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"Cannibal Holocaust"

... anyone else seen this??

i've just finished watching it (well, all bar the last few minutes) and i have to say, i'm amazed.

it sounds like it's going to be in a similar style to Braindead, but then things go slightly awry....
it takes an AWFUL lot to turn me away from an image in genuine digust, but this managed it. a lot.

the first thing that got me was when one of the characters caught a jungle rat looking thing for some food... we all know how this goes: slow zoom onto the face of the animal and in the next scene, everyone is sitting round a fire eating what we assume is said animal, right?
not in ".. holocaust". no, in this we see a pointed blade pushed into the rat, then pulled upwards with some pretty grim effects.

.. or are they?

well that's the question that got the better of me and i did a spot of googling and it turns out that the gruesome human effects had to be defended in a court after people mistook it for snuff material and (ready??).. the scenes of animal torture/cruelty weren't fake at all.
i kid you all now, this film actually kills animals for the sake of 10 seconds worth of film (the demolition of a turtle is by far the worst :( ) and to be honest, that's beyond me.

i can watch pretty much any form of violence on film you can mention and not be too bothered by it because we all know that the people will be back in a couple of weeks time in a new movie, no real harm done at all. But i found Cannibal Holocaust shock for the sake of shock. it's a thinly plotted movie that relies on its infamy and gore factor (of which it's bafflingly proud, given the type of gore it is), scenes of forced abortion, rape, the aforementioned animal scenes and amputations push this so far into the realms of bad taste that even a black humoured b'stard like me can't accept it.

what i find the most disturbing is not the content however, it's that i'm amazed someone somewhere thought this was a good idea, signed a piece of paper and commissioned a crew to produce it. This film should NEVER have been banned... it quite simply shouldn't have been made. It's about 25 years old (1979 i believe) but i refuse to believe that this was acceptable then either, it should've been shelved at the storyboarding phase.

By no means am i saying "don't watch this film" because i chose to watch it, the same as anyone has the right to, but just be warned that it's not for the easily (or even the not-so-easily) offended and if there's an ounce of humanity in your soul it will almost certainly rasie some serious thoughts within you.

you have been advised....

The original cover can be seen here

http://www.itsonlyamovie.co.uk/cover%20scans/ driller%20killer%20(original).jpg

I guess you could find it gruesome, but then you should remember its not real.

Well, if it's the right one, a man with a drill going through his face while he's screaming. Or something like that.

Pleasant.

Meka Dragon wrote:
> Driller Killer was banned just because of the piccy on the front of
> the video, wasn't it?

So I take it that the picture on the front must have been one of the guys getting gruesomely killed by the drill?

The picture on the video cover..... Ugh.

Again, I re-iterate the fact I'm a 'wimp'.

Driller Killer was banned just because of the piccy on the front of the video, wasn't it?

There's a feature on the history of video in this month's Empire, and it has a short piece about 24 'video-nasties' that were at some point banned.

Driller Killer is at the opposite end of the spectrum entirely. Driller Killer was banned for a stupid reason and is totally over-hyped.

Anything else that is or was 'banned' is likely to be stronger in content than Driller Killer, that's how weak the film is.

I have seen The Driller Killer (which was also banned) Is Cannibal Holocaust half as gory?

Hmmmm Animal violence doesn't sound good.

All the 70's Italian Cannibal films have large amounts of stomach churning real animal violence. Totally disgusting and uncalled for. Quite ironic really that a film that tries to speak out against film crews and television using violence and tragedy for financial gain, would stoop to such disgusting levels of cruelty for the sake of entertainment.

Be warned, Holocaust is nowhere as near as bad for this kind of sickness as some of the other Cannibal films out there. None of them will bare any resemblance to Braindead, so if you're looking for a gorefest you'd do better looking into some of the German Zombie films by a director called Andreas Scnaas. Low budget gore-fests that you can't help but laugh at.

Don't worry;

1) Anything called 'Cannibal Holocaust' won't get my attention because it sounds like rubbish.
2) I am a wimp.

There we go.