CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST - ***

Director: Ruggero Deodato. Stars: Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen, Luca Barbareschi. 1980. USA. Horror/Drama. 96mins.

A documentary crew go missing in the rainforest and it is up to an anthropologist and a small team to attempt to find and rescue them and their footage. What they discover is a world unknown to civilisation, a world of cannibalism.

I’m not going to give you guys a review of the film itself. I think that would be pointless. Most of you have seen it and the ones who haven’t will have a pretty good idea of what the film is all about. Basically, it’s notorious, it was a video nasty, and it’s not a pleasure to watch. If you are a fan of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ then great, if you hate it then that’s also fine. If you haven’t yet seen it and have the burning desire to then read on.

‘Cannibal Holocaust’ was released in 1980 and became one of the most controversial films of the genre. It suffered greatly at the hands of the BBFC where it gained an outright ban. In 2001 the film was submitted for video release and became available in a heavily edited version. Five minutes and forty-four seconds had been removed – mainly due to “real cruelty to animals and eroticised sexual violence”. The film was released again in 2004 and 2008 with a few seconds of extra footage but still missing nearly six minutes. ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ gained the title of the most notorious movie of all time and is claimed to be banned in over fifty countries worldwide.

The film now arrives on BluRay and DVD for all you fans, courtesy of Shameless films. It’s time to throw out your copies from Vipco on DVD and VHS (although you would be wise to keep hold of any pre-cert uncut VHS copies of the film that may be laying around). Let’s take a look at this shiny new release.

This version of the film is about as close to being uncut as we are going to get any time soon. And to be honest, unless you are a completist who needs it to be fully uncut, you aren’t going to miss anything this time around. Yes folks, most of those six minutes of cuts have been waived finally. All we are missing is a fifteen second scene of the muskrat being killed onscreen. Trust me, it’s not a big deal to miss this, especially with some of the other graphic footage in the film. It does however seem like a very strange scene to cut out but I am sure there is reasoning behind it. The disc also contains another version of the film claiming to be Ruggero Deodato’s Director’s New Edit. This version removes some animal cruelty and was passed uncut but runs for only thirteen seconds less than the main version released here, so it seems pretty pointless to be honest, although Deodato does explain his reasoning for the removal of shots.

So, now that we have established that this is the best version released so far (and the closest it has ever come to being uncut in this country) let’s have a closer look at the disc itself. The film is by far the best it has ever looked and sounded, although why a film like this needs a DTS track is beyond me. The BluRay, as expected, makes all of the images sharp and clear and really brings out the colours. It looks really nice. Obviously being an old film shows up too on the print as some scenes are quite grainy and this grain is highlighted on the High Definition master. Many scenes of the film really stand out and come to life, courtesy of the detail. I think it will be down to individual tastes whether the film is preferred in its pretty new state or if an old grainy copy actually has more impact, but the BluRay release does the film justice and brings a lot more detail to the screen. The only issue that I had was with the colours being a little extreme at times, especially red – and as you can imagine there is quite a bit of red! I can only expect that the DVD of the film will look good too from the re-mastering it has gone through.

The star rating doesn’t reflect on the film itself but is a rating for the overall presentation of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ on BluRay. Shameless have released the film with a collectable reversible sleeve and some interesting extra features. You have the obligatory trailers – of which ‘Don’t Torture a Duckling’ seems intriguing, and two forty-minute documentaries. ‘Film And Be Damned’ goes into some detail about the production of the film through interviews with Ruggero Deodato and Carl Yorke. ‘The Long Road Back From Hell’ is an extremely interesting look back at the film from some leading film critics, including Kim Newman. Both documentaries are well worth watching and make this release of the film the new standard.

Russ Gomm.

GORE IN THE STORE
REVIEWS BY FANS FOR FANS
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH