The cannibal witch project...I mean, Cannibal Holocaust, is a movie that horror fans hear about all the time. People gush about the gore and the taboos this movie breaks, and how it's hard to sit through, how the animal killings portrayed on film are real, how this movie caused so much controversy when it was first released that the director first had to go to court to prove that the on-screen killings weren't real and then ended up being fined extensively because the animal killings WERE real. In short, it's one of those movies that fans of extreme gore feel they HAVE to see. So does it live up to the hype? Yes and no. That's not to say that it's not every bit as great as people say it is, but that for me, it was great in a way I hadn't expected. This movie caught me off guard in a lot of ways. I knew from the start that the movie was going to set up a scenario where the documentary filmmakers ostensibly wanted to document how savage and cruel the tribe was, and then they'd end up being more savage and cruel themselves. But I wasn't prepared for how much I HATED these people. At every turn they exploit, torment, torture, and even kill members of their own crew i the name of making sensational footage.

The acting isn't great, but it gets better as the movie progresses. And the animal killing scenes are brutal, but they also got me thinking. Throughout the course of the film, we see the female filmmaker getting sick and throwing up when she sees the animals being killed. But later on in the film, she doesn't even bat an eye when her fellow crew members burn and terrorize an entire village full of people (to the contrary, this act excites her so much that she grabs her boyfriend and has sex with him right afterward). And later in the film, when her fellow crew members are raping a female tribe member, she gets upset...but not because they're raping and killing a woman, because they're FILMING it and it's a WASTE of film. Yep, she's a real winner. I tell people all the time that I like animals better than people, but this disregard for human life juxtaposed with her concern for killing the animals is startling. And just an aside about the animal killings...I don't particularly agree with them, but the director is very vocal that he doesn't see anything wrong with the animal killing. The animals were eaten, the carcasses weren't wasted, and he just doesn't understand why it's such a big deal. Whether I agree with him or not, it's been over 20 years since this film was made, and I think it's time to let it go. It's something that happened, we may not agree with it, but bashing the director doesn't change the past, and I think it's silly to watch a horribly violent grindhouse movie in a version that edits out the animal killings. Reasonable people can disagree about this (that's what's so great about free speech) but even though I love animals, I think the footage shows how the filmmakers have a blatant disregard for all life.

The gore in this movie is top-notch. There are a few scenes that I watch over and over, and I STILL can't figure out how they pulled off those killings with makeup and effects. I'm seriously impressed. How come we have movies today that have ten times the budget of this movie and they can't manage to make their deaths believable? There's no excuse. And the film is set up beautifully to pack a great punch. As the movie begins, we see a researcher going into the jungle to try to find the missing filmmakers and retrieve their footage, and seeing the respect with which he treats the “savages” makes the later footage of the cruelty of the filmmakers all the more shocking.  I was pretty depressed after watching this movie the first time. Humanity is evil, and this movie made me think about the way I use other people everyday and don't even notice it. That the movie is an exploitation film portraying how people exploit others is a rich dichotomy, and one I couldn't get out of my head for weeks after watching the movie. This is the kind of movie that couldn't be replicated today; the angry 70s drenched everything it touched with a raw rage and cynicism that is best displayed in grind house movies like this one. My only complaint with the ending is the heavy handedness of the final dialogue: “Who were the real cannibals?” Yeah, by this point I get it, you don't have to beat me over the head with it like that. But that's a small caveat and it doesn't change the fact that the rest of the movie was stunning, so I'll let it go.

I know other people may see this movie as a piece of exploitive garbage, but I can't help that. For me, it had lots of value, and for that I appreciate and highly recommend it, even though I realize that most people won't appreciate it the way I do. Truly a masterpiece that lives up to the hype; spectacularly disturbing and worthwhile.