10 Types Of Movies You Don't See Any More

Sometimes called Shockumentaries, Mondo films are quasi-documentary films that attempt to shock the viewer by dealing with taboo subject matter, typically in some far-flung corner of the world. The term derives from Mondo Cane, which purports to show exotic customs and gruesome death footage, some of it staged by the filmmakers.

In 1978, director John Schwartz took some graphic file footage of fatal accidents, spiced it up with specially shot inserts and released it as the notorious Faces Of Death. In truth, the staged footage isn’t particularly difficult for a modern viewer to spot, given the quality of the “acting” and make-up effects.

This inventive approach to documentary storytelling comes under attack in Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980) where a group of filmmakers in the Amazon force a primitive tribe into greater and greater acts of savagery in order to capture some sensational footage. The crew are overwhelmed and murdered by the tribe, which really serves as the last word on the subgenre.