Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, 1980)

Whoo boy. Well, I finally watched Cannibal Holocaust. Will I watch it again? Probably the hell not. Did I enjoy it? Not especially. Were actual animals killed in it? Yep. Is it extremely rape-y? Yes. Is it weakly presented as social commentary, thereby justifying the carnage? Yeah. Is it the second highest-grossing film in Japan after E.T.? According to imdb.com trivia, yes, but I would like to see some receipts. Does it have a 65% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, nearly twice as high as Elaine May's unfairly trashed near-classic Ishtar? Yes, but some of those "fresh" ratings are people saying things like critic Tim Brayton says in the following quote: "Basically perfect: it achieves its goals in virtually every respect. Deodato made a movie whose purpose is to make me feel awful, and I do." Are film review aggregation sites like Rotten Tomatoes a crowd mentality homogenization of taste that weeds out unique, idiosyncratic voices to present a one-size-fits-all Consumer Reports version of art and entertainment? Yes, I think so. Have I digressed? You better believe it.

First, a handful of positives. Cannibal Holocaust has an enjoyable spaghetti western meets yacht rockin' easy listening meets ominous synthesizer beeping score from the talented Riz Ortolani, the guy you hire if you can't afford Morricone. Some of the filming locations in the Amazon Rainforest in Colombia are visually beautiful. Most of the images pack a real punch. The film has a more unique structure than most cannibalsploitation movies. And, of course, the filmmakers tried to make a disgusting movie and totally succeeded.

I realize when I bash some of these video nasties, I look like a real prude, a moral scold, a wet blanket bringing down your disgusting torture porn party. This is an odd position for a guy who writes a horror movie blog to be in. I love almost all aspects of the horror film genre. I like dread, atmosphere, and suspense, I like shadows and light and deep reds, I like creatures and killers and all kinds of freaky goings-on, I like exploding heads, decapitations, bloodbaths, over-the-top carnage, and cathartic violence, I like dark and uncomfortable and offbeat humor, I like stuff that offends the squares, I like how horror blends perfectly with every other genre, I like the imaginative narrative, formal, and stylistic possibilities of horror, and I like that horror is often a gateway to an overall appreciation of film as an artform. I like arty horror, cult horror, drive-in and exploitation horror, mainstream horror, funny horror, stupid horror, smart horror, disturbing horror, classic horror. Horror was my first favorite genre and one that I keep returning to, week after week, year after year. I just really dislike rape and torture scenes, and only in extremely rare circumstances do I find these scenes to have anything to offer artistically (a notable exception I'm thinking of is Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45). They often just seem like excuses to wallow in this fucked-up world's inexplicable hatred of women and -- (separate but related issue) -- the dark shit that seeps out after years of unhealthy societal repression of healthy sexuality. Rant concluded.  

Cannibal Holocaust begins in New York City. I have no idea how to explain this, so I won't try, but many Italian horror films of the '70s and '80s have scenes that take place in New York, and there is something so instantly, recognizably Italian about New York exteriors shot by Italian film crews. They have a specific feel that I find impossible to describe. If I was the film editing type, I would make a YouTube supercut of New York exteriors in Italian horror films to show you what I mean. Maybe some of you have noticed this? Or am I insane? Anyway, a documentary crew of four young New York filmmakers journeyed to the "Green Inferno," a legendarily dangerous area between Brazil and Peru (actually filmed in Colombia) (I should also point out that this Green Inferno business is pure fiction) ruled by two warring tribes of cannibals, the Yanomamo and the Shamatari, and never returned. The filmmakers (I mean the real filmmakers, not the actors playing the documentary crew) used real names of indigenous Amazon tribes, which was a shitty thing to do. I probably don't need to spell this out, but I will anyway. Neither of these tribes practice cannibalism. The Yanomamo do traditionally consume the ashes of deceased kinsmen, which they mix into a soup made from bananas, but, no, they are not murderous cannibals.

A team of mercenaries is sent into the jungle to find the filmmakers, with no luck, though they do kill several members of yet another tribe and take a few poisonous darts themselves. As they prepare to leave, a new, smaller search party arrives, made up of a pipe-smoking anthropologist from NYU and two South American trackers familiar with the jungle. The prof is played by porn star Robert Kerman, whose credits include Debbie Does Dallas, Hot Wives, Sharon in the Rough, Teenage Pajama Party, Angel Buns, Oh Those Nurses, Twilight Pink II (The Erogenous Zone), Great Sexpectations, The Adventures of Rick Quick Private Dick, and the lazily yet informatively titled Men Who Love Huge Boobs. He also acted in several horror and exploitation movies (including Night of the Creeps) and had small parts in mainstream Hollywood films and TV shows, including The Goodbye Girl, Hill Street Blues, Simon & Simon, Cagney & Lacey, and his final full-length film role, playing a tugboat captain in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. 

The professor and the trackers fare much better, befriending the Yanomamos, finding the skeletons of the filmmakers, and trading a tape recorder with the cannibals in exchange for the late filmmakers' canisters full of footage. The second half of the film alternates between the faux-documentary footage in the canisters and a TV network trying to convince the professor to host a televised presentation of the footage, sight unseen. We also find out that the documentary filmmakers are sadistic murderous rapist psychos who pretty much get what they deserve. By the way, what fucking American TV network in 1980 would air unedited documentary footage of cannibalism, rape, and murder without even bothering to watch it first? I don't need plots to make sense and often prefer when they don't, but come on, now. This is so damn goofy.

That footage is pretty disgusting stuff, with lots of rape, torture, murder, and unsimulated animal death (a coatimundi, a pig, a snake, a tarantula, a turtle, and two monkeys are killed onscreen). Most of these animals were then eaten by cast and crew, but it's still bullshit. Director Deodato tried to pin it on the indigenous locals playing the various tribes, saying they demanded these animals be killed and eaten, but the animal deaths were in the screenplay. He has at least expressed remorse for this in later years. I eat meat, so maybe I'm a hypocrite, but I really hated this.

I suspect Cannibal Holocaust is a movie operating in bad faith. The film's structure, in which scenes of grotesque violence are alternated with footage of the professor telling the network how ethically and morally wrong the footage is as the executives slowly come to the same realization, is an easy way for the filmmakers to say they're making a social commentary about media exploitation of violence and the public's insatiable desire for blood and sensationalism. Maybe Deodato really thought he was commenting on society, but maybe he just wanted to make a controversial, disgusting movie and rake in the cash. He really did spend a lot of time crafting this film, and from a purely technical standpoint, he achieved a visceral realness (other than some of the silly plot points and dialogue) that is genuinely unsettling and disturbing. But the commentary is so on-the-nose and obvious (particularly the final line: "I wonder who the real cannibals are") that the whole thing feels insincere. It's your fault, audience member, and your fault, media, the filmmakers say while lingering on lengthy rape scenes, portraying actual indigenous tribes as bloodthirsty cannibals, portraying documentary filmmakers as cynical moral voids, and killing actual animals. If you just want to wallow in the mud, admit it. Don't try to justify it as social commentary. Then again, I did watch the whole thing, so maybe I'm also the asshole here.

 

La Llorona (The Crying Woman) (Ramón Peón, 1933)

Widely considered the first Mexican horror film (these claims are always hard to prove with so many early films destroyed, deteriorated, or lost, but it's certainly one of the first), La Llorona gives its own spin on the legendary Latin American folk tale of the crying woman, a ghost who steals and drowns children. This particular film replaces drowning with stabbing and neglected wives with scorned mistresses while adding family curses and multiple connected storylines in multiple eras to the mix. It's a fun, creepy, atmospheric, occasionally clunky piece of film history.

Director Ramón Peón was a Cuban filmmaker from Havana, making several silent films in his native country until emigrating to Mexico at the dawn of the 1930s. La Llorona was his first full Mexican production after a Cuban/Mexican co-production, La virgen de la Caridad. For the rest of his long film career, Peón bounced back and forth between Mexico and Cuba, making several films in both countries. He directed his last film in 1963 and retired to Puerto Rico, dying in San Juan in 1971. 

La Llorona bears some of the hallmarks of that awkward silent-to-sound transition, with long gaps in the dialogue, some awkwardly paced scenes that lack focus, and limited movement from the actors, problems that wealthier film industries had moved past a year or two earlier, but there are also moments of great visual impact, rich atmosphere, and a fascinating story. It's also great to see Mexican artists telling their own stories when American films from this period (and long after) used white actors in Mexican roles, relegating Mexican and Mexican-American actors to bit parts and comic relief.

La Llorona begins with a man dropping dead on the street after seeing the ghost of a crying woman. His surgeon debates a young intern about whether it was run-of-the-mill cardiac arrest or ghost fear (the doctor is no superstitious fool), and then, for reasons that seem initially baffling but soon make sense, we have a long scene of a child's fourth birthday party. The birthday boy is the son of the skeptical surgeon, who is pulled aside after the party by his father-in-law for some private curse talk in the library. The boy's grandfather/doctor's father-in-law is extremely worried, because his eldest son and older brother both disappeared on their fourth birthdays and were found dead days later from stab wounds to the chest. The doctor seems remarkably unconcerned, so Gramps regales him with a tale from an ancient book about the la llorona curse affecting their family. Cue lengthy flashback scene about the curse's origin. Meanwhile, a creep in a hood and cloak spies on the men from a secret door in the library, a second historical flashback is shown, the doctor becomes worried, and all kinds of crying ghost, child kidnappings, murders, suicides of scorned women, and occult shenanigans occur. The various strands come together in the film's wild conclusion.

The four crying ghosts in the film have an eerie presence, and those scenes are particularly skillful. Peón also does a good job balancing his complicated narrative. It's easy to forgive the film's clunky moments when there is so much to enjoy. If you are interested in '30s horror and Mexican film history, I recommend La Llorona.