Having
given Cannibal Ferox such a hearty slagging off in my earlier review, I thought
it only appropriate to do the same here, after finally
managing to pick up an uncut copy. However, after settling down to watch this, I
actually found myself enjoying it to a large extent.
The film starts with a news report that a documentary film team has disappeared in the Columbian jungle whilst filming a feature entitled "The Green Inferno" about the last surviving tribes that still practice cannibalism. So the TV studios hire respected anthropologist from New York university Professor Monroe (played by former porn actor Robert Kerman), to go and find them.
Venturing deep into the jungle with his guides and witnessing first hand the brutal savagery these natives are capable of. They do eventually find the film crew, or rather what's left of them, having been brutally slaughtered by one of the tribes. But having recovered the crew's cameras and film cannisters, the studios back home decide to view the filmed footage with a mind to putting togethor a documentary about what happened to them.
This is where the full horror of what actually happened to the crew is revealed, as we see they brought about their own demise by pissing off the natives, as we are treated to scenes of them shooting, harassing and raping the otherwise peaceful tribal people, before burning down their village which they would say was done during an attack by a rival tribe.
But the really shocking part comes when the tribesmen eventually get the upper hand, and rather than try to escape, the film makers decide to film the captured members of their crew getting beaten, hacked up and eaten, which proves to be their eventual undoing....
Played as a pseudo documentary, complete with captions at the start and end of the film, as well as in the promotional trailers, touting the found documentary footage as being supposedly real (a ploy later used to good effect by the makers of "The Blair Witch" project, some 19 years later). Cannibal Holocaust has been hailed as the greatest of all cannibal films, however whilst I did find it rather enjoyable, there are far too much GENUINE animal killings for my liking. This includes a live muskrat being split open, a monkey having its head whacked off, and a turtle being beheaded and butchered in close up to name just a few.
