31May
After making poor Kiki wish she’d been swallowed by the Earth in that now infamous Cannes press conference, and then coming through for her by helping her get one of the most prestigious acting awards in the world, Lars von Trier gave one of his most awesome interviews ever to Anne Thompson.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
A Film By Ruggero Deodato
A Review By Damien Sage
I am a self-professed gore hound. I’ve sat with demented glee through City of the Living Dead, Tenebre, Mountain of the Cannibal God, Dead-Alive, The Thing (and countless others), sometimes JUST because I knew the movie was chock full of blood and guts (here’s looking at you Blood Moon.) At this point, like many other horror fans, violence on film does little to disturb me. Once in a blue moon (particularly if it’s an isolated scene, in an otherwise gore less film, such as the ending of The Brood) I can be made to flinch or even get a little queasy, but that reaction is few and far between for me these days.
Usually these days a film can only disturb or unnerve me when the violence is off screen, or implied. When a film is overwhelmingly, psychologically intense, THAT is when it can get to yours truly (such as in the case of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is inherently explicit violence free.) Sometimes, (VERY rarely) a film can be both things; psychologically disturbing and graphically violent such as in the case of say, The Exorcist or the subject of this review Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust.
However, before I go further, in the rarest of all cases, it is precisely Cannibal Holocaust’s graphic violence that MAKES it psychologically disturbing… Or rather, at least, the way the violence is depicted.
© BRWC 2010.
