What not to watch this Halloween: Cannibal Holocaust (31DoHM Day 1)

Day 1: Cannibal Holocaust - "MOST disturbing thing I have ever seen."

In honor of the 31 Days of Halloween Madness, Tiki Chris's ole buddy, Pint Champion is kindly providing a few B-Horror movie reviews. Since the days when PC was but a wee half pint, he has been fascinated by campy, low-budget horror flicks. Indeed, he has seen thousands of movies in this genre.

So why low-budget horror flicks? PC likes how these films "have the ability to turn the morbid, outrageous, unbelievable, and grotesque into pure comedy. There is definitely an art to it, and I'm a fan."

All Pint Champion movie reviews are based upon his non-patented "Tom Wopat Rating Scale."



(10 Tom Wopats = The Best, 0 Tom Wopats = the Worst)

For his first review, Pint Champion has chosen "Cannibal Holocaust." Enjoy.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

The first movie on my list is "Cannibal Holocaust," which was released in 1980 by Italian director, Ruggero Deodato. The movie budget was around $100k, which is bottom-barrel cheapo. I heard of the movie from a web site about classic horror movies that had some really obscure stuff going back to silent films. I'm being honest when I say that I thought this movie was going to be so bad, that it had to be funny. But I was also intrigued to find that it was really controversial and banned in a few countries. I'm thinking, yeah right, controversial, sure. Probably banned in Saudi Arabia or Kazakhstan...

Boy, was I ever wrong! This was the MOST disturbing thing I have ever seen. It is banned in many Western countries including the U.K. Don't rent it. Trust the Champ. I'm sure someone will have morbid curiosity and walk the plank anyway, but I'm telling you, stay out of the water and hang with the Pirates on this one! The beginning of the film features an honest "apology" from the movie company and a quote from Thomas Jefferson about free speech. I mean, what the hell is going on with this? An apology? The plot features two storylines. The first is a professor going into the jungles of South America to find a missing film crew who were making a documentary about a cannibalistic tribe. He finds the bodies of the crew, bonds with natives with several unnecessary meals, and recovers the tapes of the film crew. They were killed by the same natives befriended by the professor and his smarmy guides. Back to civilization, the second storyline features the professor and the executives of a film company privately screening the footage of the film crew, much to the horror of everyone, including me. In this sense, it was a bit like Blair Witch Project. Let's just say, the film crew had a slightly different take on the art of film-making and exhibited very little respect for wildlife or indigenous people! The movie features the following, all seeming VERY real, and in some cases, TOTALLY real:

- Live animal torture, killing, eating and mutilations of a screaming coatimundi (like a muskrat), a giant turtle, a pig, a monkey (who really has his brain eaten by the Indians) and a snake (I didn't think any of this was legal either);
- Several rape scenes, including one with a stone object;
- Group burning;
- Impaling;
- Plenty of realistic cannibalism that supposedly used real pig guts;
- Racism (the Indians are totally degraded, it's awful); and
- Castration.

Can I just stop here? Because unfortunately, there was plenty more.

When the movie was released, the director and producer were arrested in Milan as the movie was suspected of being a snuff film. Eventually, he proved his so-called "innocence," but the controversy continues even until the present. This movie was an absolute disgrace with no redeeming or entertaining qualities. Don't ever, ever, ever watch this film. PLEASE!!!!!! The only reason it receives any numerical score is because it was the most despicable and vile piece of filth I've EVER witnessed since the episode of Happy Days where Fonzie jumped over the shark tank.

0.00001 Tom Wopats!

Click here to read more about the film at Wikipedia.