From the preamble to the Grindhouse Releasing 2-disc DVD of Cannibal Holocaust (1980), after a couple of paragraphs of blather about the First Amendment:
What you see will definitely shock you and offend you. Nonetheless, it should be viewed as a disturbing historical document of a bygone era of extreme irresponsibility which no longer exists, and, hopefully, will never exist again.
Right. A company called “Grindhouse Releasing” sells this edition of “the most banned movie ever made” purely as a historical document. Practically in the public interest. Sure.
#1 by The Rev. D.D. on April 1, 2010 - 7:48 am
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Interesting to see the disparate reactions to this movie between you and Braineater Will. You don’t seem to feel like a piece of your soul had to be given up to experience this movie.
I have to say, your words make me wonder if perhaps I could deal with the animal scenes better than previously though. If the whole movie’s full of filth, it might seem slightly less horrifying as well. I am sure I still wouldn’t like it, but maybe I can deal with it.
Having said that, I’d definitely be up in arms about the tarantula. It’s not like they aren’t considered food in parts of South America, so if they don’t even give the justification of eating it after killing it, I’d be pretty unhappy about it.
#2 by Nathan Shumate on April 1, 2010 - 8:17 am
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Maybe it was just that I had heard the words “animal cruelty” so often describing this movie that I was expecting drawn-out pain and torture. That would definitely get to me. But quickly beheading an animal before butchering it for dinner? I didn’t see that as being a Crime Against Nature.
It could also be that Will has a bigger soul than I do, and so loss of a fraction is a bigger chunk. I do think, though, that a lot of what he considered subversive subtext was actually him reading meaning into what was actually bare-bones competence.
(And no one could really eat the tarantula afterward; it was knocked from someone’s shoulder and quickly squashed on the ground.)
#3 by blake on April 1, 2010 - 4:58 pm
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Most reviews describe it as the type of film that gets under your skin and stays there for days. From the looks of it, it didn’t quite have that effect on you.
#4 by Nathan Shumate on April 2, 2010 - 5:55 am
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Really, it didn’t. I’m not nearly as affected by bald violence (especially when directed toward people that I hate) as I am by pure tension and suspense.
#5 by KeithA on April 2, 2010 - 9:47 am
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I once gave a one-sentence review of this movie to someone who was curious about it: “You will be disgusted and bored.” He came back the next day and said that was exactly how he felt.
And I would bet you are right — Riz Ortolani probably never saw the movie he was writing a score for. Hell, he recorded so much library material that they probably just went and grabbed it all out of there.
#6 by Braineater on April 2, 2010 - 11:43 am
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Pffft.
There you have it! I’ve decided to have that engraved under my family escutcheon.
Look: what appalled me (especially about the turtle scene) wasn’t so much the act itself (although that was bad enough) as it was the tone and the context.
You may not consider the killing to be cruelty to the animals themselves — but it is cruelty. Or, to put it another way, it’s violence toward the animals; cruelty toward the audience. They don’t just kill the turtle: they exult in killing the turtle. And the camera leers at them doing it. Maybe it’s hypocritical of me, but it really doesn’t matter to me if the locals ate the animals later: I’m only going by what I see on-screen. Deodato had his actors do this thing specifically for the camera, just in the way Yates et al. stage their atrocities for the camera.
I feel the same about the way Deodato shoots the horrifying rape scene in the first part of the movie. That’s the portion of the film that sets up the atrocities of the later act — it’s the “straight” portion of the film. But Deodato slips into exploitation mode, and turns what should be merely awful into something truly disgusting. I can deal with rape and murder as elements of the story. If he’d shot the scene dispassionately, I’d probably feel differently about it. Instead, he pulls a Yates: he sensationalizes it, and that (to me) is what makes it so sickening.
Or maybe I’ve blown this out of all proportion in my memory. The hell with it: I’m not going back to watch it again.
#7 by Nathan Shumate on April 2, 2010 - 12:29 pm
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Will, I think I’m with you here — the problem isn’t so much the violence of the act as such, but the fact that Deodato thinks that “leering” over it, as you put it, is worthwhile entertainment. It’s as if documentary footage from a Nova special about open-heart procedures was repurposed for a mondo “Face of Death”-style pseudo-documentary, in between staged gangrapes and human mutilations. I don’t think the turtle scene was particularly shocking, but I want to punch Deodato in the face for including it solely because he thought it was.
#8 by Braineater on April 2, 2010 - 11:48 am
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Actually, I think the disconnect with the music is a plot point. There’s a moment at the start of the Yates-footage movie when the editor sheepishly admits he threw in some library music to punch up the emotional effect. The wrapper-movie wants you to notice the music, because that’s part of the whole theme of manipulation that, umm… that… oh, hell, there I go again. I’ll shut up now.
#9 by The Rev. D.D. on April 2, 2010 - 11:50 am
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“(And no one could really eat the tarantula afterward; it was knocked from someone’s shoulder and quickly squashed on the ground.)”
Umm….hello? Pancakes?
OK maybe not.
#10 by Thomas on April 4, 2010 - 9:31 pm
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I may misremember, but I was under the impression that the turtle was cut-open and futzed around with while still alive. That seems a little excessive. On the other hand, I don’t really disapprove of the killing of animals – unless, you know, it was done in a deliberately reprehensible manner for purposes of commercial exploitation and audience manipulation. It’s like how I have no objection to adorable, plucky orphans, provided that they aren’t being used to bludgeon the critical thinking out of me.
Cannibal Holocaust was quite a well-made film, though. I suppose that’s why it was so unpleasant.
#11 by Nathan Shumate on April 5, 2010 - 6:22 am
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Nope, it was cleanly beheaded first. (There was some residual movement in the limbs after that.)