We’re back with another edition of Art History Uncensored. This week we’ll be looking at Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust. The movie is legendary for containing real animal death and cruelty, leading to it being heavily banned and censored. It’s even blamed for other films with the word Cannibal in the title being swept up in the Video Nasties panic. That’s right, this movie was so offensive it got other movies banned for just having similar names.
Cannibal Holocaust was directed by Deodato, from a script by Gianfranco Cleric. The film is considered groundbreaking in the found footage genre. It centers around an anthropologist going into the Amazon rainforest to rescue a missing film crew. When he recovers their footage, he’s horrified to see their various disastrous and eventually deadly encounters with local cannibal tribes. But what’s more disturbing is what led these tribes to kill the crew in the first place.
The Footage
Deodato made the movie as a reaction to how, at the time, the news was filled with blood and gore. However, fictional films couldn’t show the same level of brutality, even though it wasn’t real. Because of this idea, the footage recovered from the crew is shot like the most horrifically unethical documentary you’ve ever seen.
The lost crew is comprised of director Alan Yates (Carl Gabriel Yorke), script supervisor Faye Daniels (Francesca Ciardi), cameramen Jack Anders (Perry Pirkanen) and Mark Tomaso (Luca Barbareschi), alongside native guide Felipe (Guillermo). They set out to a remote village in the rainforest to make the documentary “The Green Inferno,” about indigenous cannibal tribes. (And yes, that title is the inspiration for Eli Roth’s 2013 film).
The issue is the director is hell-bent on framing them as racist stereotypes. When they won’t play ball, the recovered video clearly shows the crew forcing them into deadly situations. For example, when they find a member of the Yakumo, they shoot him in the leg so they can follow him back to the village. Upon entering the town, they kill a child’s pet pig before forcing people into a hut and setting it ablaze. All in an effort to stage a massacre, and that’s just their arrival…
Of Course They Killed You
If you were to walk into any town and pull that kind of malarkey, people would react, and normally violently. As the film progresses, more and more cruelty is inflicted on the Yakumo, including violence, rape, and animal slaughter. Unfortunately, while it happens in a fictional film, these particular killings were very real. In total, 7 live animals were killed on camera purely to make Cannibal Holocaust. 6 of these deaths are in the film.
While it’s referred to as a muskrat in Cannibal Holocaust, a South American coati is killed with a knife. An Arrau turtle is decapitated, with its limbs, shell, and entrails removed. A tarantula and boa constrictor are both killed with a machete, at different times. The aforementioned pig killing happened via a shot at point-blank range. A Squirrel monkey is decapitated with a machete, but this scene had to be shot twice, so two monkeys were slaughtered.
Even for readers who haven’t seen it, we think you get why this one was deemed offensive. And this brings us to its long history of censorship…
Snuff?
In 1981, a rumor started during the film’s theatrical run in France that it contained real human death scenes. Deodato was suspected, but never formally charged, with murder. Once members of the cast showed up in court to show they were, in fact, alive, the charges against the filmmaker was dismissed.
A little over a week after Cannibal Holocaust premiered in Milan, the film was confiscated under the orders of a local magistrate. Deodato was charged with obscenity, and all copies had to be turned over to authorities. The film was banned in Italy until 1984 due to the prolonged and violent slaughtering of several animals. Deodato, Clerici, producers Franco Palaggi, Franco Di Nunzio, Alda Pia, and United Artists Europa representative Sandro Perotti were all convicted of obscenity. Each of them was issued a 4-month suspended sentence.
“It’s A Video Nasty!”
Cannibal Holocaust was one of the few films that was banned for the entirety of the UK’s video nasties scare. Which is impressive given that so many films were moved on and off the list for seemingly no reason. The movie received a home video release back when laws didn’t require non-theatrical releases to pass through the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC). Once the Video Recordings Act passed in 1984, it made it illegal to distribute any film that had not been classified. This led to it being a favorite title among video store raids. It was also one of the first non-pornographic films to be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act.
It received an X rating in America, which at the time was as good as a ban, since no major retailer would carry your movie. Over the decades, it’s been banned in Australia, Norway, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa, to name a few. Cannibal Holocaust is frequently marketed as being banned in 50 countries, and you can probably see why.
Deodato on Different Cuts
A general rule with films is that where there is censorship, there are endless different cuts. However, Cannibal Holocaust is kind of unique since once uncensored versions started passing, fans started wanting things pulled back out. There have already been multiple official and unofficial cuts taking out all of the real animal violence. And while we obviously abhor most censorship, it’s hard to argue with the director himself.
“I think the cuts of the new edition are right,” Deodato told the BBC in May. “If I had the chance to go back in time, I’d have avoided the animal killings. I paid a high price for that, such as losing the pleasure of introducing Cannibal Holocaust to the UK public.”
While you can argue this comment is just about the censorship, the director has expressed remorse for the killings in the past as well. He’s echoed his desire to go back in time and never shoot those scenes in the first place several times. Even without them, the film is visceral and raw enough that it was bound to make audiences uncomfortable.
A “PG” Version?
Grindhouse Releasing has just opened up pre-orders for a new super-deluxe 6-disc ultimate edition which comes with 1 UHD, 4 Blu-rays, and a CD. In this set are: “Three different versions – the original UNCENSORED theatrical version, new SPECIAL EDITION, and never-before-released ‘PG-rated’ version,” according to the company. Given the short clip Grindhouse provided to Fangoria, we doubt it would pass through the MPA with a proper PG rating. But it does sound like it will be way toned down on the violence and gore, which is a pretty unique concept. Given that this film was made with a lot of violence and gore as a reaction to violence and gore. You can pre-order a copy here.
Cannibal Holocaust
Despite every attempt to keep this film from the public eye, it has endured for 46 years. If anything, the censorship just put more eyes on it (a running theme you’ll see in this series). It has become the grandaddy of all shock films and has inspired countless other directors to use over-the-top violence to comment on violence in the media and racism. Because as disgusting as it is, at the end of the day, it’s a well-constructed film making a seemingly timeless point. Films like Cannibal Holocaust will stop existing when society stops needing them to.
