Courtesy of fans such as Eli Roth, Cannibal Holocaust is finally getting the respect it deserves as it the granddaddy of all those found footage movies that came along in the wake of The Blair Witch Project. The Legend Of Boggy Creek (1971) may have employed the pseudo-documentary format years earlier, but few would deny that Ruggero Deodatos is the more powerful. Those who filmed it were devoured alive by cannibals! shrieks the no-nonsense tagline, which is apt because this is a no-nonsense film where at no point do whiny teenagers stand around discussing horror films or giving ironic commentary on the proceedings. Ah, the good old days. Handheld and grainy, the footage of (real) animal abuse and physical torture has a you-are-there immediacy that to this day has not been equalled, never mind topped. Slick movies like Rec and Cloverfield might be better edited, but what Deodatos movie lacks in finesse it more than makes up for in conviction.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
