“Cannibal Holocaust” GIF Gallery and Movie Review
Although comparatively obscure, the 1980 Italian horror film Cannibal Holocaust is one of the most controversial films ever made and to this day it is still banned in some countries. Long before The Blair Witch Project, the movie Cannibal Holocaust was the original found-footage film, cutting back and forth between the recovered camera reels from a group of American college students and traditional cinematic shots of a college professor and a television studio executives as they struggle to decide what to do with the salvaged film.
The found-footage style, coupled with extremely realistic gore, and a contract requiring the actors to lay low for a year following the film’s release led audiences to believe that they were watching a snuff film; the director was subsequently arrested by the Italian government on charges of obscenity and murder, only to be let off once the actors resurfaced in court to prove they were not actually dead. (Although no actors were killed during filming, several real jungle animals are killed on-screen.)
On the surface, Cannibal Holocaust may appear to be just another sleazy exploitation horror flick. However; the film explores the themes of cultural relativism and anti-colonialism. Initially, the group of American college students stand in stark contrast to the primitive natives, but as viewers are shown more of the native culture as well as the increasing brutality of the students, the line between civilized and uncivilized becomes blurs. In the end, the extreme ruthless violence of the students is indistinguishable from the “savage” natives.
Despite being the secondary narrative, the film focuses on an NYU anthropology professor named Harold Monroe, television broadcasting executives, and journalists who have recently recovered camera footage belonging to a group of student filmmakers who went missing deep in the Amazon Rainforest; these tapes are all that remain of the film crew. The broadcasting studio has invited Professor Monroe to host a sensationalized documentary based on the footage, but the professor insists on viewing the tapes start-to-finish before making a decision. The utter callousness of the broadcast media is touched upon, as it is clear the studio executives care more about ratings than the actual content of the tapes; on the other hand, Monroe’s primary interest is in the students and what dark secrets the tapes may reveal.
Before viewing the footage, Professor Monroe is told by one of the media executives that the leader of the film crew has previously staged dramatic scenarios for his past supposedly truthful documentaries. The footage starts out innocently enough, following the four students as they begin their trek into the remote jungle. The team is made up of the crew lead, his girlfriend, and two male cameramen; they appear to be typical college students, even kind of hippies, at first.
Although their journey starts off smoothly, their guide eventually gets bitten by a venomous snake. The film crew reacts by amputating his leg with a machete, but he ultimately dies and they leave behind. Soon thereafter, they encounter members of native Yacumo tribe, one of which they shoot in the leg, maiming him so they can follow him back to their village. While up until now the crew has seemed to be normal American kids (maybe they’re all just a little bit of assholes), when they reach the Yacumo village their true colors come out. The crew stages another dramatic scene for their documentary by forcing the natives into a single thatched roof hut and igniting it, killing the whole tribe and in the process burning down the entire village. As the natives helplessly burn to death, the crew laughs as they film the massacre.
Despite strong objections by Professor Monroe over the crew’s treatment of the Yacumo, the media executives ultimately dismiss his concerns. Monroe finishes viewing the tapes alone and is horrified by what he’s witnessed. In a last-ditch effort to convince the studio to abandon their idea for a documentary on the lost film, Monroe shows the executives the final shots.
The final reels of footage depict the film crew encounter a woman from another, but more elusive, native tribe, called the Ya̧nomamö. Almost without any second thought, the men in the film crew take turns raping the native girl on camera; shockingly, the single female student in the group declines to protest until the end when her boyfriend joins in, and even then her disapproval is half-hearted at best. Previously the students resembled the savages in their actions only, but as they wrestle naked in the mud with her, the resemblance becomes physical: simply bodies, naked as their birth, completely coated in the filth of the jungle in raw, primal violence.
Later, the crew stumbles upon the same girl now gruesomely impaled on a spike, which they condescendingly comment is the tribe’s primitive punishment for her losing her virginity. Not too long after encountering the impaled girl, the crew is ambushed by a pack of angry Ya̧nomamö tribesmen, hellbent on avenging the girl’s rape and consequential death.
The last of the crew’s supposed “civilized” humanity is gone by this point. One member of the crew is hit with a spear, and instead of helping him, the crew leader shoots him with his pistol so that they can get close-up footage of the natives dismembering him. The surviving students flee, but their female member is captured. Her own boyfriend, rather than helping her, tells the remaining crew member not to rescue her, and they instead focus on filming the natives as they gang-rape her in a fashion which intentionally parallels the earlier rape of the native girl. The tribesmen finally bludgeon her to death, then decapitate her, all while the crew films from a safe — albeit close — distance. The natives tear apart and devour the bodies, eating the flesh raw. Soon they capture the rest of the film crew, who meet a similar fate: fiercely mutilated, beaten, and eaten by the cannibals.
Only after witnessing the absolutely most grisly depravities do the studio executives finally agree with Professor Monroe. The tapes are ordered to be destroyed and everyone present is noticeably discomforted and upset by what they just watched. Before the credits roll, Monroe ponders the meaning of what he just saw, much like the audience confused as to who the real savages actually are.
Throughout the movie, viewers are told the film crew are the “civilized” people, while the natives are “uncivilized” people. Despite these labels, the culture of the natives is gradually exposed to the audience, prompting them to sympathize with these supposed savages; all the while, the film crew we initially believe we are to sympathize with are revealed to be cruel and violent almost to the point of inhumanity. We assume that because the students are the modern, Western (re: white) people, that they will be liberal or progressive in their actions and treatment of the natives, but that assumption is turned upside-down when we inevitably realize that the “savage” natives are far more human in their behavior.
In addition to these themes of cultural relativism and anti-colonialism, another major theme of Cannibal Holocaust is the cold-blooded nature of the media. Up until the final moments of the movie, the studio executives are determined to air a sensationalized documentary focused on the lost tapes, even go so far as to confront — with camera and microphone — family members of the deceased students out on the streets for impromptu interviews. These interviews are manufactured by the television studio, but then portrayed as reality in a parallel to the staged melodrama of the student film crew.
Drawing another parallel between the broadcast studio and the student filmmakers, both are equally motivated to create the same type of schlocky exploitation content cheaply passed off as journalism. The studio executives are cast as sleazy and inhuman for wanting to use the film crew’s death for ratings, but ultimately the film crew themselves are just as — if not, more — sleazy and inhuman for their taking advantage of tragedy to hype up their documentary.
I’ll be the first to admit that this movie is not for everyone. I’m pretty desensitized to violence from years of watching horror, and even I come away from this movie feeling like I need to take a shower. That being said, enjoy at your own risk!