Face-Off: Cannibal Holocaust vs Cannibal Ferox

NYU anthropologist Harold Monroe's search for a group of arrogant Americans who disappeared in the Amazonian rainforest while shooting a documentary called The Green Inferno ends with the discovery that they have been killed by a native tribe. Their recovered footage reveals that they brought about their own demise through the horrible actions they took to stage shocking scenes.

The documentary crew features some of the biggest scumbags ever put on film, with director Alan Yates standing out as absolute pure evil personified. It’s stunning and chilling to see how they treat the tribespeople, raping and murdering their way through the rainforest without any regard for the natives.

The gore on display in this film is so disgustingly realistic that Deodato was taken to court under suspicion that he had actually murdered his cast. There are some jaw-dropping “How did they do that?” moments, but the worst things in here are the much-discussed real animal deaths. I can’t stand to watch them, I skip through them when I watch the movie, which is a rare occasion. I mostly avoid the movie as a whole because of them. I have sat through them before, though, and will always be haunted by them, particularly by the shrieks of that poor little coatimundi as it’s slowly killed with a knife.

The native tribes in this film have some abhorrent practices (like their punishment for infidelity) and a disturbing tendency to eat the flesh of their enemies, but seeing the way the documentary crew treats them stirs up sympathy. They are simple people being terrorized by these savages from the “civilized world.”

I don't agree with some of the filmmakers' choices, but there is a depth to CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, an intelligence and a message buried beneath the shock. It's also a very unnerving, unpleasant movie to watch. It feels real and dangerous, and that feeling is enhanced in the second half, when it becomes a found footage film twenty years before found footage became a trend.