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CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST

With Francesca Ciardi, Luca Barbareschi, Robert Kerman
Directed by Ruggero Deodato

To shock is one thing, to commit deliberate acts of animal cruelty & slaughter, and promote (by not condemning) abuse, rape and murder of women is another. I've always heard about this 1970's movie and its extremities (always coming from a horror / gore perspective) - when in fact it is a poorly made sensationalist exercise in sadism and brutality that neither thrills, nor excites. Nothing makes me queasy, not even the gratuitous on screen decapitation of turtles, monkeys and muskrats. The moral sense behind it is what appalls me. Sure, we ignore the abattoirs and butchers where our meat comes from, but to tell a story of a bunch of radical documentary filmmakers who venture into the Amazon and create the horrors they capture on film has very little motivation when it comes to onscreen animal killings outweighing the cannibalism of the title. Movies like The Blair Witch Project no doubt borrowed from this so-called "classic's" format of the missing crew's film discovered and viewed. When it comes to the fantasy element of horror's gross-out, freak-out or scary moments, we know it is fake, but movies like these can justify its methods, but it's all just bullshit covering up the blatant sensationalizing of abuse, perhaps breeding more sadistic people out there than creating activists capturing concealed camera footage in a slaughterhouse. This irresponsibility also flows into the extreme misogyny, which has very little motivation except for cheap thrills (for those who get off on that sort of shit) and to no doubt profess the depiction of the narrative's malicious moviemakers' lack of morals - something which is inadvertently an analogy for the actual makers of this piece of trash. While the film will freak out many sensitive viewers, the most shocking aspect to me is the fact that many horror fans list this as one of their top 10 favourites - the horror (translation: "cruelty") being mere outrageous acts of violence and brutality almost entirely directed at animals and women. To add this to the Horror category is an insult to horror films as a whole, and should rather be lumped into a category of its own, like Irresponsible Filmmaking or Unregulated Sensationalism. I'm sure (or at least I hope) that fans of the movie only advertise their love for the flick as a macho angle because of the film's controversy, and not for its depictions of gang rape, sexually driven murder and animal killings… I love horror films and watched movies like Maniac and Dawn Of The Dead when it was banned in South Africa before I was 16. I turned out fine - not a killer, wife beater or animal abuser - knowing that the images were not real and merely a story. I oppose censorship, but do support regulation to prevent the exposure of extreme material to those not ready for it - unfortunately some minors can handle such material better than some adults... What sits badly with a film such as this is the fact that it tries to camouflage real cruelty as art along the lines of a fake documentary, but ultimately fails not just for its bad acting, but because it has no conscience (even when lame attempts are made at it).

0 / C
- PB


Flamedrop feels that even the worst film still deserves a rating of 1 for actually getting it made, but in very few cases exceptions are made
...

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
A - B
- C


never let a review decide for you, but for those who need a rating, see the Flamedrop scale below
6 - Volcanic
5 - Blistering
4 - Hot
3 - Smolder
2 - Room Temperature
1 - Fizzled
0 - Extinguished

A: Multi-Viewing Potential

B: Could Enjoy A 2nd Look

C: Once Should Suffice




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