Cannibal Holocaust

The punk I’d nicknamed Waldo made a beeline for the Museum of Schlock’s The Warriors exhibit. Edwige, my loyal kangaroo companion, hopped in close pursuit. I stumbled along, still reeling from getting spray painted in the face. By the time I got there, Edwige stood in stone silence. The showpiece of The Warriors display was a hall filled with mannequins of the gang members from that movie. Waldo was hiding among them.

— To be continued.

Happy Thanksgiving from the fine folks and punks at The Museum of Schlock. I’m sure all of you are stuffed from Thanksgiving leftovers and fighting off the masses for that $24.99 toaster oven. As tradition rears its hungry head at the Museum of Schlock once again, I am obligated to cover a cannibal movie for this week’s review. This year’s selection is 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust from director Ruggero Deodato. This movie was banned in several countries (including Italy!) and the director was charged with obscenity and even murder.

Do not watch this movie.

I see why Cannibal Holocaust has such a scathing reputation. Maybe Caligula is worse. This movie is considered the first “found footage” horror movie, but the story revolves around Professor Harold Monroe, a renowned anthropologist, going to investigate what happened to an American documentary film crew that got lost in the Amazon rainforest. His journey leads him to the Ya̧nomamö tribe where he finds the film canisters and what remains of the film crew.

Monroe bargains with the tribe for the film canisters. Back in Manhattan, executives at the Pan American Broadcasting System want Professor Monroe to host the documentary of what happened to the lost filmmakers. Professor Monroe agrees only under the condition that he gets to view the footage first. One of the executives informs Professor Monroe that the film crew had the tendency to sensationalize events in their documentaries for dramatic effect.

What unfolds through the found footage is a grotesque descent into madness by the American film crew. We get scenes of the documentarians slaughtering a turtle live on camera before cooking and eating it. Their forest guide gets bit by a snake so the film crew amputates his leg and try cauterizing the wound with a flaming hot machete. The guide dies anyway so they abandon the body on their journey. They shoot a member of the Ya̧nomamö in the leg so they can follow him home.

The film crew shoots off rifles terrorizing the villagers, then set fire to their huts, hoping to stage what looks like a massacre from an enemy tribe. The filmmakers then steal a young Ya̧nomamö woman and can’t seem to help themselves from violating her on camera. The next thing we see is the director grinning in front of the body of the young woman. He claims that the tribe killed her for losing her virginity.

Fed up with the documentary filmmakers, the tribe tracks and then surrounds them in the forest, castrating, mutilating, and cannibalizing their bodies as the cameraman continues to film the carnage until the gory, bloody, nauseating end.

After viewing the footage, the executives order the film stock to be destroyed.

There’s a message in here about the dangers of exploitative filming from one of the worst exploitation movies of all time.

Do not watch this movie.

It will put you in a bad way.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, and episode 599) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.