Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Cannibal Holocaust is an Italian found footage film that came out in 1980 in the language of English and Spanish.
How I watched: AMC+ channel on Amazon Prime Video
Disclaimer: If you are already aware of this movie then skip my post lol I provide nothing profound. New to this movie? I highly suggest you to check out Ryan Hollinger's video on it. He breaks it down better than me. And this dude said it himself he doesn't even like this movie. Just here to write a post just to say I watched it.
Don't care about either of the above? Then read on...
For the short of it: This movie is about filmmakers who go missing and eerie found footage reveals their fates.
The long of it? Get ready, man.
I get it, this is a very well known film and at the same time gets a lot of both praise and ire. You either really like it or really don't. Why did I pick such a "mainstream" movie? Idk but here I am. Just wanted to get this one out of the way plus, it IS a part of my Terrible Tuesday's pick in's as mentioned in the subreddit how this is "one of the most disturbing movies evahhhh" I wanted to see just how exactly? Or is it just people just jumping on the bandwagon and saying what the other guy is saying? All these questions I find the answer to by the end my viewing of the movie, even though I totally would rather not care to find out.
Cannibal Holocaust is this movie that centers around professor Harold Monroe who leads an expedition to search for 4 missing filmmakers that mysteriously went missing whilst filming a documentary into the Amazon rainforest. Their MIA is getting some heavy media attention and we're going to need some answers, boi.
Literally the first 45-ish minutes of the movie is Monroe's expedition along with his team coming across various tribes. They witness...things totally not for the squeamish. Such as a brutal rape and murder. It was supposedly due to adultery which was a scene that went in way longer than it should have. I wish I could say that was the only rape scene.
This team are forced to bend over backwards to be the in the good graces of the tribe rumored to know the whereabouts of the missing filmmakers.
It comes an an eventual success as Monroe gratefully retrieved the coveted and in tact film roles. Only downside it was totally by all their rotted and charred corpses. Confirmed dedz.
Back in the city, Monroe, is adamant on watching the raw found footage for himself before it gets released to the public eye. Him among a few other executives proceed the rest of the movie watching the filmmakers last moments alive and what led up to that. Which was some brutal ass shit. They were definitely not the little angels as the media portrayed them to be, I can tell you that much!
Do I think this movie is disturbing AF? I mean...sure? Call me a weird but I did not feel soul sucking disgust watching this movie. This is definitely one of those movies that sounded a million times more trecherous in your head than in reality. Don't get me wrong, savage brutal ass scenes but I thought it was going to be ripping my face off that I won't be able to sleep tonight. But nah.
For sure that there was more real animal deaths in this movie compared to Cannibal Ferox. Both were ick and unnecessary but yeah. This one disturbed me a little bit more due to prolonged scene with that poor turtle. I had to take longer blinks during that scene.
I'll be honest with you guys, I was ready to hate on Cannibal Holocaust and say it didn't live up to the hype. To a small degree, it does but I was honestly expecting a bit more. I can handle the grotesqueness of it but don't confuse that to mean I enjoy it. It was gross AF but I did watch it all with a straight face. Maybe not entirely a straight face but you know what I mean.
The rape scenes...so many rape scenes. In my mind at least. I'm sure there was at least 3 scenes maybe more but 3 is all I can remember. One in particular was just...like what the shit?! Social commentary. Just a great metaphor for social commentary.
One thing I do like about this movie is how it demonstrates karma. If you are tired of hearing of karma then just something else to convey the same meaning. For every action there is a reaction and sure as fuck is what played in the filmmaker's fates.
This movie absolutely caused an uproar because the above picture you just saw was enough to convince the police officials that the director totally murdered this woman. In their defense, the depiction is really convincing. There's more closeups in the movie in more graphic detail. Director almost got convicted of MURDER for a hot second. He ended up providing footage of how this special effect was performed and most importantly, the actress being alive and well in the behind the scenes footage. Interesting to note.
All in all, twas a nice movie and I can see the hype for it. I don't hate the movie like most squeamish people would. I don't even think this is a Top 5 disturbing movie for me, personally. More like Top 15. It's iconic, I get it. I get the hype. It might be something I might want to see again just not anytime soon. The movie does hold a lot of weight to the hype but it just gets annoying when trendy influences tack this on as the most "disturbing" movie ever. Let's not kid ourselves here.
With that being said, what is my verdict?
