Cannibal Holocaust Details

One of the titles — along with The Driller Killer and I Spit on Your Grave — most often quoted during the British “video nasties” scandal of the early eighties, this gruesome offering is probably the finest of that bad bunch, and certainly the best of the cannibal genre. A New York professor (Robert Kerman alias porn actor Richard Bolla) goes to the Amazon jungle in search of a missing documentary film crew and finds horrifying evidence of their fate. Although the script — spuriously critical of both imperialism and the type of film we are watching — is banal, director Ruggero Deodato makes the hunt for the film-makers undeniably exciting. As to the effectiveness of the special effects, it need only be recorded that newspapers perpetuated the myth the murders enacted were genuine, well into the 1990s. The film inspired many imitations and its influence can still be seen in movies such as The Blair Witch Project and The Last Broadcast. Banned under the 1984 Video Recordings Act, it was not legally available in Britain until 2001 when it was passed (with 5 minutes 44 seconds of cuts).

A young film crew vanishes in the Colombian rainforest while shooting an anthropology documentary. Their footage,... read more on Time Out