Now with someone’s penis being removed in stunning HD!
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Directed By: Ruggero Deodato (House on the Edge of the Park)
The Prologue
1980′s Cannibal Holocaust was one of the very first films I ever reviewed. That version however was the Grindhouse version, and it was 100% uncut. The version we are going over today is from the UK based. Shameless Entertainment. It’s only missing 15 seconds from it, and what that boils down to is simply they removed the killing of the muskrat. This was due to the BBCF, and unless you just have a grudge against muskrats, I don’t think you’ll care. I mean after all this IS blu-ray! And we Americans have yet to get a blu-ray release of this infamous film. So, it’s kinda good that Shameless releases their stuff region free so we can all enjoy it! That is if you have the stomach to enjoy a movie as realistic and violent as this.
The Movie
Primitive savagery meets the brutality of the modern world in Ruggero Deodato’s timeless slice of visceral horror – Cannibal Holocaust, a film so violent and depraved that the director was charged with killing his own cast!Anthropologist Harold Munroe is hellbound as he travels into the green inferno of South America’s rainforest in an attempt to find a documentary crew lost months before. Instead of survivors he discovers a world of cannibalistic excess beyond his wildest imaginings but when he returns home and screens the footage left behind by the eviscerated filmmakers, chaos erupts as the screen is filled with some of most disturbing images ever committed to celluloid.
What you get is a film that could very well pass for legit. I’ve watched it twice and I still think some of the effects seems a little too real for comfort..and that’s just for human scenes. You see women being raped with rocks, women having babies torn right out of them from their down south areas, women beat to death with sticks and rocks, women with their heads being chopped off, women being impaled on a straight standing stick in a fashion of a shish kabob, oh and a another woman getting dragged in the mud all the while having the ol’ “train” ran on her. Just that alone and you can see why this movie is at the top of many people’s lists for most disturbing movie ever made.
But it doesn’t just stop with violence towards women. Men get their fair share here as well with it going as far as showing the most realistic looking cutting off of a man’s penis I’ve ever seen on film…See there’s a reason people really though these guys where dead. There’s a whole list of animals that are REALLY murdered in the making of this film. It’s cruel, it’s real, it’s not fun to watch. Even the actors themselves had a hard time dealing with this going on as it’s been stated that “despite his character’s behavior during filming, Perry Pirkanen cried after filming the infamous turtle scene.” Also “Immediately after a pig was shot and killed in the movie, Carl Gabriel Yorke (Alan Yates in the film) botched a long monologue Deodato very much wanted to be included in the movie. After rehearsing the line several times and doing fine, Yorke says he screwed up during filming because he heard the pig squeal and die. Retakes weren’t possible because they had no access to any more pigs, which they would only use to shoot and kill.”…Yorke also stated when he first arrived to film the movie he wasn’t sure if he was making a movie or if it was indeed a “snuff” film…I can see why.
I was shocked, I was grossed out to the point of almost puking while watching the scene with the Yellow-spotted river turtle, and yet somehow I’ve managed to set through this film again for a review. It’s not pretty (in nature anyway, the blu-ray looks great). but it sure is interesting. I think you’ll have a 50/50 on this movie. Some will love it and other might hate it, simply because due to it’s nature it’s hard for people to watch. But there is a very good plot here and I think it can keep you interested if you can only get passed the shock value of it all. So you may puke, you may feel bad for watching it once it’s over, and the realistic ways of the whole thing might just leave you speechless. But, Cannibal Holocaust is a film worth seeing. Especially in blu-ray. Just try not to trip out too much when you have terrible things going down on screen while the lovely sounding score is playing.
The Conclusion
It’s UK based, but the Shameless blu-ray of this which you can get HERE, really is awesome. It looks great and the 15 seconds being removed doesn’t really hurt anything at all. The “road to hell” scene is even uncut, so it’s a great version to own. It also comes with some cool special features as well, so if you are looking to get your hands on this movie and you want it in HD, look no where else than our friends in the UK.
The Rating (7/10)
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