United Artists Europa released Cannibal Holocaust in Italy on 7 February 1980. The film did not make it to the United States for over 5 years.
This is a difficult film. It is magnificent. It is probably the best cannibal film ever. Surprisingly, it’s also funny with real things to say that matter. And then there is the animal cruelty.
Most people focus on the unnecessary killing of animals. I’m not happy about that. But it isn’t the real problem here. For example, the actors butcher a turtle. It’s an intense scene. It is hard to watch. But they don’t torture the turtle. They kill it about as painlessly as hunters ever kill them.
But there is an unforgivable scene. An actor slowly tortures a “muskrat” (it is apparently a coati) to death with a knife. That is the scene that really made me wonder about the filmmakers. How do you do that?!
What’s worse, the filmmakers didn’t need any of these scenes. Like the human violence, they could have faked it all. But even that wasn’t necessary. As I’ve written before, they may have needed the turtle scene — but I don’t even think it was necessary.
Grindhouse Releasing put out a Blu-ray of Cannibal Holocaust that includes a cruelty-free version of the film. It simply takes out the scenes that involve animal killing. I haven’t seen it. I admire the film but I’m not interested in owning it. Even if this fixes the film, I still know how the film was made.
But I expect that the cruelty-free version works fine. Because the scenes are unnecessary. Yes, they establish that the four principals are horrible people. But the film provides more than enough proof of that without the animal cruelty.
I looked for the cruelty-free version of the film online. It isn’t available. But here is a version of the film you can watch for free, knowing that the filmmakers won’t receive any money.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
See, we writers about old movies and modern horror can be on the same page, sometimes…
There’s a shot in “Forbidden Games” of a dog going into death spasms. It’s an incredible film; it’s stunningly emotional and powerful. But that shot sure looks to me like a real dog dying, or given a drug that makes it spastic. Both would be needlessly cruel; neither would be necessary for the story.
I guess it’s just what was done, back then. Renoir killed a whole lotta critters for Rules of the Game. And they are straight-up killed, no doubt about it. And the amount of fur coats in 30s-50s movies! It’s wild!
As I recall, Cannibal Holocaust caused controversy even at the time. But I know of a bigger budget films made shortly after it where a clearly living crab is being roasted over a flame. And, of course, people do this kind of thing every day to shellfish. I wish we would all deal with this issue. When I read “Consider the Lobster,” I was very bothered by it. Of course, so was David Foster Wallace. He went to a lobster festival and about all he could talk about was the cruelty.
I don’t especially mind animals being killed. I have a problem with how they are killed. Not that I think it is ever justified to kill animals for the sake of a film!
Ha — I imagine the people at the lobster fest weren’t pleased. But of course he was right.
I remember the cooking show “Good Eats” did an episode about lobsters, and host Alton Brown explained why boiling live lobster is OK by comparing them, evolution-wise, to cockroaches. He brought out diagrams to show that lobsters are closely related to roaches.
I found the argument very persuasive. I’ve never eaten lobster ever since; all I can see when I look at a lobster is “giant cockroach.” And I wouldn’t buy giant live roaches and boil them! I’ll step on a roach, I won’t boil it!
And no, it’s never worth it to kill animals for a fuggin’ movie.
I have a fairly high opinion of cockroaches, so that wouldn’t work for me! The thing is, lobsters freak out when they are thrown in boiling water and try to get out. I’m sure cockroaches would do the same. A big problem with lobsters is that we don’t know how they work. Their “brain” is distributed throughout the body. But to me, the issue is simply that they respond to being tossed in boiling water the way we would. Therefore: unacceptable.