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 | Yacumos

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:18 (video rating, cut) | UK:18 (re-rating: 2001) (heavily cut) | UK:X (self applied: 1981) | Philippines:(Banned) | New Zealand:(Banned) (2006) | Denmark:16 | Brazil:18 | Mexico:D | 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) (re-rating, uncut) | Argentina:X (original rating) | Argentina:18 (re-rating) | Sweden:15 (uncut DVD version) | 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 | West Germany:(Banned) | Canada:R | Italy:(Banned) (1980-1984) | USA:Unrated | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Amazon Rainforest, Colombia

Company:

F.D. Cinematografica

Trivia:

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was the second highest grossing film in Japan in 1983, behind only E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

Goofs:

Factual errors: When the jungle guide is bitten by the snake in his boot it is said to be poisonous, but it is a red-tail boa constrictor which is not poison and uses constriction to kill its prey.

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 Hostel: Part II (2007)

Deodato's compelling, soul-grinding, matchless masterpiece

Finally available in a slightly edited form in the UK, Ruggero Deodato's infamous 'video nasty' stands apart from almost every other banned title by virtue of the fact that it looks stunning, is well-directed, unflinchingly acted and stops at nothing to get its message across. Not since the notoriously disturbing documentary THE ANIMALS FILM (1981) or Mick Jackson's harrowing THREADS (1984) has a movie so comprehensively knocked the stuffing out of me with its grim-faced persistence, huge swathes of seething anger and sheer kinetic energy.

I sat down to watch Cannibal Holocaust one evening and was captivated from the outset, as Deodato's camera glides across the Amazon to Riz Ortolani's enormously haunting score. When the film ended, it seemed as if only half an hour or so had passed, because all my attention had been with the events unfolding on the screen. Deodato does not allow room for the viewer to breathe, let alone become distracted, as he pummels us with moments of shattering brutality, amazing tranquility, adrenalin-soaked fear and escalating madness. Whilst the point Deodato has to make is simple - that our 'civilized society' is every bit as rapacious and disgusting as the primitive society of the jungle tribes - the way he chooses to make it is anything but, effortlessly juggling the real and the imagined (the line between the two becomes even more blurred with the introduction of the infamous 'Last Road To Hell' sequence), turning the audience against the supposed good guys and forcing us by fair means or foul to re-evaluate where we stand in relation to the issues raised with every frame that passes. Cannibal Holocaust is NOT a film to be taken lightly, or watched with friends as a Friday night beer-and-burgers movie. It deserves your undivided attention and utmost seriousness, because only then will its raw power and unremitting intensity hit you as hard as the director intended.