Cannibal Films - In the jungle, the hungry jungle....

[Syaoran Li]

Since @BrunoMattei has created a thread on "Rape and Revenge" movies, I figured I'd start one on the other infamous exploitation genre from the 70's and very early 80's that helped create the "extreme cinema" genre as we know it today....the cannibal film.

Just to be clear, just because a film has cannibals in it does not mean it's a cannibal film. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs both have cannibalism as a major plot element but they aren't cannibal films in the genre definition.

Cannibal movies were made largely by Italian producers and directors in the 1970's and early 1980's. They were always set in a Third World country with a tropical jungle setting, and featured cannibalistic primitive indigenous tribes as the main antagonists or as the major plot element. Cannibal movies often contained large amounts of graphic violence, sadism, gore, nudity, and often contained rape scenes and unsimulated acts of animal cruelty.

The noteworthy entries in the genre include...

The Man From Deep River (1972) - This was the earliest example of the genre and is basically a retelling of a Western movie where the Indians are replaced with cannibal tribes. It was originally released in the US as Sacrifice and was a hit in the grindhouses on 42nd Street.

Last Cannibal World (1977) - The first cannibal movie of Ruggero Deodato

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977) - A porn movie mixed with the cannibal film genre. Yes, really.

Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978.)- A typical cannibal movie, but is notable for both being in the public domain and having Stacey Keach as one of the characters

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) - The gold standard of this genre, and one of the most infamous and horrifying movies of all time

Eaten Alive (1980) - A cannibal movie loosely inspired by the Jonestown Massacre

Cannibal Ferox (1981) - The second-most infamous and well-known movie after Cannibal Holocaust

Naturo Contro (1988.) Often considered the very last film of the original "cannibal boom"

The Green Inferno (2013) - Eli Roth's based homage to the cannibal genre

 

[Autumnal Equinox]

Cannibal. 2006 film by Marian Dora focusing on Armin Meiwes murdering and cannibalizing willing victim Bernd Brandes.

It's an interesting watch

 

[Rafal Gan Ganowicz]

Ravenous. My fav film EVER.

 

[Syaoran Li]

Cannibal. 2006 film by Marian Dora focusing on Armin Meiwes murdering and cannibalizing willing victim Bernd Brandes.

It's an interesting watch

Sounds like an interesting film, but I don't think it's a "cannibal film" in the sense of this thread's topic. I'll still check it out though

This is the kind of movie genre I'm talking about

Cannibal film - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[WarJams]

Adam and Eve vs. The Cannibals is a personal odd favorite title of mine. It's light on cannibal shenanigans and more of a caveman romp, though, but it's such an absurd movie title to throw out in a conversation that I'm okay with that.

 

[Frank D'arbo]

Cannibal Holocaust has the greatest soundtrack ever made.

 

[Maskull]

If you want to try something a little different give Julia Ducournau's Raw a watch. I found this film hard to view and so much as thinking about it leaves me with a visceral feeling of disgust.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I wrote a college paper on Cannibal Holocaust. Interesting experience. I got to analyze the historical contexts behind it, how it served as a deconstruction of the Mondo film, and examine its scathing critique of journalism and how the media sensationalizes and fictionalizes violence for money. My favorite moment in the movie and one that gets no attention is that bit where Monroe is watching the documentary which consists of real execution footage only for the executive to state that its fake. So the only moments of real violence (against humans anyway) is stated to be fake while the movie purports its own violence to be real. It's a much smarter movie than people give it credit for, but its status as exploitation trash prevents it from gaining that sort of status (not to mention the very real animal murder which can thankfully be skipped over on DVD, which is how I watched it. Yes I'm too much of a pussy to watch the animal violence).

 

[AJneedsElocution]

CH is really the king of cannibal films,nothing will ever have the balls to push that far ever again.


For a slower burn cannibal related film this was pretty a cool flick,not really any gore,but psychological for the most part

 

[kobox666]

Before the internet was overflowing with information, you only heard rumors about these movies, that they were actual snuff films and stuff like that, now that everything is avaible at all times, I feel they have lost some of their mystique.

 

[Syaoran Li]

CH is really the king of cannibal films,nothing will ever have the balls to push that far ever again.

Amen to that. The only way we'll ever get another Cannibal Holocaust is if someone can make an extreme and "edgy" movie on their own, and even on a low budget, you'd need to raise at least a bit of capital to pull it off.

You probably couldn't do the animal cruelty stuff (why would you want to?) but I think if you got the right kind of people, you might pull off the "snuff movie/found footage" aspect but it would be extremely tricky. We're talking obscure actors with a relatively low social media profile for this to work.

The movie would have to have copious amounts of violence, gore, and nudity and it should also try to play up other "problematic" elements seen as taboo by the woke crowd and the normies for it to be shocking in this day and age. It can't be totally "based and redpilled" though, but it'd have to break a few taboos, I'm not sure the "Cannibal Tribe" setup would be enough to pull it off.

If you do want to build up a mystique around it, release it on the dark web under a paywall a few days or a couple of weeks before you release it to the wider public on DVD, Blu-Ray, and any of the smaller streaming services willing to accept it. Shudder might be able to take it, despite being under the Amazon umbrella, since they have Cannibal Holocaust in both cruelty-free and uncut versions.

I'd honestly say the best kind of story for this set up would be a "serial numbers filed off" rip-off of Manhunt, as unoriginal as that sounds. You'd have to change some things and include enough original material for legal reasons, but the basic plot structure of the first Manhunt game is the kind of thing that would be perfect as the outline for an "extreme cinema" horror movie.

 

[AJneedsElocution]

Amen to that. The only way we'll ever get another Cannibal Holocaust is if someone can make an extreme and "edgy" movie on their own, and even on a low budget, you'd need to raise at least a bit of capital to pull it off.

You probably couldn't do the animal cruelty stuff (why would you want to?) but I think if you got the right kind of people, you might pull off the "snuff movie/found footage" aspect but it would be extremely tricky. We're talking obscure actors with a relatively low social media profile for this to work.

The movie would have to have copious amounts of violence, gore, and nudity and it should also try to play up other "problematic" elements seen as taboo by the woke crowd and the normies for it to be shocking in this day and age. It can't be totally "based and redpilled" though, but it'd have to break a few taboos, I'm not sure the "Cannibal Tribe" setup would be enough to pull it off.

If you do want to build up a mystique around it, release it on the dark web under a paywall a few days or a couple of weeks before you release it to the wider public on DVD, Blu-Ray, and any of the smaller streaming services willing to accept it. Shudder might be able to take it, despite being under the Amazon umbrella, since they have Cannibal Holocaust in both cruelty-free and uncut versions.

I'd honestly say the best kind of story for this set up would be a "serial numbers filed off" rip-off of Manhunt, as unoriginal as that sounds. You'd have to change some things and include enough original material for legal reasons, but the basic plot structure of the first Manhunt game is the kind of thing that would be perfect as the outline for an "extreme cinema" horror movie.

I think its impossible in the modern era,CH genius wasn't just the sickening imagery or social commentary,but the framing device of being a mostly a found footage film 25 years before it became a recognized technique to the masses.


CH is obscene when it comes to imagery,but it truly hits the gut on the subtext imo,in the modern era any horror/someone who watches the news has seen some gnarly shit,at this point it takes straight up degenerate/illegal shit to have the same impact,gore is easy,emotional impact is way harder,both at the same time is not only harder,but becomes more untenable as the cultural zeitgeist values safety/wokeness rather than the reality of the world.


I been catching up on flicks i missed over the years recently,and one of the few that made me feel repulsed was 'Meghan is missing',its from 2011/2012 IIRC,its presented as a bunch of facetime/private video chats between 2 friends in the FF style with intermittent faux-docu segments inbetween,its not graphic,at least not til the very end,but the dialogue between the 2 friends is fucking heartbreaking/sickening and would never be greenlit in 2020.Worst thing is,i bet that film is more relevant to whats really happening now on the internet than it was then



Horror is in a weird phase,been a few years of consistently great flicks,but few have really pushed the boundarys one would expect

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Amen to that. The only way we'll ever get another Cannibal Holocaust is if someone can make an extreme and "edgy" movie on their own, and even on a low budget, you'd need to raise at least a bit of capital to pull it off.

You probably couldn't do the animal cruelty stuff (why would you want to?) but I think if you got the right kind of people, you might pull off the "snuff movie/found footage" aspect but it would be extremely tricky. We're talking obscure actors with a relatively low social media profile for this to work.

The movie would have to have copious amounts of violence, gore, and nudity and it should also try to play up other "problematic" elements seen as taboo by the woke crowd and the normies for it to be shocking in this day and age. It can't be totally "based and redpilled" though, but it'd have to break a few taboos, I'm not sure the "Cannibal Tribe" setup would be enough to pull it off.

If you do want to build up a mystique around it, release it on the dark web under a paywall a few days or a couple of weeks before you release it to the wider public on DVD, Blu-Ray, and any of the smaller streaming services willing to accept it. Shudder might be able to take it, despite being under the Amazon umbrella, since they have Cannibal Holocaust in both cruelty-free and uncut versions.

I'd honestly say the best kind of story for this set up would be a "serial numbers filed off" rip-off of Manhunt, as unoriginal as that sounds. You'd have to change some things and include enough original material for legal reasons, but the basic plot structure of the first Manhunt game is the kind of thing that would be perfect as the outline for an "extreme cinema" horror movie.

Given that Deodato was straight up arrested on murder charges and he had to track down the actors to prove that he didn't actually kill anyone (well not anyone human), I doubt anyone would want to put themselves through the legal trouble of making something edgy with the distinct possibility that people actually died.

That being said, I do think that we need more movies like Cannibal Holocaust; there's an air of danger and revulsion to cinema like that and there hasn't been anything like that in decades now. Movies like that pulled on what we consider to be "acceptable" cinema, and the last time there's been any sort of movement like that was with French Extremism in the 2000s.

Unfortunately, there is the question of whether movies like that have a place in a world where you can hop on over to LiveLeak and watch as many beheadings and murders to your heart's content. Movies like Cannibal Holocaust, the Mondo documentaries, and Faces of Death thrived in an era where that stuff wasn't so easy to access. Whatever sick twisted shit you can come up with is going to have to go up against real footage of cartel members chainsawing people to bits and ISIS hacking a man's head off with a dull machete.

 

[WarJams]

For a slower burn cannibal related film this was pretty a cool flick,not really any gore,but psychological for the most part

We Are What We Are was actually a remake of a Spanish language film, also titled We Are What We Are. The original takes place in Mexico City, and I found it to be a pretty good watch, the US one flips the script a bit, but it likewise isn't really a gut-ripping, meat-rending cannibal gore fest.

 

[millais]

Not to get too preachy about it, but I always wonder how the indigenous extras/actors felt about taking part in the production of these types of films from the 1970s. Were they just happy for the paycheck? Did they feel kind of awkward portraying a totally inaccurate caricature of their ancestral culture? Were they not really Indios and actually Mestizos with makeup and thus had no qualms about making Indios look like savages?

Also to add to the classics in this thread, the modern cannibal film I enjoyed was "Bone Tomahawk", which is like a cross between a Western and a cannibal film.

 

[tehpope]

Okay, so where's the mondo thread then?

Cannibal Holocaust has the greatest soundtrack ever made.

The soundtrack isn't what I usually associate with CH. But the theme is very beautiful.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Okay, so where's the mondo thread then?

The soundtrack isn't what I usually associate with CH. But the theme is very beautiful.

The bit at the end where the theme is playing as the remaining filmmakers are slaughtered is a strangely hypnotic moment. The music doesn't fit at all with the brutality happening onscreen, and yet it works somehow.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Okay, so where's the mondo thread then?

The soundtrack isn't what I usually associate with CH. But the theme is very beautiful.

Hate to burst your bubble but the theme was based o the one from Mark of the Devil: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjnp0G6Olc4

Did Ritz Ortolani plagiarize or was it a case of parallel thinking?

 

[Calandrino]

Ravenous. My fav film EVER.

Cannibal Holocaust has the greatest soundtrack ever made.

In addition to being a really great movie, Ravenous also has one of my favorite soundtracks ever..

CH is obscene when it comes to imagery,but it truly hits the gut on the subtext imo,in the modern era any horror/someone who watches the news has seen some gnarly shit,at this point it takes straight up degenerate/illegal shit to have the same impact,gore is easy,emotional impact is way harder,both at the same time is not only harder,but becomes more untenable as the cultural zeitgeist values safety/wokeness rather than the reality of the world.

We have never and will never get the equivalent of Deliverance/Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Cannibal Holocaust with African Americans as the antagonists, despite the wealth of inspiration to draw from (has there even been a cannibal film set in Africa?). Slashers used to kill sluts and assholes... are there any newer movies where masked killers slay incels and TERFs? Oil waiting to be struck, if not. There is a long tradition of killer troons in horror film. Perhaps the time has come to give this archetype a more sympathetic portrayal.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

There is a long tradition of killer troons in horror film. Perhaps the time has come to give this archetype a more sympathetic portrayal.

What would really be spicy is if the killer was trooned against his will by parents/counsellors/etc. because he didn't like stereotypical boy things and mommy wanted asspats for her stunning and brave elementary school eunuch. We desperately need a horror movie that's provocative beyond the blood and guts levels.

Edit: Tell woketards the backstory of the killer from Sleepaway Camp. Leave out any hint of it being from a horror movie or that it fucked them up. Guarantee they'll all go "Fuck yeah trans rights! where can I watch this?"