Cannibal Holocaust 4K UHD

Depending on your politics, this film either gets 1 star or the full 5. There really is no in between. It truly is the most disturbing movie I have ever seen and I have seen a lot of movies.I tend to find reviews that give the story away too much rather annoying. However I feel it my duty to point out some scenes in this to save you from images that may stay with you for a long time. Therefore, do not read on if you don't want to know.This film includes horror which is real. No vampires or ghosts, just a quasi-anthropological study of cannibals in the Amazon.The plot is simple. It is a film of two halves. The first half shows a scientist looking for a film crew who have gone missing. The second half shows the crews fate through the eyes of their actual footage. It has been cited that there are similarities with Blair Witch. This is NO WAY like that student trash in any guise.Here are some things you graphically see in Cannibal Holocaust:1) A woman is raped by a huge phallus and then has a flint inserted into her before she is beaten to death.2) A man has his penis cut off before he is completely mutilated.3) A pregnant woman has her fetus pulled from her womb before she is brutally killed.4) Children are forced to enter a burning hut where they are watched and filmed.5) A man is forced to eat a human liver.6) A woman is gang raped before her severed head is paraded around.Also there are corpulous amounts of real life animal cruelty. A giant turtle is horrifically killed, a piglet shot in cold blood, a poor monkey has its brains cut out and a musk-rat is stabbed through the neck. This is real, so animal lovers and veggies beware.These disturbing scenes are made even more so by the playing of genuinely lovely music.Overall, the acting is terrible, the camera work shoddy and the plot predictable. I have given it 5 stars for the sheer nerve of the director, Ruggero Deodato. I will say that I am a strong anti-censorship believer. The watcher should have the choice, not some government official. However, I can fully see (and understand) why this movie was banned for so many years. At times it really does look like a snuff movie.In a nut shell Cannibal Holocaust is Indiana Jones meets Delieverence meets Driller Killers meets Day of the Dead meets First Blood meets any documentary on National Geographic.You have been warned of the content of this film.

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Over the last few years Cannibal Holocaust has gradually begun to be recognised as an important and influential cult film. Back in the mid 1980's it was often the subject of controversy and notoriety as the tabloid press sited it as being one of the worst offenders in the whole "video nasty" debacle. Shot on 35mm and 16mm the film has a grainy realism and reportage style that convinced some who saw it at the time to suspect that the barbarities being acted out were not actually faked. Clearly this is a very powerful film though the visual and technical skills on display make up for any qualities that are lacking in the acting or dialogue department. Lush jungle settings and a beautiful counterpoint score by Riz Ortolani both add to the jarring effect and contrast the ultra savage violence as the story unfolds. Simply put the film adds up to much more than the sum of its parts. It's also quite a contradictory experience, while its subject appears to be how the media is prepared to exploit acts of violence the film makers here are guilty of exactly the same thing. With a title like "Cannibal Holocaust" though it's highly unlikely anyone would watch purely to gain a greater insight into the activities of the media!When the film was first submitted in 2001 the BBFC ordered just under 6 minutes of cuts which the distributer chose to remove(perhaps deliberately) without any attempt at re-editing sympathetically.According to the BBFC website regarding the latest submission all previous cuts have been waived with the exception of 15 seconds showing the killing of a muskrat. Here the animal is clearly in pain and distress. A Directors 2nd edit of the film is also included which reduces some of the other scenes of animal killing.The US Region free Grindhouse edition also attempted to provide the viewer with an alternative version via a playback option of selecting the uncut version or animal cruelty free version. Again this was problematic as the latter option removed some whole scenes rather than just the offending material.The new alternative edit attempts to avoid these problems by re-editing and reducing the more graphic scenes of animal slaughter in a way which is more in keeping with style of the film. Contrary to earlier reports this edit does not entirely remove such scenes however a range of techniques have been applied to substitute and mask the more contentious images. These include some grainy/light blurred leader images which have been briefly edited over the footage. This may prove distracting however such an effect had already been used in the final climactic scenes of the original. Overall the animal slaughter in the new edit is still present but somewhat reduced.The Blu Ray print here is sharp and detailed with vivid colours and begins with the United Artists Europa logo. Quite simply this is the the best quality print of this film so far. Extras include a 40 minute critics review entitled "The Long Road Back From Hell" including opinions from Kim Newman, Ruggero Deodato, Carl Gabriel Yorke and Francesca Ciardi while tracing the film back to its Mondo roots. The 40 minute "Film and Be Damned" interview also included reveals how the project evolved and helps to clear up a few mysteries along the way, such as the reason for the piranha sequence being deleted from the final edit.Those wishing to see the full uncut version should opt for the US or European versions. This new edition simply gives the viewer a choice however as much of the animal violence is still visible the reasons for the new edit may seem pointless to some.

Ruggero Deodatos Cannibal Holocaust still has the power to shock even though it is now 43 years old. This Blu Ray edition is the most complete version available in the UK, with the only edit done to the killing of the Muskrat by being stabbed to death.The film is really a mockumentary where a bunch of documentary film makers go missing in the Amazon.We then see what happens to them with the found film footage which is horrifying. Not only is there a lot of sadistic violence, but rape, and if course the real animal killings. They are all quick and clean, such as the tarantula getting sliced in half with a machete, the snake getting sliced in half with a machete, the giant turtle getting it's head chopped off, the pig getting shot and the monkey getting the top of it's head sliced off.Looking back this is still gruesome stuff, even though the film does show it's age. The censors were right to ban it at the time and in video during the video nasties scare. I am glad now that the 6 minutes that were originally cut out in 2001 have now been waived. Overall this is a classic and you get lots of extras that includes interviews with Ruggero Deodato.