Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Cynical in message and image, Cannibal Holocaust takes the viewer to the darkest parts of the jungle as well as the human mind. However, like someone with a bad timeshare, the viewer will wonder if this is the sort of place they really want to go.

The frame is serviceable as a means of delivering found footage; however, the frame also enforces an unfortunate pacing paradigm, especially early in the film. On top of that, the characters are stock; in fact, they may have actually been selected by tossing darts at random crowds of people.

The movie bludgeons you with its message that human savagery is being exported, not imported, through the abuses the documentarians dole out to the savage natives.

The film is irrevocably marred in a number of ways. Unsimulated, graphic, sustained depictions of the abuse and killing of animals are present throughout. There are also many protracted rape scenes which do nothing to further the narrative. The scenes are intentionally revolting but mostly serve to make the viewer want to turn the movie off. By engaging with this film, the viewer signs a contract that they will endure such material over and over again for the film's duration.

The film is in possession of one meager virtue: a sand grain's worth of self-awareness. The film follows the excitement surrounding the recovered footage; the only man who has seen it in full warns that the footage is unusable and despicable. After being screened, his superiors agree and order the footage destroyed. In a particularly strange twist of fate, in this way the world of Cannibal Holocaust is superior to our own: they never saw Cannibal Holocaust released whereas our world paid the price. While feeling insincere, this does offer some commentary on the obscenity of the film, but not much. The line in question exists mostly to heighten the severity of what we have just witnessed.

Cannibal Holocaust is not for the faint of heart; in fact, it might not be for anyone at all.