Cannibal Holocaust(1980): Review

This is one of the sickest film i have ever seen. After seeing the controversies surrounding this particular movie(ex. getting banned in 50 odd countries and director Ruggero Deodato getting arrested etc.), i thought of giving it a go. Even though the movies title mentions about cannibals, the movie is more or less like an animal-snuff film! *This film is surely not for any light hearted persons*

The movie started with a basic statuary warning stating that the movie contains unedited gruesome clippings. The movie is about a missing crew of ambitious documentary film makers, who set their foot in dangerous Amazon jungle to make a documentary about the cannibal tribes living there. A highly reputed professor is sent to recover the missing crew.

With the help of a local guide(who himself looks like a dressed barbarian) and his assistant, they start their search. The first 15 minutes went off without any bloodshed or killing. Then came first killing scene in which the assistant kills a Coatimundi for their lunch. He gives its stomach parts for a local tribe fellow(kaatu vaasi), who gets caught in the earlier scene, to eat(which he relishes eating raw).

After tracing 2 tribes, they finally found the Cannibal tribes who are locally referred to as Tree people(as they lived in trees). The introduction scene of tree people itself was gruesome. They were shown catching a cave woman(from a tree) for their dinner.

The crew attends their ritual meeting where the tribe leader chants something for sometime which the professor records. After sometime he plays the chanting to the tribe after which they are invited for the dinner(yep! the lady they caught earlier). The professor was offered the liver(or kidney or whatever...it looked sick) which he had to eat(else he will be their side-dish). Finally they were able to recover the camera used by the documentary film crew along with their skulls.

Rest of the film deals with video recorded by the film crew which reveals their crueler intentions. The footage contains killing of a turtle, snake, monkey, spider and a pig. Warn you, these are real killings of animals filmed. I found really hard to watch the turtle killing scene. It was the goriest of the all(even now i feel like vomiting if i think about this scene).

In the video, the documentary crew members are shown terrorizing the local tribes, raping a local tribe girl and burning their houses. They finally meet the Tree people(who are like the head tribe of the jungle). The Tree people show them the final highway to hell. They are surrounded, beaten to death and finally torn apart and eaten by the Cannibal tribe.

I did not enjoy even a single minute of the movie(i now hope i never had watched this film). The only thing i enjoyed in this film is a background score that comes once in a while. I regret seeing this movie basically because of the animal killing scenes. I feel the essence of the movie would not have degraded even a single bit even without these animal killing scenes. They could have atleast faked those scenes! Shame on director Ruggero Deodatos part on killing helpless animals for the sake of trying to add power to the storyline(which he ultimately failed).

Finally, this movie is not worth a watch. There are better movies and better things to do for one and a half hour rather watching this sick film. Many consider this movie as a classic(the director himself considers this as his best film). I could directly relate this movie as sick. Miss this one for your own good!!