Cannibal film
Encyclopedia
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
made mostly by Italian filmmakers
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...
through the 1970s and 1980s. This sub genre is a collection of graphically gory movies that usually depict cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
by primitive, Stone-age natives deep inside the Asian or South American rain forests. Even though not all cannibal films show cannibalism on screen, all the movies are connected with the genre by stating that the tribe is cannibalistic. While cannibalism is the uniting feature of these films, the general emphasis focuses on various forms of shocking, realistic, and graphic violence, typically including torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
and/or animal cruelty. Similarly to Mondo film
Mondo film
A mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...
s, the main advertising draw of cannibal films was the promise of gore, exotic locales, and cruel behavior, and eventually became a popular aspect of Grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
culture. The peak of the genre's popularity was from 1977 to 1981, a period that has come to be known as the cannibal boom
Cannibal boom
The cannibal boom is a period in the history of exploitation film, lasting roughly from 1977 to 1981, where cannibal films were at the peak of their popularity in Grindhouse theaters and cinema...
.
Due to their graphic content, the films of this subgenre are often the center of controversy. Many of the films include genuine slayings of animals, making them a common target of censors around the world. The inclusion of graphic gore and sexual violence has also resulted in censorship.
History
Movies similar to the cannibal genre certainly were not rare before the 1970s, as rain forest adventure films were often found popular in cinema (such as with the TarzanTarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
movies of the 30s and 40s starring Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies. Weissmuller was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven...
). Some of these films even included primitive, and in some cases, cannibal tribes, and could be seen as the prototype for the modern cannibal film. One movie that can almost be definitively linked as the predecessor to the cannibal genre is Cornel Wilde's
Cornel Wilde
Cornel Wilde was an American actor and film director.-Early life:Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary , although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City...
1966 film The Naked Prey, which involved a white man being chased by a tribe of natives because his safari group offended their chief.
The sub genre as it is known today was officially started with Italian director Umberto Lenzi's
Umberto Lenzi
Umberto Lenzi , is an Italian film director who was very active in low budget crime films, peplums, spaghetti westerns, war movies, cannibal films and giallo murder mysteries ....
1972 film Il Paese del Sesso Selvaggio (also known as The Man from the Deep River). Man from Deep River was released in New York City as Sacrifice!, and was a 42nd street hit. This film inspired several other similar films to be made during the late 70s, a period identified by genre fans as the "cannibal boom
Cannibal boom
The cannibal boom is a period in the history of exploitation film, lasting roughly from 1977 to 1981, where cannibal films were at the peak of their popularity in Grindhouse theaters and cinema...
". Included in these films are Ruggero Deodato's
Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...
Last Cannibal World (Jungle Holocaust in the U.S.A.), Sergio Martino's The Mountain of the Cannibal God, and a few films by Joe D'Amato
Joe D'Amato
Joe D'Amato, was a prolific Italian filmmaker who directed roughly 200 films, usually at the same time acting as producer and cinematographer, and sometimes providing the script as well...
starring Laura Gemser
Laura Gemser
Laurette Marcia "Laura" Gemser is a Dutch-based actress of Indo descent, now Italian citizen. She is known for her work with director Joe D'Amato and Bruno Mattei, in particular, for doing a set of exploitation-style and Black Emanuelle films.Gemser has also been credited as Moira Chen, most...
.
A large number of cannibal films were made in 1980, making it the most successful year for the genre. In February 1980, Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...
released Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
, probably the best known cannibal film. Its graphic and unrelenting violence and exploitation is believed to have caused audiences to realize how repugnant most of these films really were, and inevitably, the popularity of the genre began to decline. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
was an enormous success; it is sometimes claimed to have accumulated a 200,000,000 USD worldwide box-office gross, though this has not been verified and the true gross may never be known. Lenzi
Umberto Lenzi
Umberto Lenzi , is an Italian film director who was very active in low budget crime films, peplums, spaghetti westerns, war movies, cannibal films and giallo murder mysteries ....
would also contribute to the genre in 1980 with Mangiati Vivi (Eaten Alive), and again in 1981 with the notorious Cannibal Ferox
Cannibal Ferox
Cannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film made claims to being "The most violent film ever made"...
(Make Them Die Slowly), but by then, however, the genre was beginning to fade, and only a few other obscurities were made until Mondo
Mondo film
A mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...
film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Antonio Climati was considered to have put an end to the genre in 1988 with the film Natura Contro
Natura contro
Natura contro , also known in English as The Green Inferno and Cannibal Holocaust II, is a 1988 Italian cannibal film directed by mondo director Antonio Climati...
, which is also known as an unofficial sequel to Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
(it has an alternate title of Cannibal Holocaust II). Other similar films were made with a straight-to-video release afterward, most notably films by director Bruno Mattei.
The genre is heavily indebted to Mondo cinema
Mondo film
A mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...
, which similarly aimed to shock audiences with exotic customs and graphic violence. A common premise is of the cannibal films is that mondo filmmakers (as in Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
) or anthropologists
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
(in Cannibal Ferox
Cannibal Ferox
Cannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film made claims to being "The most violent film ever made"...
) from a "civilized" country enter a jungle and runs afoul of cannibalistic natives. Ironically, many have an anti-imperialist
Anti-imperialism
Anti-imperialism, strictly speaking, is a term that may be applied to a movement opposed to any form of colonialism or imperialism. Anti-imperialism includes opposition to wars of conquest, particularly of non-contiguous territory or people with a different language or culture; it also includes...
slant to them, as in the films, the "civilized" Westerners are the first to perpetrate extreme cruelty and violence upon the natives. The cannibals, in turn, reap revenge by inflicting the same form of barbarism on the Westerners. A few are set in modern urban centers with cannibalism practiced secretly, as in Emanuelle e gli Ultimi Cannibali and Zombie Holocaust.
Films
While many films tread the definition of a cannibal film, the general understanding of the genre is that it involves primitive natives as a major plot point.Alternative titles in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
are given in parentheses below.
- Il paese del sesso selvaggio (1972) (The Man from the Deep River; Deep River Savages)
- Ultimo mondo cannibale (1977) (Last Cannibal World; Jungle Holocaust)
- Emanuelle e gli Ultimi CannibaliEmanuelle and the Last CannibalsEmanuelle and the Last Cannibals is a 1977 Italian sexploitation film by Joe D'Amato....
(1977) (Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals; Trap Them and Kill Them)
- La Montagna del Dio CannibaleThe Mountain of the Cannibal GodThe Mountain of the Cannibal God is an Italian cult movie starring Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach with English dialogue that was filmed in Sri Lanka. The film was also widely released as Slave of the Cannibal God and released in the UK as Prisoner of the Cannibal God...
(1978) (The Mountain of the Cannibal God)
- Papaya dei Caraibi (1978) (Papaya, Love Goddess of the Cannibals)
- Primitif (1978) (Primitives; Savage Terror)
- Cannibal HolocaustCannibal HolocaustCannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
(1980)
- Mangiati ViviEaten Alive!Mangiati vivi!, also known by its English title Eaten Alive!, is an Italian cannibal-rape film, directed by Umberto Lenzi, released in 1980. Alternative titles for the movie, include "The Emerald Jungle" and "Eaten Alive by Cannibals". It stars Robert Kerman, Janet Agren and Me Me Lai. In secondary...
(1980) (Eaten Alive!; The Emerald Jungle)
- Mondo CannibaleMondo CannibaleMondo Cannibale is a 1980 cannibal film by prolific Spanish exploitation director Jesús Franco which starred a 17-year-old Sabrina Siani...
(1980) (White Cannibal Queen; Cannibals)
- Il cacciatore di uomini (1980) (The Man Hunter; Devil Hunter)
- Orgasmo nero (1980) (Black Orgasm)
- Cannibal FeroxCannibal FeroxCannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film made claims to being "The most violent film ever made"...
(1981) (Make Them Die Slowly!)
- Terror CaníbalCannibal TerrorCannibal Terror is a 1981 Cannibal film. It was directed by Alain Deruelle and written by Julio Pérez Tabernero and H.L. Rostaine...
(1981) (Cannibal Terror)
- Schiave bianche: violenza in Amazzonia (1985) (Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story)
- Nudo e selvaggio (1985) Massacre in Dinosaur Valley; Cannibal Ferox 2)
- Natura ControNatura controNatura contro , also known in English as The Green Inferno and Cannibal Holocaust II, is a 1988 Italian cannibal film directed by mondo director Antonio Climati...
(1988) (The Green Inferno; Cannibal Holocaust II)
There are some other films that could also be considered cannibal films, notably Ruggero Deodato's
Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...
Inferno in diretta (also known as Cut and Run), and several other works by Jesus Franco
Jesús Franco
Jesús "Jess" Franco is a Spanish film director, writer, cinematographer and actor. His career took off in 1961 with his cult classic The Awful Dr. Orloff, which received wide distribution in the United States and England...
.
Directors
Several directors of different nationalities have contributed to the genre, but most did not make more than one cannibal film. The major directors to the genre are:- Ruggero DeodatoRuggero DeodatoRuggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...
, with the films Ultimo mondo cannibale and Cannibal HolocaustCannibal HolocaustCannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
. - Umberto LenziUmberto LenziUmberto Lenzi , is an Italian film director who was very active in low budget crime films, peplums, spaghetti westerns, war movies, cannibal films and giallo murder mysteries ....
, with the films Il paese del sesso selvaggio, Mangiati vivi, and Cannibal FeroxCannibal FeroxCannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film made claims to being "The most violent film ever made"...
. - Jesus FrancoJesús FrancoJesús "Jess" Franco is a Spanish film director, writer, cinematographer and actor. His career took off in 1961 with his cult classic The Awful Dr. Orloff, which received wide distribution in the United States and England...
, with the films Mondo cannibale, Il cacciatore di uomini, and El Tesoro de la Diosa Blanca. - Joe D'AmatoJoe D'AmatoJoe D'Amato, was a prolific Italian filmmaker who directed roughly 200 films, usually at the same time acting as producer and cinematographer, and sometimes providing the script as well...
, with the films Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali, Papaya dei Caraibi, and Orgasmo nero.
Actors
Like directors, few actors are cannibal genre regulars. The three actors who appeared in three cannibal films (the most by any actor) are:- Robert KermanRobert KermanRobert Charles Kerman , also known as R. Bolla, or Richard Bolla, is an American actor. As R. Bolla, he appeared in well over 100 pornographic films, most famously Debbie Does Dallas...
in Cannibal HolocaustCannibal HolocaustCannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
, Mangiati vivi, and Cannibal FeroxCannibal FeroxCannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film made claims to being "The most violent film ever made"...
. - Ivan Rassimov in Il paese del sesso selvaggio, Ultimo mondo cannibale, La Montagna del Dio Cannibale, and Mangiati vivi.
- Me Me LaiMe Me LaiMe Me Lai, sometimes billed as Me Me Lay, is an ex-actress born in Burma in 1952, to a Burmese mother and an English father. She moved to England in her teens, where she soon started her acting career, at first in television series like Paul Temple and Jason King...
in Il paese del sesso selvaggio, Ultimo mondo cannibale, and Mangiati vivi.
Other popular cannibal genre actors are Giovanni Lombardo Radice
Giovanni Lombardo Radice
Giovanni Lombardo Radice is an Italian film actor, better known to audiences as John Morghen.Radice is mostly famous for the gruesome death scenes his characters fall victim to in films such as Cannibal Ferox...
, a mainstream Italian actor; Laura Gemser
Laura Gemser
Laurette Marcia "Laura" Gemser is a Dutch-based actress of Indo descent, now Italian citizen. She is known for her work with director Joe D'Amato and Bruno Mattei, in particular, for doing a set of exploitation-style and Black Emanuelle films.Gemser has also been credited as Moira Chen, most...
, an Indonesian model turned actress in Italy; and Carl Gabriel Yorke, who played the most infamous character of the cannibal genre, Alan Yates in Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
.
Censorship
Because of the content, the cannibal genre is one of the most controversial genres of film. Many of the films were once banned in the UK and Australia, and most are forced to be cut before public display. Several are still banned in countries all around the world. Only two films of the genre (Schiave Bianche: Violenza in Amazzonia and Zombi Holocaust) have been rated R by the MPAA for the uncut version (the R rating for Zombi Holocaust has since been surrendered, and the film is now unrated in the United States).The most controversial aspect of the genre is the real animal killings, featured in several cannibal films. Most of the films also include graphic scenes of rape and other sexual violence.
Cannibal Holocaust
The most controversial and most infamous movie of the genre was Cannibal HolocaustCannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
. Ten days after the premiere in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, the film was seized by Italian authorities and director Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...
was arrested on the belief that his film was a real snuff film
Snuff film
A snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual death or murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation. For-profit snuff films are generally regarded as an urban legend, whose...
. Facing life in prison, Deodato was able to bring all the actors onto a television show and demonstrated in court how some of the special effects were accomplished. The charges were dropped, but because of the still extremely explicit content, the courts still banned the film because of the real cruelty towards animals. Deodato
Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...
was ultimately held on charges of obscenity and animal violence. Four years later, in 1984, Deodato was able to overturn the courts' rulings and the film was unbanned. Ironically, that same year, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
banned Cannibal Holocaust; all four have since repealed the ban, though the UK version has minutes of cuts. It is sometimes claimed that Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
is still banned in over 50 countries worldwide, though this can only be verified for a handful of nations. In 2006, Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
made Entertainment Weekly's
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
Top 25 Most Controversial Movies of All-Time list, landing at number 20.
Video Nasty
Several of the films landed on the UK's infamous video nastyVideo nasty
"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
list. They are:
- Il paese del sesso selvaggio (1972)
- La montagna del dio cannibale (1978)
- Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
- Mangiati vivi (1980)
- Il cacciatore di uomini (1980)
- Cannibal Ferox (1981)
- Terror Caníbal (1981)
See also
- Exploitation filmExploitation filmExploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
- Cannibal boomCannibal boomThe cannibal boom is a period in the history of exploitation film, lasting roughly from 1977 to 1981, where cannibal films were at the peak of their popularity in Grindhouse theaters and cinema...
- Cannibal HolocaustCannibal HolocaustCannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
- Grindhouse ReleasingGrindhouse ReleasingGrindhouse Releasing is a Hollywood-based cult film distribution company owned by director/actor Sage Stallone and headed up by film editor Bob Murawski...