Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Ruggero Deodato

Writer:

Gianfranco Clerici (story)

Release Date:

19 June 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Horror

Tagline:

Ripout! Barbeque! Devour! How long can you take it?

Plot:

An anthropologist heads a rescue party into the South American jungle to find a missing film team making a documentary on cannibal tribes but can only return with their footage, which reveals their crueler intentions.

Plot Keywords:

Tribe | Cannibal | Professor | Jungle | New York

Cast

Robert Kerman	...	Harold Monroe
Francesca Ciardi	...	Faye Daniels
Perry Pirkanen	...	Jack Anders
Luca Barbareschi	...	Mark Tomaso (as Luca Giorgio Barbareschi)
Salvatore Basile	...	Chaco Losojos
Ricardo Fuentes	...	Felipe Ocanya
Carl Gabriel Yorke	...	Alan Yates (as Gabriel Yorke)
Paolo Paoloni	...	Chief NY Executive
Lionello Pio Di Savoia	...	Executive (as Pio Di Savoia)
Luigina Rocchi	...	Native

Also Known As:

Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

95 min | UK:89 min (heavily cut) | USA:90 min (animal cruelty-free version) | Canada:86 min (Québec)

Country:

Italy

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital (2001 re-release) | Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Norway:18 (re-rating: 2005) (uncut) | Singapore:(Banned) | Norway:(Banned) (1984-2005) | Australia:(Banned) (1984-2005) | Italy:VM18 (re-rating: 1984) | Finland:(Banned) (1984-2001) | Hong Kong:III | Japan:R-18 | Malaysia:(Banned) | Sweden:15 | UK:18 (re-rating: 2001) (heavily cut) | UK:X (self applied: 1981) | Philippines:(Banned) | New Zealand:(Banned) (2006) | Denmark:15 | Brazil:18 | Mexico:C | France:-16 (original rating) | Australia:R (re-rating: 2005) (uncut) | Ireland:18 (re-rating: 2006) | Germany:18 (heavily cut) | Ireland:(Banned) (1984-2006) | Finland:K-18 (re-rating: 2001) | South Africa:18 | France:-16 | France:-18 (DVD) | Canada:16+ (Quebec) (heavily cut) | Argentina:X (original rating) | Argentina:16 (re-rating) | Sweden:(Banned) (original rating) | Germany:Not Rated (uncut DVD version) | Italy:VM18 (1980, cut) | Iceland:(Banned) | Netherlands:16 | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | UK:(Banned) (1984-2001) | USA:Open (rating surrendered: 1985) | USA:X (original rating: 1984) | West Germany:(Banned) | Canada:R | Italy:(Banned) (1980-1984) | USA:Unrated | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Amazon Rainforest, Colombia

Company:

F.D. Cinematografica

Trivia:

The iconic image for the film shows a "cannibal" girl impaled on a stick. Upon being summoned to court in order to assert that no actors were harmed during production, Deodato explained that the girl simply sat on a bicycle seat attached to the pole's base, while holding a small pointed balsa wood piece in her mouth. The fake blood was then added. Deodato commented that the girl had an unusually calm temperament to be able to remain so still during the filming.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The skin colored plastic trash bags holding in Jack's fake torso and organs are visible when the cannibals disembowel him.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Reporter: Man is omnipotent; nothing is impossible for him. What seemed like unthinkable undertakings yesterday are history today. The conquest of the moon for example: who talks about it anymore? Today we are already on the threshold of conquering our galaxy, and in a not too distant tomorrow, we'll be considering the conquest of the universe, and yet man seems to ignore the fact that on this very planet there are still people living in the stone age and practicing cannibalism.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "My Family: Sixty Feet Under (#4.14)" (2003)

Sympathy for the devil

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.