A group of three documentary makers have gone missing in the Amazon whilst filming a documentary on cannibalism. Harold Monroe, an anthropologist, leads a team into the same terrain to try and find them.

Cannibal Holocaust was massively controversial upon its release and was also identified as one of the more ‘problematic’ films on the Video Nasties list. And it does contain almost the full bingo card of transgressions- full-frontal nudity, murder, animal cruelty, sexual assault…the list goes on.

Another aspect of the film that made authorities furrow their brows was the fact that some of the movie is supposed to be, within the narrative, documentary footage, and so the lines between reality being shot and fantasy being staged as reality were blurred. On the film’s release, the Italian authorities had to set out to prove whether the film depicted real acts of depravity or if they were staged (yes, they weren’t real).

So what’s the actual film like? Rather than being either one of the worst films ever made or one of the sickest (I’ve read both claims), I actually found it to be very entertaining and extremely well made. The photography is beautiful, and the sequences of the ‘raw footage’ are utterly believable (as previously stated, this would bite the filmmakers in the behind very soon after the release of Cannibal Holocaust).

The actual gore is everything an exploitation fan would want from this kind of fare. There were sequences that were like some kind of horror comic made flesh (pun not intended), as they looked so brightly coloured, almost like 60s pop art. I also loved the scene of one of the westerners having to eat human flesh himself when it’s offered to him by one of the natives. When in Rome…I dread to think what would have happened if he had said he was, in fact, a vegan. Although a horror film involving vegans being slaughtered and eaten sounds great to me.

This would even go on to inspire a whole new subgenre regarding supposed ‘found footage’ whilst being inspired itself by an already existing genre, ‘mondo’. I also enjoyed the social commentary regarding who are the civilised and who are the savages in the film.

Fun fact- Sergio Leone wrote to Cannibal Holocaust’s director, Ruggero Deodato to congratulate him on his film but commented that he may be in for a world of trouble when it was released in other territories. No shit. There was also an interview with John Saxon in which he spoke about seeing the film in Rome and being disgusted by what he saw on the screen, whilst the teen audience never batted an eyelid.

Yes, the animal cruelty sequences are hard to watch, but I can live with them.

I’d love to see Cannibal Holocaust on the big screen.

4 out of 5 stars