*Originally written October 5th, 2017*
An assault on the senses? Yes. Provocative? Certainly. Gory? You bet. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't like Cannibal Holocaust as much as I did, it definitely got a reaction out of me, which is more commendable than films I like, but that reaction was more one of disgust and hatred towards what I saw. I love animals, so seeing them die in front of me, for real, for the sake of an audiences entertainment just rubbed me the wrong way. Helped no further by the graphic and disturbing way these animals were killed. I can't think of anything worse than having to watch that turtle scene again. I nearly threw up.
Then there's also the issue of the treatment of women in this film. Maybe it's the point, but it was not interesting to watch constant graphic rapes and torture of women for no real point. There was one horrible scene early on where a women is raped with a bit of wood, then has a rock shoved in her vagina, then has her head caved in. It's not pleasant.
It's a criticism I hate using as it can rarely be further explained or expanded upon, but I was mostly bored during Cannibal Holocaust. It's a film I've had hyped to me for years and I thought, hey ho, whatever, I'll finally go for it this October. Like I said, it really earns its stars and stripes in graphic content, it's just not a lot else did anything for me. At no point during this would I say I was "enjoying" it. Which is fine, you don't need to enjoy a film for it to be good. That sounds like a weird thing to say, but do you find 12 Years a Slave or Schindler's List "enjoyable"? Exactly.
I can see why this film has inspired a lot from it. I imagine it was sort of The Blair Witch Project of its time. The fact some people thought this was real and the crew were actually killed, meaning the director nearly faced trial is awesome. I was amazed to see this also made $200 million. No matter what I thought of the film, that's still remarkably impressive. Even with inflation, a film like this would never make anywhere near that much money today.
I appreciate the themes of civilisation vs the uncivilised and who truly is the "civilised" ones. It's not nice to see that times really haven't changed in 37 years. Privileged white people are still destroying the homes of foreigners for their own benefit. So hey, at least there's some resonate social commentary here. I also liked some of the found-footage aspects, which is pretty original for its time, or at least this is the earliest example I've seen.
I won't say I hated Cannibal Holocaust, but I definitely didn't like it. I see why people do. It just didn't do a lot for me. While I am repulsed by the actions the filmmakers took in making this film, I do have to commend them for going as far as they did, as sick as it made me.
4/10 Dans
Cannibal Holocaust is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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