Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

During a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew.

Director:

Ruggero Deodato

Writers:

Gianfranco Clerici (story and screenplay), Giorgio Stegani (additional dialogue: Italian version)

Stars:

Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Robert Kerman	...	Professor Harold Monroe
Francesca Ciardi	...	Faye Daniels
Perry Pirkanen	...	Jack Anders
Luca Barbareschi	...	Mark Tomaso (as Luca Giorgio Barbareschi)
Salvatore Basile	...	Chaco Losojos
Ricardo Fuentes	...	Undetermined Role
Carl Gabriel Yorke	...	Alan Yates (as Gabriel Yorke)
Paolo Paoloni	...	1st Executive
Lionello Pio Di Savoia	...	2nd Executive (as Pio Di Savoia)
Claudia Rocchi	...	Undetermined Role (as Luigina Rocchi)

Storyline

In 1979, intent on venturing into the vast and unexplored areas of the virgin Amazon rainforest, a small American film crew attempt to make a documentary about the region's indigenous cannibalistic tribes, only to disappear without a trace. As the noted anthropologist, Harold Monroe, and his team of seasoned guides embark on a rescue mission to locate the missing documentarians in the heart of the Green Inferno, fearful tribes that no white has ever seen before will soon start to take interest in them. Inevitably, as the professor unearths more evidence about the fate of the film crew by sheer luck, a desperate battle to recover the raw footage that was paid in blood will commence--after all, the world must know the savage and unspeakable atrocities captured on the riveting unedited footage. In the end, what has really happened to the overambitious explorers, and the shocking final two reels?

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Plot Keywords:

actual animal killed | exploitation film | nude in nature | public nudity | running naked | 

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Taglines:

They eat and they are eaten!

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Genres:

Adventure | Horror

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

Grindhouse Releasing

Country:

Italy

Language:

English Spanish Italian

Release Date:

7 February 1980 (Italy)

Also Known As:

Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust

Filming Locations:

Guri, Venezuela

Box Office

Budget:

$100,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

F.D. Cinematografica

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min 89 min (heavily cut) 90 min (animal cruelty-free) 86 min (Québec)

Sound Mix:

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

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor) (uncredited)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Yanomamo and Shamatari are real-life South American native tribes. Neither is accurately portrayed in the film.

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Goofs

When the Yanomamo guide is given muskrat flesh to eat, he never puts any inside in his mouth. Instead, he opens his mouth a few times near it to give the impression that he is eating.

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Quotes

[first lines]
PABS 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.

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Crazy Credits

In the opening credits: "For the sake of authenticity some of the sequences have been retained in their entirety."

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Alternate Versions

The UK Blu-Ray disc from Shameless includes a number of differences:

• A United Artists Europa Inc. title is placed at the beginning before the film starts.
• The opening music is an alternate take that differs when compared to the mono version.
• The subtitles for the foreign scene has been changed; although they still have the same meaning.
• The killing of the muskrat has been replaced with various alternative shots.
• A very brief second has been added to the end of the muskrat scene to make the cut between this and the adulteress punishment scene smoother.
• Subtitles added to the scene where Miguel tries to make peace with the cannibals.
• The last road to hell has been fully restored although the music is slightly different, and the quality has been downgraded slightly.
• A few frames have been deleted at the beginning of the scene when Professor Monroe is interviewing Alan's father. This makes the cut more jagged.

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Connections

Referenced in Holliston: Skunked (2012)

User Reviews

This film is evil

I'm often interested in seeing a film to find out what all the fuss was about and usually to discover that once again a film has been unfairly criticised for its content without any thought being given to the points that the film was trying to make.

Cannibal Holocaust was the exception. With a title like that I should have known better but nevertheless I was staggered by what I saw.

I had the misfortune to get my hands on an uncut version of this disgusting film and I was amazed that it was possible to get together a large enough group of sick individuals to make something so appalling and on such a scale.

This whole film is basically a fantasy for those who get sexual gratification from images of rape, murder and animal cruelty and it presents it in the most unpleasant and lascivious tone imaginable. Then to make matters worse and in order to get around the censors the film makes a pathetic attempt to appear to condemn all the atrocities it has shown us.

The awful and inappropriate 'nostalgia for the past, hope for the future' music merely adds to the depravity.

This may sound melodramatic but I watched this film wondering if it would change me as a person as I looked upon it as nothing more than a series of purely evil images. I should have turned it off but my habit of never leaving a film once I've started meant I sat through the whole thing.

This movie is quite simply evil and only disgusting and seriously twisted perverts could have anything good to say about it.