In honor of the man that brought to life the POV storytelling, faux documentary, found footage style to the horror genre (you thought that honor went to the "Blair Witch Project" didn't you?... lol) birthday, Ruggero Deodato, this time around for throwback Thursday we have the ultra horror classic "Cannibal Holocaust".
Professor Harold Monroe heads down to South America in search for a documentary crew that has gone missing in the inhospitable jungles known as the Green Inferno. The crew was to find and film never before scene primitive tribes that are suppose to live in the area. Unfortunately for Monroe the only thing he discovers of the missing film crew are their cameras and cans of exposed film.
Upon returning to New York Monroe views the film in detail.
In the beginning of this film we meet a documentary team of director Alan Yates and his crew, formed by Faye Daniels, Jack Anders and Mark Tomaso, who are heading for the south-American jungle to search for real cannibals. All starts out as normal as the film retraces the steps the film crew takes into the jungle. Guide by a local named Felipe, they hike into the jungle, traversing streams and traveling through foliage that leaves them bragging to the camera about the natural beauty of the area. This start go awry right away as Yates and his team begin to commit various and unforgivable atrocious against various wildlife. In one repugnant scene, Felipe and Anders catch a large river turtle, they haul it ashore at their camp, and proceed to hack it apart before cooking and eating it while the camera is still rolling. Later, they shoot at various birds and small mammals in the jungle for no reason, but then Felipe screams out when a snake bites his foot. Anders and Mark, in desperation, hack off Felipe's leg in a vain bid to save him, however, Felipe goes into shock and dies thus revealing how he died. Yates, unperturbed by this fact, tells his team that they must continue on and head further into the jungle and finally make contact with warriors of the Yacumo tribe. For no clear reason, they shoot at the natives, and then upon entering their village, proceed to humiliate the natives by killing their livestock, and proceed to burn their village to the ground, in which they intend to use the killing to stage a mock up of a Yamamomo raid on their village. Several natives flee, while a few others are killed or burned alive by the sadistic Yates team. Then Yates, aroused by his murderous actions, has sex with Faye in full view of the frightened and bewildered natives, while Andres secretly films it. In the films most gratuitous scene, the team happens upon a ritualistic forced abortion and the clubbing death of the mother-to-be.
In the final reel, Yates speaks to the camera where it is days after their massacre of the Yacumo tribe and they are in a different part of the jungle for the vegetation is different and there is no sign of the feared Yamamomo tribe. Suddenly, the group happens upon a young woman, a Yamamomo woman. Triumphantly and inexplicably, the men attack her, taking turns raping her while rolling in the mud of a nearby clearing, while one man holds her down, the other rapes her, and the third gleefully films the action. Faye tries to protest, but is held back by Anders. As Yates takes his turn to rape the terrified young woman, a Yamamomo warrior crouches in the grass yards away, watching the whole atrocity the savage film crew is doing. The film cuts to a riverside clearing where the mud covered Yates team find a dead Yamamomo woman vertically impaled to the ground with a 12-foot pole exiting out of her mouth. Yates looks overjoyed and is told to look concerned for the camera. Yates talks about the profound disrespect the Yamamomos have for their women and that the woman was killed as a form of sexual punishment. It is not clear whether the woman was killed by her own people for being sexualy violated by the Yates team, or if Yates and his group himself killed the woman themselves to rig up this latest spectacular footage for their people back home. As a result of their actions, the vengeful Yamamomo emerge for a final 10-minute violent confrontation. In the jungle, the group is surrounded by dozens of Yamamomo warriors throwing spears and arrows at them. Anders fights them by rashly shooting at several of them, while Yates (deranged to the last) continues filming, saying the footage is beautiful. Anders is felled by a spear, as Yates continues filming. Anders' dead body is dragged away by the Yamamomo where they castrate, behead, and hack him apart before cooking his remains and eating them. Faye is the next as she is grabbed by several Yamamomo warriors where she is stripped, gang raped, and is also beheaded and mutilated by the vengeful warriors. But it isn't long before Yates and Mark pay the price for their own indiscretion when the warriors spot Yates still filming them, and attack. When Yates is attacked, his keeps his camera rolling as he drops the camera and falls to the ground capturing his own horrifying death in close-up. In a fitting touch of irony, the last thing which his dying eyes see is the same camera lens which he and his crew used to capture the images of death and mayhem...... which in fact they were all responsible for.
Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" is a first of its kind and so realistic that ten days after its premier in Milan the Italian authorities seized the film and arrested Deodato. At first he was only charged with breaking obscenity laws but was then recharged with murder as the authorities believed that the actors portrayed in the movie were actually killed. Adding to the fact was that Ruggero Deodato had them all sign contracts that stating that they were to disappear to maintain the illusion that this wasn't just a fictional movie. It wasn't until the actors were summoned to court that Ruggero Deodato was released from jail and the charges dropped.
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