1. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
THE quintessential Italian horror movie in which directing honours go to Ruggero Deodato - always an interesting director (see Phantom of Death: Off Balance and The Washing Machine) who in this instance cooked up one heck of a controversial film. If you utter the very words "Italian horror movies", I reckon that Cannibal Holocaust would be on the tip of most people's lips, so synonymous is this brutal movie with the Italian horror film genre. It was, to my knowledge, the first film to utilise the found movie footage format which was later to inspire The Blair Witch Project. A bunch of film makers go to the Amazon to make a film about cannibals. They are never heard from again and an Anthropology Professor stages an expedition to find out what became of them. He retrieves the missing camera reels, takes them back to New York, sits back and lets roll... What unfurls on the screen is an avalanche of real life animal cruelty (which is the main reason why the film was banned in so many countries), rape, forced abortion, limb amputation by sword, killing by stone dildo, impalement, castration, the torching of the natives' mudhuts and lots of other brutalities and nastiness. There is certainly a cinema verite aspect to the film which makes it particularly disturbing. The retrieved film footage was significantly convincing to land Deodato in trouble with the law - he had to parade the film's actors around an Italian court of law to prove that they were only killed in fiction. Cannibal Holocaust is an Italian movie in which everything just gels together to make a perfect whole. Riz Ortolani's evocative score seems like a plea for understanding and mercy amidst the barbarism committed on screen. The setting and scenery of the film, as well as the native actors used, are highly authentic. The animal cruelty is horrid to behold but adds a grittiness to the film. All in all, Deodato produced a bloody good film which deserves its notorious reputation but is also a lot more sophisticated than many people would suppose it to be. It stands heads above its cannibal movie brethren.