Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici, starring Carl Gabriel Yorke, Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi and Luca Giorgio Barbareschi. Cannibal Holocaust was filmed in the Amazon Rainforest with real indigenous tribes interacting with American and Italian actors.
The film tells the story of a missing documentary film crew who had gone to the Amazon to film cannibal tribes. A rescue mission, led by the New York University anthropologist Harold Monroe, recovers the film crew's lost cans of film, which an American television station wishes to broadcast. Upon viewing the reels, Monroe is appalled by the team's actions, and after learning their fate, he objects to the station's intent to air the documentary.
Cannibal Holocaust is unique for its "found footage" structure, in which the gradual revelation of the recovered film's content functions similar to a flashback. The film's notion of "recovered footage" has influenced the now-popular genre of found footage horror films, such as The Blair Witch Project.
Cannibal Holocaust achieved notoriety as its graphic violence aroused a great deal of controversy. After its premiere in Italy, it was seized by a local magistrate, and Deodato was arrested on obscenity charges. He was charged with making a snuff film due to rumors that claimed some actors were killed on camera. Although Deodato was later cleared, the film was banned in Italy, Australia, and several other countries due to its disturbing portrayal of graphic brutality, sexual assault, and animal violence. Some nations have since revoked the ban, but the film is still banned in several countries. Critics have suggested that the film is a commentary about civilized versus uncivilized society.
Plot[]
The film opens with a television documentary about a missing film crew from the United States that disappeared on an expedition to the Amazon Basin to make a documentary about indigenous cannibal tribes. The team was Alan Yates, the director; Faye Daniels, his girlfriend, along with a script girl; and two cameramen, Jack Anders and Mark Tomaso. Harold Monroe, a New York University anthropologist, has agreed to lead a rescue team and flies to the Amazon to meet his guides, Chaco and his assistant, Miguel. The group has a hostage captured by the military from a local tribe called the Yacumo, and they use him to help negotiate with the natives. The team arranges his release in exchange for being taken to the Yacumo village. There, the team initially meets hostility and learns that the film group had caused great unrest among the people.
The next day, Monroe and his guides head deeper into the rainforest to locate two warring tribes, the Ya̧nomamö and the Shamatari. Following a group of Shamatari warriors to a riverbank, they intervene and save a smaller group of Ya̧nomamö from death in a conflict between the groups. The Ya̧nomamö invite Monroe and his team back to their village, where they are treated with suspicion. To gain the villagers' trust, Monroe bathes naked in a river. A group of Ya̧nomamö women emerge to take him to a shrine, which he learns holds the bones of the missing American filmmakers. Angry, Monroe confronts the Ya̧nomamö, during which time he plays a tape recorder for them. Intrigued, the natives agree to trade it for the first team's surviving reels of film during a cannibalistic ceremony, in which Monroe has to take part.
Back in New York, executives of the Pan American Broadcast Company invite Monroe to host a broadcast of a documentary to be made from the recovered film. Monroe wants to see the raw footage first. The executives introduce him to Yates's work by showing an excerpt from his previous documentary, The Last Road to Hell. One of the executives tells Monroe that Yates staged the scene to get more exciting footage. Monroe reviews the footage, which first follows the group's trek through the jungle. They promptly spot a large turtle, which they butcher and eat. Their guide, Felipe, is then bitten by a venomous snake. The group amputates Felipe's leg with a machete in an attempt to save his life, but he quickly dies and is left behind. The remaining four succeed in locating the Yacumo. Jack shoots one in the leg so they can easily follow him to the village. The second reel starts with the group's arrival at the Yacumo village. They force the entire tribe into a hut and burn it down in order to stage a scene for the film. Monroe expresses concerns over the staged scenes and poor treatment of the natives, but his worries are ignored.
Monroe expresses his disgust to station executives about their decision to air the documentary. To convince them of his view, he shows the remaining, unedited footage, which only he has seen. The final two reels begin with the team locating a young Ya̧nomamö girl, whom the men gang-rape as Faye tries to stop them. Later, the team films the girl impaled on a wooden pole, where they claim the natives killed her. After they move on, the Ya̧nomamö attack the team in revenge for the girl's rape and death. Jack is hit by a spear, and Alan shoots him so the team can film how the natives mutilate his corpse. As the three surviving team members try to escape the scene, Faye is captured. Alan insists they try to rescue her. Mark continues to film as she is raped and beheaded. The Ya̧nomamö immediately locate the last two team members as the footage ends with Alan's bloody face. Disturbed by what they have just seen, the executives order the footage destroyed, and as Monroe leaves the station, he declares: "I wonder who the real cannibals are?".