or cheap but realistic gore effects of people having their legs sliced off and the like. The cannibal antics of the finale are the most powerful part of the film, as the film-makers keep on shooting for the love of their documentary. This is as horrible as the film gets and will have most viewers breaking out in a cold sweat. Blurring the border between fantasy and reality, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST includes a segment of real news footage showing Africans getting burnt and shot which is very hard to watch.
Harder still to stomach are the scenes of animal cruelty (the bane of this particular genre). Nobody can enjoy watching such scenes but they do add considerably to the film's false reputation of being a 'snuff' movie and their inclusion adds to the powerful impact that the film has on viewers.
Production-wise, the quality is top-notch. Director Ruggero Deodato proves himself at the pinnacle of his career and directs the film he will be remembered for forever. The camera-work is authentic and the acting works, especially in the case of the student film-makers who fill out their roles very well indeed. Much-needed light relief comes from Robert Kerman (EATEN ALIVE) as the pipe-smoking Professor Monroe, who acts as the audience in viewing the discovered footage, and who gets to utter the immortal line 'I wonder who the REAL cannibals are?' at the film's conclusion. The most effective aspect of the film is undoubtedly Riz Ortolani's emotive score, which really adds to the overall impact that the film has. It's frankly brilliant. Like it or hate it, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is a film with a lasting reputation and I personally think it's an original and deeply disturbing slice of (almost) real-life horror. It's a wonderful exploration of the media's obsession with violence and the lengths to which they'll go to exploit it and in this sense it's like the '80s version of the controversial thriller NATURAL BORN KILLERS.

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'Cannibal Holocaust' lies within the annals of the horror genre with an immense reputation looming over it— I, like many, had heard various things about the film over the years, with the most general common threads being that it was disgusting and utterly abhorrent. Watching it for the first time, I actually didn't know what the film was about, and my assumptions of it being a mindless splatterfest were slowly eroded over the course of the film; aside from being utterly shocked by its raw depiction of violence, I was simultaneously shocked by the density of its social thematics and the skilled presentation of its imagery.
The film essentially focuses on an NYU anthropology professor who travels to the Amazon to observe local cannibal tribes, and comes back with footage from a group of young documentarians who filmed there several months earlier before disappearing. Ruggero Deodato presents the film in a framed narrative which tells the story of the anthropology professor as well as the persons whose footage he has obtained, which is presented to us in its gritty 8mm format, cinéma vérité style. The double narrative is just one of many unusual and interesting things happening in this film, but it's worth noting because it's remarkably well balanced.
As has been noted, there is a jarring sense of realism to the cinematography; comparisons have been made to National Geographic pictorials, which I believe are apt comparisons as I at times felt like I was watching a National Geographic documentary gone terribly, terribly wrong. Narratively there are shades of Joseph Conrad lurking under the surface, which come into play particularly during the problematic last half of the film, in which the social commentary comes to the forefront; it's up to you whether or not the message is lost in its gratuitous translation, and even then, the message itself is problematic and loaded with historical implications that run deeper than the film can accommodate, but it is no less a noble and impressionistic effort in forcing its audience to think about what they have just seen.
The violence— oh, yes, the violence. It's gruesome, no doubt, but I think it's actually less graphic than most people believe it to be. The reason it is so disturbing is because it is presented so unflinchingly, and the special effects themselves are shockingly impressive— far more grit and realism than something you'd see in a Lucio Fulci film of the time period. There is actual filmed murder of animals, which is an entire issue in and of itself, and something that did irk me as someone who has a moral position against killing animals. Did I like it? Of course not— who would? In a film of such horrendous subject matter though, it is oddly fitting. Problematic in so many ways, yes, but I do believe there is a significance to seeing actual death on film (of animals), considering how removed most people are about what killing a living creature actually looks like.
Overall, I got way more than I bargained for with 'Cannibal Holocaust.' It's a film whose moral implications run far deeper than the gorefest reputation it has attained, and that was something that caught me completely off guard. It's uncompromising and often scarily realistic, and, above all else, makes a confused albeit profound statement about what it means to live on this savage planet. 9/10.

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