1. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
The ne plus ultra of all cannibal films, Cannibal Holocaust is not a film for the fearful of heart. It piles atrocity upon atrocity up until the viewer's brain is bent backwards trying to comprehend the depravity on the screen. Like Cannibal Ferox, it likes to trade on the fact that it was banned in lots of countries, but it is now available on a widespread basis. The plot is fairly well known by now. A group of Mondo-style documentary makers disappear whilst filming in the Amazon. An anthropology professor decides to take a trip to the jungle to find out what happened to them. He makes friends with the cannibals and manages to recover the lost film reels. The professor brings the footage back to NYC and sits down to view it. What unfurls on the screen is a masterclass of depravity and horror. We are treated to cannibals being torched from their huts just to make good footage for the crew. The crew rape a native girl. They come across a woman impaled on a stake that enters through her vagina and exits through her mouth. There is a forced abortion, a man shoving a stone dildo up a woman's bits, and on top of this, enough real life animal slaughter to keep the RSPCA in business for a year or two. Eventually the crew piss the natives off so much they get their comeuppance, all the while the camera is rolling and captures their demise. It is great to see Alan - the chief documentary maker and noted sadist - suffer an agonising death. Get in there cannibals! When Cannibal Holocaust played in Italy, it was a mere few days before the authorities seized the film and almost charged director Ruggero Deodato with making a snuff movie. He had to parade the actors around an Italian court to prove they were alive. In the end, Deodato escaped with a four month suspended sentence for cruelty towards animals. Because of its found footage film plot, a lot of people who have watched Cannibal Holocaust have thought it is a real life orgy of violence. The Blair Witch Project would also use the found footage story to great effect. Cannibal Holocaust ended up being one of the most famous Video Nasties and one of the most sought after on the black market. The film became legendary and remained out of bounds for years. I have said it before and I will say it again. I believe that Cannibal Holocaust is a response to Mondo movie film makers who were accused of staging footage and organising death scenes in front of the camera (Prosperi and Jacopetti directing Africa Addio comes instantly to mind). Setting the camera in the Amazon with cannibals afforded Deodato with a fashionable landscape of the times and a backdrop to showcase the worst excesses of Mondo movie making. It is the zenith of Italian Cannibal movies.