31May
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.
21May
In a supposedly deserted factory, rave organizer Charlie and her band of techies and crew have one hour to prepare for the night’s shindig. Sex abounds and booze flows as the group come closer together or in some cases come to fisticuffs. All the while though they are being hunted by a disgruntled behemoth wielding a ginormous hammer. Striking at random the monster, with his disciples, work their way through the group of ravers.
© BRWC 2010.
