Zombie (1979)

Derivative, atrociously dubbed and badly written, but cleverly photographed, with superb makeup and breathtaking location shooting to boot, Zombie is the epitome of Italian exploitation from the late 1970s/early 1980s. It is also one of Lucio Fulci’s most fulfilling, accomplished films. As such, it is greatly deserving of its cult status, which also derives from the presence of two world-famous scenes featuring the full proficiency of both the photography and makeup departments. Of course, the actors are all ineffectual and the cultural lore is quite perplexing, but the terror is undeniably real. And so is the sheer fun that the spectator experiences while sitting through this zany zombie romp, one of the best to ever come out of Europe.

As the film begins, a derelict sailboat is spotted in the New York harbor. This warrants a whole portfolio of shots featuring the boat against some famous backdrops such as the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty. Two coast guards are then commissioned to board the empty vessel and look for survivors. But as they roam its apparently empty bowels, one of them is attacked and bit by an overweight zombie, who takes out a typically large portion of his neck in the process. After shooting down the beast, the remaining officer hauls both the corpse of his colleague and the boat itself back to the mainland for further study. Baffling the police, this mysterious affair soon draws the attention of two particularly adventurous archetypes, a British reporter working in NY and the inquisitive daughter of the boat’s missing proprietor, both of whom quickly decide to team up in order to investigate the old man’s disappearance. This will lead them all the way to a remote Caribbean island where a strange curse plagues the islanders, turning the dead into walking carnivorous abominations.

Fearless extras in full ghoulish makeup
an example of dedication to one's craft.

Released a scant year after Dawn of the Dead (known in Italy as Zombi), this film is an avowed cash-in of Romero’s seminal masterpiece. And while it pales in comparison, Zombie (originally known as Zombi 2) remains a valiant and earnest effort by veteran Fulci. Its premise is actually quite endearing, as we are anxious to know exactly what happened to the crew of the derelict boat and eager to travel the world in search of answers. Of course, it’s quite disappointing to discover that the film eschews any definitive explanation for the outbreak, but the trip itself is well worth the admission price, especially since it also works as an exciting travelogue. Being momentarily shipped to the Caribbean, most of the film's runtime is dedicated to the spectacle of wondrous exotic sights, not the least of which is the nearly nude body of Italian starlet Auretta Gay.

After being offered a ride to the island of Matool by a friendly American couple, protagonists Peter and Anne are subsequently seen cruising in the couple's boat through the clear blue sea, trying to pinpoint the localization of the elusive land mass. That’s where Auretta suddenly decides to indulge in an underwater photo session, removing all her clothes save for a tiny white thong, and donning some light diving equipment. That’s also where the film hits a historical high point thanks to a world-renowned underwater scene, one which gorehounds frequently discuss with reverent awe in their voice. Seamlessly framing the young woman as she probes the ocean floor, navigating through rows of sparkling fish and bright corral reefs, her lovely breasts exposed to the currents, the film goes on to include a unique encounter between a water-bound zombie and a roaming shark, both of which are initially after a bite of Auretta. The interaction between the two predators is not entirely realistic, with the undead creature clumsily groping the shark and spreading red paint over its body, but the underwater photography is breathtaking, with every detail crisper than anything filmed aboveground. The result immediately reminded me of Piranha's wonderful underwater ballet, but with a distinct flavor of Italian self-indulgence, as Eros and Thanatos are excitingly entwined to create an immediate sense of dread from what was initially a scene of beauty. And while it doesn't all make sense, it’s hard not to feel some sort of admiration for the artisans who put such efforts in filming a simple horror sequence for a nutty exploitation effort.

Some more proof of the film's cult potential
by the people at Motifake.com.

Such dedication to one’s craft is present in many other aspects of production, including the work of several extras portraying mere stiffs to be shot down by the protagonists. Covered in heavy makeup and coated with dirt, these extras brave it all to convey a sense of artistry to the depiction of gluttonous ghouls, even the presence of live worms near their eyes and mouths. On the international poster for the film, such a ghoul is prominently displayed, with pockets of worms squirming out of its empty socket and patches of dirt seamlessly sticking to its cranium. Well, there’s a man under all that latex and makeup, one who had to endure the discomforting thought of having a runaway invertebrate fly into his mouth. Such involvement is rare in the field of zombie films, and so is the aesthetic research put on monster design itself. With Romero’s ineffectual blue strollers paling in comparison, one is forced to admire the intricate details that constitute the look of Fulci’s undead. And while some would prefer to highlight the self-defeating nature of a project where more energy is spent on costumes than any form of coherent screenplay, I would rather contend that the costumes’ contribution to the disturbing imagery and overall feeling of the film are more invaluable to Zombie as a genre object than any sort of comprehensive, Cartesian understanding that we might derive from any sort of intricate narrative prowess.

From a technical standpoint, the film makes clever use of the depth of field in its depiction of rampaging antagonistic forces. As such, the showcase of disembodied zombie hands ominously moving in on the protagonists is quite evocative. Fulci’s use of depth hits one particular high note about halfway, providing yet another legendary sequence to horror film history. This scene features a young woman being chased by a zombie through her beachside cottage, ultimately taking shelter behind the locked door of her bedroom. Unfortunately, the thin wooden panels prove not sturdy enough to slow down her assailant, who merely claws his way through, grasping his screaming victim firmly and dragging her face toward a large protruding splinter, eventually plunging it into her eyeball. Using an alternation of subjective and lateral shots, this sequence showcases not only Fulci’s knack for involving spectators into a macabre game of substitution (the subjective shots would’ve been an absolute shoe-in for any 3D production), but also the incredible makeup job involved in creating the illusion of eyeball penetration. Shades of Bunuel’s Un chien andalou are obvious, but the radical update involved in transposing its imagery into the realm of gory spectacle is quite welcome, and so is the renewed relevance it finds as a metaphor of masochistic spectatorial violence.

Zombie is probably due for a 3D re-release...

The subjective frame is also put to good use in showcasing the monsters’ point of view. Notwithstanding the numerous stalker shots taken in and around the island, by then a stale staple of Italian exploitation cinema, it is helpful in portraying the zombies’ awakening from their grave, as the dirt-covered lens seemingly emerges from the ground to frame the cloudy sky above. Such usage of zombie POV is gimmicky, but it helps put a well-needed twist on some overdetermined images of zombie rampage. Finally, the zoom is also quite effective here in that it allows the cautious exploration of space, and the gradual revelation of morbid elements within the frame, most notably the multiplying number of shrouded corpses who start littering the gorgeous scenery as the curse spreads further and further.

Unfortunately, while there is a steady help at the helm, it proceeds from a truly lackluster writing effort. Despite an intriguing premise and a satisfying twist ending, the screenplay is little more than a hollow shell, content as it is with throwing dubious mythological lore and jumbled testimony around in a hopeless bid to make sense of the zombie outbreak. In the end, despite the multiplication of hazy eyewitness accounts, hearsay and the occasional scene entirely devoted to weird science, we are never given any sort of synthetic explanation that would begin to make sense of the events onscreen. This might prove abrasive for whoever would have wished for definite results to Peter and Anne’s investigation, or for any sort of comprehensive understanding of the zombie phenomena. But as it stands, we are merely given insight as to the fleeting moods of several unidimensional characters, flatly portrayed by a cast of unaffected actors from around the world. And while these actors constantly fail to tie us emotionally to the story, the spectacle of their ordeal speaks for itself, making us partake not in an involving narrative, but in a breathtaking and gutsy display of horror.

The dramatic power derived from the film has nothing to do with any sort of narrative prowess, which the screenwriters didn’t care for, but with the sheer power of images. Hence, the sight of corpses wrapped in white shrouds, all lined up in a beachside common grave with bloody bullet holes in their head, proves much more evocative than the characters' multiple, but flat allusions to the curse and its victims. And so does the spectacular finale in which the stranded protagonists take their final stand in a local church, fending off their assailants with surprisingly potent blunt weapons, rifles and Molotov cocktails, which they chuck at zombies who die in fiery theatrics. Hence, the viewer's involvement with the film proceeds not from any emotional attachment to the characters, but with the maddening spectacle of their ordeal, fraught with brutal cannibalistic violence and the grotesque perversions of the human form. In typical Italian fashion, any notion of emotional realism is thus subservient to a highly sensuous, slightly oneiric depiction of horrific events. And while the cheesy orchestral score, by mammoth genre composer and frequent Fulci collaborator Fabio Frizzi, gives some epic breathd to the spectacle, its power of suggestion lies squarely in the images themselves, which pegs the film as a truly transcendent cinematographical endeavor, and not the mere sum of trite tribulations from a wordy screenplay.

Dramatically speaking, the film achieves much greater
results with white shrouds than with any line of dialogue...

In the end, while casual viewers will certainly be underwhelmed by the progression of the protagonists’ investigation into Voodoo lore and the rise of Caribbean undead, Zombie’s potent imagery should keep them titillated throughout. Here, as in most Italian exploitation films from that era, location shooting, makeup, gore effects, music and photography are key to creating affect, which cannot be found in the screenplay alone. The result is a true film experience and an unrestrained example of Mediterannean craftsmanship in the realm of sensuous horror. 

4/5  A perfect example of Italian savoir-faire, this exhilarating, but derivative zombie film compensates for a lackluster screenplay by showcasing some highly evocative, memorable imagery of death and decay.

Contamination (1980)

Sometimes referred to as Alien 2, this is Luigi Cozzi's unofficial follow-up to Ridley Scott's Alien, which he first named Alien Arrives on Earth (or Alien arriva sulla terra in its original Italian iteration) before he was forced to adopt the even lamer title Contamination. But aside from the basic concept of bursting alien eggs, nothing really binds the two films together. Cozzi's film is actually a fairly decent action caper that owes a lot more to James Bond films than to any sci-fi/horror title. While entertaining, it pales in comparison with the source material.

Where are the face-huggers?

A cargo ship docks in the NY harbor without a living soul on board. Health officials and the police investigate. Strapping on white procedural outfits, they climb aboard and find a decimated crew who appear to have succumbed to chest-bursting agents. Venturing deeper into the vessel, they come to the cargo bay, where stacks upon stacks of boxes are amassed, inside of which are hard, green eggs. The eggs, when heated, as by an adjacent heating duct, start humming weirdly, then burst in a cloud of green spray that immediately infects the people it touches, making their insides burst out in a grotesque explosion of pink entrails.

Eggs filled with acid... or how to remove

two intermediaries at once

Following the messy demise of the crew sent to investigate the derelict ship, one NYC police officer remains unscathed. He is quickly taken into custody by the American government, who send in colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) to question him and learn about the threat from outer space. Thus, we get an obligatory exposition scene in which scientists discuss the nature of the pulsating eggs in front of bewildered officials who struggle to explain their origin. This lasts a while until Holmes suddenly remembers having seen those eggs before, in a drawing made by Mars explorer Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch) who returned home shell-shocked after a memorable alien encounter in a martian cavern. As the plot unfolds, the film slowly sheds all resemblance to Alien and starts falling squarely into Bond-esque territory.

It's not long before Hubbard's partner on Mars, Hamilton, is revealed as the megalomaniacal antagonist. Motivated by Darwin's theory of natural selection, he cultivates the eggs in a Columbian coffee plantation, which he also uses to ship the nasty organisms worldwide in an entirely over-the-top showcase of villainy. Of course, this warrants a trip to Columbia for our two protagonists where they come across the usual plethora of gun-totting, chop-sensitive henchmen, treacherous babes and vicious traps. Reuniting with its horror roots only in the very last scene, the film features an alien creature that you might want to stick around and see, as well as a rightfully gooey punishment for dopey Hamilton.

Don't be fooled by the cover art

Contamination is hardly a horror film. Although they are fairly exciting, the horror sequences don't occupy much screen time, being mostly contrived to the final scene wherein the egg-laying "alien cyclops" is revealed. While a far cry from the Giger-inspired alien queen from James Cameron's official sequel to Alien, its design is quite clever. You've got these two pear-shaped globs of flesh linked together around a big, expressionless, yellow eye, with an hypnotic gaze and a toothed intestinal tract to boot. Although it's a bit too stiff, the creature is memorable nonetheless.

As far as the other gore scenes are concerned, the splatter effects are quite effective. Of course, the blood is not the right color and the bursting body parts are not anatomically correct, but the sheer fun of seeing people explode overwhelms those tiny flaws. However, contrarily to what some synopses would have you believe, the narrative is not a simple series of abdomen-bursting scenes. It's more of an action/horror hybrid made to cash in on many different trends in popular cinema. Following the immense success of both Alien and Moonraker during the previous year, Cozzi and crew concocted a cocktail of formulas taken from those two films. Thus we get alien motivations behind the villain's megalomaniacal plan for world domination, exotic locales meant as egg hatcheries, dopey fist fights with guys in contamination suits and a whole bevy of action film gimmicks turned on their heads. And while this makes for a rather implausible storyline, it's all in good fun. Besides, implausible as it may be, it isn't more so than launching Bond into outer space...

A poor man's oo7: Ian McCulloch takes

Bond-esque allures by playing dress-up

Affordable escapism

As in many Italian exploitation films, location shooting is one of the key elements to the film's success. Despite the far-fetched narrative, the filmmakers' willingness to travel gives their work a semblance of credibility rarely attained by studio-made fare. Thus, while you may question the veracity of humming alien eggs, you can't deny that of the Columbian streets and forests featured in the last act. Credibility aside, these exotic locales also give scope to the project, allowing both the characters and the viewers to make the world their playground. Deeply rooted in the spectacular tradition of early cinema, Contamination borrows ideas from many sources to offer its viewers a taste of magic in the guise of instantaneous trips to the far reaches of the imagination. And while limited in technical terms, it isn't in terms of passion, containing an obvious, almost desperate desire to please oozing from every scene.

This desire to please stems from a certain candid entrepreneurship that eventually comes to define the film. This is expressed in the filmmaker's unbridled faith in its ability to transcend budget constraints and rival with A-list productions of the time. Obviously, this is wishful thinking, but it also proves their commitment to their work. Unfortunately, in trying to ascertain big-budget airs, the film ends up trading originality for sure values, wasting the narrative freedom commonly associated with lower budget films in order to widen its scope in according to the dictates of Hollywoodian filmmaking. Thus, even though it tends to over-blow some elements, everything in the film is obviously derivative of other, better films. While this may (and should) put off some more adventurous viewers who were sold this film as an occult rarity, it will certainly please casual genre fans who aren't too hung up on looks and simply wish to have a good time. Because despite some dated narrative twists and gaping plot holes, Contamination never forgets its primary mandate, which is to entertain. While a bit slow-paced and uneventful, it features enough bewildering imagery to make it a marginal success fueled not by talent or vision, but by a passionate love for cinema that transpires in every attempt to make the film appear as a legitimate Hollywood outing. That said, Contamination is a glorified DIY film. Its relevance derives not from genre savvy but from the mechanics of film magic, which it lays bare and use as its primary hook.

Despite humble objectives, the film still surpasses many genre crossovers by managing to keep its eclectic influences in check and allowing them to interpenetrate in meaningful ways. By downplaying the horrific elements in the narrative and using them to fashion the traumatic background of both the protagonist and antagonist, the film brings a highly-welcome sense of other-wordly tragedy to an otherwise generic fratricidal struggle. It also helps justify the nervous breakdown suffered by the two men. As for the alien eggs, they make for very interesting, eye-catching "death devices" that redefine the sense of impending doom present in standard actioners. If you think about it, the world is already full of megalomaniacal villains. Just think Gaddafi, Tony Hayward, Kim Jung Il... But whereas these guys use money and military power to ascertain their dominance, Contamination's Hamilton has quite an ace up his sleeve: an acid-filled-eggs-laying alien beastie brought back from Mars. This is worlds away from even the most far-fetched contraptions devised by Ian Fleming. And although Hamilton is obviously inspired by Hugo Drax, and his Nazi-inspired theories about racial superiority, Hamilton distinguishes himself with the help of other genre staples, including a faint hint of ESP and a certain madness derived from a strange encounter of the third kind. Thanks to Cozzi's film, we realize that, while they may seem detrimental to any "realistic" stance, horror elements can actually strengthen action scenarios by imbuing sordid motivations and means to otherwise standard bad guys. While this may not be a unique discovery, it makes Contamination much more interesting than many, more literal, cash-ins of its ilk.

One of the film's most enduring images: a cavern

entrance shaped like a toothy maw welcomes its

visitors into madness

Given the minuscule budget Cozzi had to work with, the special effects and action sequences are quite impressive. They include plane crashes, machine gun battles, crackling bonfires of space eggs and aliens munching on humans. Truly, there is some really crafty filmmaking at work here. In the visual effects department anyways. It's just a shame that the screenwriters did not have the same pretensions as their artisan counterparts...

The uneven, eclectic cast (the four main roles are secured by actors from four different countries, each with a different mother tongue) make the most of their lines, but given the circumstances, everything that comes out of their mouth turns to camp. Besides, no amount of characterization can make you forget that they portray basic archetypes mostly devoid of interest. This is an obvious drawback of mimicry, a process which sustains the film and greatly limits it at the same time. You see, by taking cues from bigger, better films with A-list casts and stellar production values, Contamination eventually crumbles under the weight of these other films. Willingly derivative, it never manages to surpass any entity from which it derives and, entertaining as it may be, it will never become a reference point.

The advantages and shortcomings of commensalism

If it is fair to say that Contamination feeds off Bond films and Alien, it is also fair to say that these latter films greatly limit the radiance of Cozzi's film. In using motifs from such monuments of pop culture, the Italian director gives his film pleasant features that will necessary force comparison. And obviously, comparison doesn't play in Contamination's favor. Comparison actually prevents the film from securing any form of self-standing status within film history, condemning it to being described as a "hack", a "rip-off", or a "cash-in". Fortunately, and this is its only saving grace, it is made by crafty, passionate people with a childish, but overwhelming love for popular cinema. Thus, my advice for you is this: there's no need to hunt the film, but if you come across it in an otherwise uninteresting video store, don't hesitate. That said, any open-minded genre fan should enjoy this film.

2,5/5 A crafty, entertaining B film that's a bit too derivative for its own good.

Anthropophagus (1980)

Directed by late exploitation king Joe D'Amato (born Aristide Massaccesi), this title can boast induction in the original list of prosecuted "video nasties" (along with many other Italian genre films including The Beyond, Cannibal Holocaust, Prisoner of the Cannibal God and Tenebrae), but not much else. It features genre vets George Eastman aka Luigi Montefiori (who co-wrote the screenplay) and Serena Grandi, as well as Tisa Farrow, sister of Mia, out for what is basically a walk in the park. Distinctive almost only in its most extreme iterations of violence, this lackluster slasher is narrowly saved by the bucolic beauty of its natural sets as well as the grotesque appearance of its antagonist.

Feast your eyes, this is probably the highlight of the film.

Mary Whitehouse's devoured fetus

Anthropophagus is known mostly for a few bits of nasty gore conveniently located near the end. But are they nasty enough to recommend the film? The short answer is: no. No, unless you don't mind suffering through the tedious first hour, comprised mostly of badly-shot moments of fake suspense and atrociously-delivered dialogue that fuels a shallow narrative devoid of originality.

The controversy surrounding the film has brought it a long way from its Italian birthplace, but the truth is that the film doesn't deserve that much recognition. You see, the essence of the controversy surrounds a brief, unclear and wholly implausible baby-eating scene meant to push the envelope just a little beyond the expectations of casual horror fans. It's one of those gimmicks that would've been relegated to the footnotes of horror film encyclopedias if it weren't for some high-minded British observers who thought films could corrupt youths and thus went on a tape-burning crusade that gave ample visibility to "infamous" titles such as this one. Ironically, despite the intense crackdown on horror films meant to preserve the innocence of children, youth crime in the UK is now such a rampant problem that kids have now become horror film villains in their own right (see Eden Lake, Wilderness, Heartless...).

Adding water to both the mills of the censors and promoters of this film, Anthropophagus was even described as a snuff film, thanks to reactionary bodies according to which the fetus was a live one. Seeing how it is actually a skinned rabbit (or a glistening red blob as it appears onscreen), anybody who would make such a crazy contention must either have had his head turned sideways when the "fetus" was shown or must really have a bone to pick with Italian horror. At any rate, the controversy is a fraud, just like it was a fraud to claim that the sex scene between Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson alone was worth the admission price to Vicky Christina Barcelona. It is a fraud originally meant to combat the film and its nefarious influence, but which has instead extended its influence beyond the wildest expectations of its producers. This is a perfect example of how censorship always provokes an advert effect. Just think about it for a second. A videotape lying on a shelf in plain view is much less intriguing to a child than one that is locked in a cabinet. This is Psychology 101. By locking every single copy of the video nasties in a large, government-controlled cabinet, what the British nation did was to encourage children to try and break into that cabinet, effectively spurring on their criminal desires in what can only be described as an eminently thoughtless, counter-productive method of social control.

It's not fear that tears you apart... it's her!

Island of Death

For those who mind, the plot of the film is as follows. A group of tourists vacationing in Italy decide to embark on a tour of the Greek islands, accompanied by an attractive stranger (Tisa Farrow) who wishes to visit recluse friends in the process. Upon reaching a deserted harbor, they are surprised to find no other boats anchored there. Even more surprising is the total absence of people on the island, nor within a number of empty houses that show traces of recent human activity. As you might have guessed from the title, the island's inhabitants have all fallen prey to an anthropophagus that has kept their corpses in a dilapidated crypt that serves as pantry.

When their boat drifts away, the tourists are forced to spend the night in an abandoned house where they are stalked only briefly by the grim reaper, who takes a shy bite out of an enterprising young man, then leaves. There, they also manage to rescue a fetching blind gal who brings little to the plot but another body to mangle. After that, the film cuts to the following day during which the tourists wander around the island, doing a bit of sight-seeing. Thankfully, we can share in the fun. The fun of sight-seeing, I mean. There are moldy ruins on the island as well as a gorgeous mansion where the girls learn about the local elite, a decadent, murderous family, the head of which has transformed into the titular beast following the death of his son. There's no satanical influence here, nor are there supernatural occurrences. There's only an umpteenth whacked-out psycho who appears to have unlimited resources until he meets with the iron resolve of the generic male hero, out to save the generic damsel in distress. Then, the beast caves in quite quickly, going out with a mild bang that should put a fleeting grin on your face.

Anthropophagi are people too!

While not as juvenile as American slashers from the same era, Anthropophagus' characters are equally uninteresting. Their demise is uninvolving and so is their swift, surprising victory over the antagonist. The plot involves a lame love triangle as one of the sole attempts at characterization, but this triangle is toppled very early when the male element succumbs to a deadly bite. Aside from that, the film is basically a depiction of people running around an island. If it wasn't for location shooting, which is one of the two strongest assets of Italian exploitation cinema (along with the volatile camera, which fails to give the film wings in the present film), this would've been a pretty bland experience. In a way, the film works better as a travelogue than a full-fledged horror film, delighting us with the homely streets covered by white archways, sumptuous rock formations, ruins and Mediterranean villas covering the island more than with the cheesy gore. The horror scenes are far apart and although they involve repulsive brutality, they're mostly devoid of scares or suspense. Set in broad daylight, involving a zombie-slow slasher and less-than-sympathetic victims, these scenes are not exciting at all. They hold together only through the promise of gore, which often fails to materialize but in boring bites to the neck.

Get out of the way, you expendable turd.

We want to see the ruins!

Anthropophagus is the kind of film where the heroine finds herself in a secret room where she removes drapes from atop human-sized objects only to have the camera zoom in on the worm-ridden face of a corpse with ad hoc noise aggressively littering the soundtrack. For the two people in the world who weren't expecting a rotting corpse, this provides an utterly shocking surprise. For those who knew but still feared the sight thereof, it's a perfect excuse to grab on to your date and sink your face in his armpit. But for the vast majority of us, there's nothing there but an overdetermined scare tactic. Plain and simple. Maybe the decrepit aspect of the rotting faces or the squirming maggots will repulse you, but your unease will only last a few seconds. As far as horror goes, the film does not overstep the boundaries of casual grotesquery, sacrificing tension for clunky depictions of gore while creating atmosphere only by way of badly-lit settings and a trippy, keyboard-heavy score. By thus relying mostly on fetus and entrails feasting to create effect, the film is very much akin to a freak show.

Seeing how ineffective the scares are, how shallow the narrative and how uninteresting the characters, the crux of the spectacle lies in the sight of George Eastman in heavy makeup, slumping through the gorgeous Mediterranean scenery with some form of slashing weapon in hand. His widely exposed teeth betray his eagerness to feed on the flesh of whoever he encounters and his slow, nonchalant demeanor is that of the confident predator. Contrarily to what you may conclude from the premise, or from the subjective underwater shots, he is not a supernatural being and he can be killed with common weaponry. His decrepit aspect probably derives only from his queer diet and not from any form of devilish influence. Despite being dubbed "the Grim Reaper", he is no more than a run-of-the-mill slasher, mute and deranged, with no ability to feel, reason or talk. His tragic background, exposed in a quick flashback and some notes left in his villa, doesn't begin to explain what has happened to him. Nor does it make us care about his fate or that of his victims.

Don't believe the hype

The only things worthy of attention here are the Mediterranean exteriors (of which you get clearer shots on postcards), the grotesque aspect of George Eastman and his willingness to bite into foul-loooking red things. Apart from that, the film is a run-of-the-mill slasher. All in all, there are two gore scenes that really stand out, but by the time you get there, you won't find them so impressive. Besides, it's nothing you haven't seen before, or will not see again. This is a film to horrify uptight British bourgeois. Casual horror viewers should be wiser than to consider their laments as any form of recommendation.

1,5/5 A slow-paced, boring film with great scenery and a few nasty gore scenes. Nothing worth hollering about.

House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

Raping, torturing and executing. Sweetly.

Scant months after Ruggero Deodato gave the world an unsuspected blow with the release of his seminal cannibal film, Cannibal Holocaust, he followed it with a second gut punch, one to knock out even the most endurent of horror fans. House on the Edge of the Park is a surprising home invasion film that flaunts its assets the way any exploitation film should, including charismatic lead David Hess, gorgeous porno actress Annie Belle, and an over-abundance of breasts and blades as well as genuine moments of tension.

Simple, effective, somber: one of the best

horror film poster from the 1980s

From the gutter to the stars

The film opens with a rape scene meant to characterize evil protagonist Alex in all of his inhuman depravity. Although this scene might seem tame by today's standard, you get the point, namely that Alex is a reckless beast who will do anything to satisfy his immediate urges. When he reappears onscreen, combing his thick curly hair in anticipation of a night on the town with his buddy Ricky, you know the pair is up to no good. Discussing their plans in the crass locker room adjacent to Alex's auto repair shop, they are disturbed by the apparition of a bourgeois couple who requests help fixing their car in exchange for two invitations at an exclusive get-together in a roomy New Jersey house (on the edge of a park). Enticed with seductive Lisa, whose short hair conceals an eminently feminine body, the two grease-monkeys have no hesitation. So they follow their newfound friends like a pair of sheep guided by the shepherd, over-confident in their ability to physically overcome their hosts, should the need, or the desire, arise.

Following a short drive from Manhattan to New Jersey, the foursome reaches a sumptuous villa filled with extravagant furniture where three more socialites are mildly enjoying themselves. But the real party begins only once Alex and Ricky start infusing their own sense of fun in the proceedings. When friction arises due to various frustrations endured by the two bums, including failed attempts at seduction and poker shenanigans orchestrated by the cheating bourgeois, violence overwhelms the scene. Alex takes everybody hostage thanks to his nasty-looking razor blade and volatile fists, taking care of the entertainment for the remnants of the runtime. Interested only in his own sense of sadistic amusement and fueled by the apparent helplessness of his victims, he dubs himself master of the house, submitting the hosts to his will. Following on his initial objective to find a girl for his loveless friend Ricky (who, contrary to what many reviewers have said, is not retarded), he lets him have the first pick of women. The only problem is: he has to fuck her in front of everybody in order to prove his manhood. Unwilling to do so, Ricky argues with Alex, thus proving the reigning dissension among the two friends stemming from his good nature. You see, Ricky wants to have fun, just as Alex does, and he wants to be liberated from the constraints of mundane life. But he doesn't necessarily fancy violence as a way to achieve this goal, clashing with Alex on this issue when grazing scraps of courage inspire him, but mostly doing his biddings by fear of violent retaliation. Clearly, he is the weakest link in the chain fastened around the quintet of victims waiting for an opportunity to strike back and put their own twisted plan into action. Taking everybody by surprise, the apparition of a pretty young woman named Cindy complicates the elaborate game of cat and mouse played out between the cunning bourgeois and their unsuspecting oppressors. Caught in the crossfire, virginal Cindy is the unblemished Lamb of God sacrificed to wash away the sins of all the sodomites and murderers contained in the cozy New Jersey homestead. Her martyrdom is crucial in creating the affect necessary to set up the final act.

The breast is mightier than the blade

Relying mostly on David Hess' commanding presence in the main role, the film puts the viewer between a rock and a hard place, making it impossible to condone his repulsive brand of anti-social violence, but making it hard to resist his boyish charm at the same time. Alternating addictive good humor and psychotic outbursts of brutality, Hess perfectly captures the bipolar nature of his character, giving a classic performance that comes just short of Arno Frisch's genius take as the nihilistic home invader from Michael Haneke's original version of Funny Games. Unlike that latter film, which is a harrowing psychological ordeal from beginning to end, House relies on humor to soften the moments of tension, creating a strange atmosphere of attraction-cum-repulsion that befits the character of Alex very well and allows us to question our own involvement in the process of enjoying the spectacle, much like Cannibal Holocaust had done earlier that year. Most of all, it helps depict the reigning nihilism of our times, which makes us act as Alex does, out of immediate titillation and short-sightedness. Contrarily to their bourgeois hosts, him and his friend merely follow the flow of events, reacting to their environment the way animals would. This is at once their most fearsome feature and most obvious shortcoming.

Thanks to her overwhelming femininity,

Lisa always has the upper hand on Alex

Faithful to the film's contradictions, Alex and Ricky appear to be remorseless rapists and careful gentlemen all at once. The truth of the matter is that they are no more than teenagers suffering from hormonal imbalances and a boyish lack of self-confidence. If you consider Alex's deference to Annie Belle's Lisa, you will uncover the tip of a reality far more complex than the simple victimization of women prevalent in American slasher films. The shower scene is well orchestrated in that regard. Deodato's use of transparent surfaces as a way to isolate Alex and Lisa in tantalizing fashion, the overwhelming presence of Belle's assertive body and commanding attitude all concur to expose not the exploitation of Lisa by Alex, but vice-versa. After all, it is he who kneels before her, it is he who is forced to disrobe and given nothing in return but a fairly prude scrub of Lisa's back. The role reversal taking place a in later scene wherein the two finally have at it is merely a way for Lisa to give Alex the illusion of control, sacrificing her body for an authoritative edge over the lowly bum. If you really care to look at the film, you will notice that it is almost feminist in its depiction of inter-gender relationships. Sure, it features an abundant number of naked breasts, and one hell of a nasty semi-rape scene. But narratively, it shows female dominance, showcasing dim-witted, testicle-driven men and controlling women who use the lure of their bodies as a way to slowly gain control of the situation, taking advantage of men's predictable sexual appetite and violent, but reckless desire for domination as a way to master their actions. It works surprisingly well over the course of the film, creating a linear path for Alex and Ricky to follow and eventually fall into a trap they could've expected, were they not so obsessed by the dictates of their hormones.

Given a feminist framework of analysis, the role of Cindy becomes entirely problematic. Submitted to repulsive tortures, including hymen probing, forced undressing and razor blade slicing, the young woman seems like an overdetermined female victim and the object of the most vile male fantasies. Her lengthy ordeal is shown in gruesome details that will make you shiver, relegating to bottomless depths any hint of female empowerment. However, as I mentioned earlier, her presence in the New Jersey villa is entirely unexpected. Therefore, she is not part of the female triumvirate made up of Lisa, Gloria and Glenda, and not meant as a vengeful alpha female. She is rather a necessary casualty in the never-ending war between sexes and classes. Her accidental presence in the nourished crossfire makes her both a victim of the brutal male aggressors and the scheming bourgeois who have unleashed their fury.

Poker face

Using but two distinctive sets, the crass garage where Alex works and the large New Jersey home of the partying socialites, the film features not only a battle of the sexes, but a struggle of classes. Right from the start, Alex and Ricky stick out of the sophisticate crowd like a pair of sore thumbs. Their obvious lack of refinement, epitomized by Alex's ridiculously tasteless yellow suit and crude manners, offers a sharp contrast with the trendy interiors and subtle mannerisms of their hosts. They don't belong amidst the other guests, and so they are the first to be exploited. Scant moments after his arrival, Ricky is humbled by the aristocratic charm of the well-put ladies greeting him. Encouraged by cheerful clapping, he performs a very clumsy strip-tease for them, delighting the men at the same time with his eager candor. Alex watches with annoyance as his friend sheds more and more clothes to entertain the conceited onlookers. "They're making a fool out of you" he tells Ricky, who couldn't care less, as long as he can secure the attention of three pretty girls. "He's enjoying himself", replies one of the girls as if the young man was in perfect control of the situation. Alex grinds his teeth, angered by what he considers abuse directed at his friend, and by extension, at all the poor looking at the rich for approval.

Ricky is having a great time. But Alex isn't.

Soon after the strip-tease incident, the hosts agree to a poker game with Ricky while Alex is unsuccessfully trying to hit on Lisa in the kitchen. Unbeknownst to Ricky, the rich also play poker, and they're pretty good at it, managing to rake in all of his money with opportunistic full houses and such other tricks. At some point, the young man needs to borrow his pal money in order to get beaten once more. Savvy to their hosts' trickery, Alex starts to lose patience and that's when he turns the table on them. Taking out his razor blade and throwing some punches, he manages to bend them to his will. By using violence to assert himself in the face of cunning, he falls into the trap set out for him, proving once more that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Feeling inadequate, both culturally and sexually, jealous of his hosts' high standing and access to superior women, he becomes a swiss-army knife of makeshift phalluses, using brutality as a way to conquer an environment that he perceives as hostile. Awaiting his outburst of violence with eager anticipation, his hosts revel in its unbridled expression, which makes Alex ripe for a vindictive, ritualistic execution. Acting as a petulant kid prone to follow his most immediate and most visceral desires, he becomes utterly predictable... and he is easily swayed by his hosts, who follow Lisa's example and simulate helplessness in order to exploit the vain macho pride characterizing Alex.

What the film outlines with insistence is the wide gap between classes, the unreconcilable distance between the sparkling white interiors of the bourgeoisie and the greasy underbelly of society, both of whom feed on the soiling of the other. Apparently, they are two solitudes living side by side. Yet, they find common ground in violence and the wanton desire to harm others in order to procure pleasure for oneself. The methods may vary, but the result is similar. Whereas the bourgeoisie exerts a more systematic, more indirect form of violence upon its victims, using manipulation to bind them, the poor and disenfranchised dish out a more visceral, more uncompromising assault on their hosts. Their violence stems from a childish desire of immediate appropriation whereas the bourgeois' comes from a warped sense of moral rectitude in the act of retribution. The wanting, the longing for material riches and high-standing that tears the poor apart is perfectly exemplified here, but so is the failure of any upheaval based on violence and degradation. Alex may want the socialites to dance to his tune, but in doing so, he falls right into their trap, doing exactly what they expected of him. What he considers empowerment is actually a transparent form of powerlessness. Not only is his brutality overdetermined and predictable, it never seems to give him any form of control over the situation (as exemplified by his constant mood swings and frequent tussles with Ricky). This is why he is neither a fearsome villain, nor a convincing leader. In reality, he acts more like a prey, using force as a primal reaction to conceal his impotence. The true predators are the bourgeois hosts, whose hypnotic stillness and patience eventually prevail. What this animalistic comparison goes to show is just how predatory relationships are not limited to lesser beings, and that while the expression of violence may stem from class unrest, violence itself is a classless reality uniting humans in our most basic, most reptilian instincts.

The sourness of sweets

One of Deodato's most efficient techniques to create unease in the viewer involves "spoiling the sweets", a process through which he uses images of innocence and virtue to create affect by transposing them in the realm of horror. Here, it is achieved through the soundtrack and the ordeal of young Cindy.

Much like he did with Cannibal Holocaust, Deodato uses Riz Ortolani's music as counterpoint to the action, denaturalizing his soft ballads to great effect by superimposing brutal acts of violence over the carefree notes, thus likening vicious murders to mundane acts of love. Considering the hard-edged images so gallantly thrown at us by the director, it's hard not to be subjugated by the sweet melody and candid lyrics from title song "Sweetly", which punctuates the screen at the most inappropriate moments, including the haunting finale. Breaking the walls of my resolve, the contradiction made me teether on the brink of tearful exasperation. Such a depiction of soiled innocence is almost sadistic in its cold execution, making us the subjects of a particularly effective aversion therapy. Childish innocence, it seems, will necessarily be engulfed by the brutality of adulthood. This is a somewhat traumatizing conclusion made by Deodato and it is one to shock the viewer much more the violence itself.

Listening to Ortolani's other original song, "Do it to me (once more)", a cool disco tune that seems equally out of place, I felt a different kind of unease submerging me. What the playful melody seemed to entail is a notion of careless fun consumed by two dancing lovers. Again, love is likened to violence in a frankly unhealthy storm of feelings competing for the hegemony of our mood. Once more, we are caught between a rock and a hard place, dancing carelessly to the horrified screams of tortured women, confronted by a ruthless brand of violence that seems to overwhelm sweetness in all of its incarnations. In the end, the torturous elements are not in the images themselves, they're in the desecration of beautiful things that the images entail. Only as such do they create optimal affect amongst tortured viewers.

When you need makeshift phalluses to impress virgins...

The film boasts many enduring images, paramount of which are Alex's ritualistic execution and the torture of virginal Cindy. I wouldn't say that the film is mean-spirited, but this latter scene is honestly hard to watch. The girl is an infant. Her lanky, pale body and tiny hands desperately crossed over her crotch make her an icon of childish helplessness. Everything else about her, including the thin pink lips, pale blue eyes and curly blonde hair pictured above, all contribute to her depiction as a fairy tale heroine fallen in the clutches of the big bad wolf. The ordeal she goes through is plainly disgusting. From the moment she enters the scene, Alex lavishes his entire attention on her. Upon probing her genitalia, his eyes light up as he joyfully boasts to have caught a virgin, a fact he will insist upon heavily in the following minutes. Just like the sadistic interplay of sweet love songs and repulsive death scenes, Alex's excitement over the rape of Cindy contributes to Deodato's souring the sweets, making beauty to be something entirely exploitable by evil, selfish interests, something that needs to be monstrously soiled. As the scene develops, Alex starts swinging the razor blade around, and like an impotent coward, he slashes Cindy's young skin in several places, drawing ungodly screams from her teenage throat, thus covering a beautiful canvas with painful scars. After that, Cindy's days of joyous candor will be gone forever, evaporated like the beautiful summer from "Sweetly" and we will be left to contemplate the void left by the brutal imprinting of violence on all things innocent and pure. And in the end, this is what makes the film horrific.

I wonder who the real cannibals are...

House is a stunning follow-up to the classic Cannibal Holocaust, questioning the nature of violence in an equally relevant way by using images that are just as morbid and memorable. Deodato's twisted kind of humor is back for a vengeance and the music of Riz Ortolani helps him once more to hammer his point home. The deep and intriguing relationships between characters and David Hess' commanding presence give it a slight narrative edge, which is easily overwhelmed by Cannibal's self-reflexivity. Yet, both films come highly recommended as affective meditations on violence.

3,5/5 A highly disturbing film fueled by traumatizing contradictions, intriguing subversions and a classic performance by David Hess.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

It's been many, many, many years now since I first heard about the legendary Cannibal Holocaust. I must've been no more than twelve when I was introduced to enthusiastic reviews praising it as one of the most shocking, but also one of the most important horror films of all times. For long, it was inscribed on my wish list in golden, cursive letters and all of its nastier bits were imprinted in my mind like the hypothetical Christmas gifts of an over-imaginative child. Inspired only by vague descriptions, I had imagined the turtle scene and the emasculation scene in vivid details, making them an almost tangible part of my global film culture.

If it's been years since I've first heard about Cannibal Holocaust, it's been only days since I first saw it. Other than the film's relative rarity, the main reason why I had steered clear until now was Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal ferox (1981), which was (wrongfully) heralded as "the most violent movie ever made" and often considered a companion piece to Deodato's film (with which it shares a similar premise). Before I saw it, I was exalted with anticipation. I had even convinced a friend to watch it along, applauding myself for what I thought would gross him out of his mind. But soon after the film started, boredom was our only companion in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. This left a very bitter taste in my mouth, one that would grow into unjustified disdain for all Italian cannibal films.

This just goes to show that every film is in island, or an isolated entity. Even when bound by genre, one film can always surpass its kin by either creativity, intelligence or sheer passion. The truth of the matter is, Cannibal Holocaust not only surpasses ferox by a great margin, it also surpasses the majority of horror films from the 80s. It is a true classic. It grips your balls and it grips your mind while boasting a very relevant message about the nature of televisual images and the monstrosity of colonialism, a message not limited to the "pie-faced attempts at morality" contained in the dialogue but nestling rather in the brilliantly layered storytelling structure.

But despite all of these qualities, the most simple explanation for the film's success is the most visceral one, namely its showcasing of grippingly realistic images depicting extreme acts of cruelty, most notable of which is the live slaughter of a turtle whose head is severed, than all of its limbs and majestic shell. These are images that you will hardly be able to shake off from your feverish mind, let alone see again in a contemporary film. Here, and only here is where cinema shows you its raw, unmitigated power.

This here is real turtle flesh, folks. And believe me,

you've never seen it so raw...

Although many fans and naysayers alike tend to focus on the film's nastiness and its shock value, I found with great surprise that its relevance lied somewhere else entirely. I knew everything about the turtle scene and the re-cut version of the film wherein all animal cruelty has been excised (which is absurd considering the exploitative nature of the film and its intrinsic critique of the extremes of documentary cinema). I knew about the emasculation scene, the rape scene and even the un-filmed piranha scene, which are considered by many international observers to be the main staples of the film. Yet, I had never heard about the very worst scenes of the film, the ones containing extreme images of colonialist violence. You see, the film is an explicit critique of the sensationalist nature of contemporary media, but it is an even more potent critique of colonialism. Let us simply consider the synopsis of the film and its central opposition between the scholarly protagonist and the young documentarists whose work he is trying to reclaim from the jungle.

We are first introduced to the work of Alan Yates via a TV report informing us of his disappearance. It seems that Yates and his crew of fairly respected documentarists were attempting what no man has ever achieved with success, namely documenting the lives of "primitive" cannibals from the Amazonian region know as the Green Inferno, when they all disappeared without a trace. The TV report then proceeds to inform us that a new expedition is now being put together in order to find out what happened to Yates and crew. This expedition is to be led by New York anthropologist Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman), whom we are told has already been involved in the field study of many "primitive" races around the world.

The first half of the film chronicles the journey of Professor Monroe into the heart of the Green Inferno using an invisible cinematic apparatus. Although this section contains plenty of suspenseful moments pertaining to the uneasy relationship between Monroe, his two guides (a savvy, gun-totting, coke-snorting though guy and a Native youth) and the indigenous populations of cannibals, it constitutes the most conventional portion of the film. Eventually, Monroe finds a gruesome bone sculpture made with the remnants of Yates and crew. Not much later, he also finds their film canisters, neatly hung on a vine in the camp of the "tree people".

The second half of the film begins with the return of these canisters to New York, and from there begins the complex exposition of Alan Yates' crimes and those of media concerns wishing to use his footage to secure the spectatorship of thrill-seeking North Americans. Not unlike Michael Moore, Yates is more of a showman than a true documentarist. He is one to create the reality which he films instead of merely documenting it, or commenting on it. This is made explicit early in the second part when one of his producers shows Monroe footage of African army men shooting at blindfolded civilians, telling him that this was a set-up arranged by Yates. Obviously, the footage shot within the Green Inferno is likewise dishonest. More than dishonest, it is actually horrific. It shows the documentarists indulging in repulsive acts of colonialist violence, setting the huts of natives afire, killing their livestock, raping their women... What we find out from this material is not the barbarity of primitives, but the barbarity of contemporary men. We also find out that the deaths of Yates and crew is mere retribution for the heinous acts of which they are guilty. The unveiling of these acts is made under the gaze of Monroe and the TV producers who wish to broadcast the footage for mass entertainment and this leads to a heated debate about the irresponsible sensationalism of contemporary media.

Far from simply justifying the first act (wherein the goal is to bring home Yates' footage), the second act also manages to successfully superpose many levels of storytelling (the traditional exposition of Professor Monroe's actions shot with an invisible camera, the documentary-like interviews of the deceased's relatives shot with a TV camera and the the found footage from Yates' expedition, shot with two different hand-held cameras who constantly complement each other's work), creating in the process a supremely relevant, self-reflexive meditation on the nature of truth when crystalized by the camera. That said, the onscreen slaughter of a beautiful turtle is crucial in creating the affect necessary to make you question the boundaries of documentary filmmaking. As for the human deaths, the cinéma vérité style makes them more than carefully-staged events, closely likening them to snuff, which has furthered helped Cannibal Holocaust garner international attention and shake the belief systems of many serious critics, which is quite an achievement considering that this was originally intended as merely a grindhouse film.

When in Rome...

At the heart of the film lies a clash of ideologies regarding the etiquette of world exploration. Whereas Monroe advocates quiet observation, then respectful emulation of his Amazonian hosts, acting like a deferent guest, the young documentarists rather see themselves as the masters in occupied land. The colonialist violence they thus perpetrate is what I consider to be the film's most horrific aspect.

Here are Cortezian conquerors irrupting into a village within the Green Inferno, the very same village wherein Monroe and his two guides first made contact with the locals, and scaring away the villagers with their rifles, kicking and shooting a small pig tethered to a pole, setting huts afire, forcing people inside at gunpoint and finally, fucking triumphantly on the charred remains. For one, I believe that the sex scene involving Alan and Faye was the most disturbing bit in the entire film for it perfectly exemplifies the unfathomable perversity of the conquering spirit. Fucking on the floor of a hut you have just torched in front of the natives you just made homeless: you can hardly do worse than that. Well... you can gang-rape a native girl and then laugh when you see her entire body impaled on a post.

While their awfulness fluctuates, all of these crimes are inscribed within the colonialist mindset warranted by the presupposition of superiority deriving from technological advancement. When Alan boasts that it is the law of the jungle that compels him and his crew to do violence on the "weaker" natives, he is merely drawing on the flawed logic of conquistadores to justify his genocidal rights. The film's critique of sensationalism in the media may be more explicit, but its critique of colonialism is much more poignant. The documentarists depicted here have not merely taken what they wanted out of the Amazonian people, they have ridiculed their culture and humiliated them in the process by displaying utterly excessive force. So when Professor Monroe utters the closing line of the film to the effect that we are the real cannibals, I took that as a condemnation of the colonialist spirit at work in Alan Yates' films, that is the strongly-held belief that civilized Whites are necessarily superior to other "races". As if tagging someone as primitive instantly gave you a right over his life. As if carrying weapons and technology that made you god-like in appearance actually gave you the rights of gods. We are the cannibals for colonialism is the ultimate act of savagery and we are all guilty of it, everyday. We may not have sinked machetes into their skulls and eaten their guts, but we have cannibalized many foreigners nonetheless. First and foremost, we did so by manipulating their image, making them out to be somewhat "lesser" than us, as exemplified here. Then, we have subsequently imposed our economic and cultural hegemony on the basis of that conclusion, validating our actions through an illusory superiority.

Other than Monroe's witty commentary, the final shot contains another element of interest to the acute observer: the logo on the great big truck passing behind the Professor is strangely similar to the tribal marking seen earlier on the neck of a native girl. This also goes to show that we too are barbaric in our insistence on graphic markings showing one's standing within society. Only ours our corporate logos with which we dress ourselves, content that we are to own such or such brand of clothing. This pertains also to our cannibalizing hegemony since these symbols of prestige are often generated by the labor of enslaved foreigners against which we do violence on a daily basis, even from the comfort and apparent normality of our homes. What if in turn, as Monroe suggests to a self-satisfied TV exec, the "primitives" would enter our homes and dictate their laws? The question is obvious, but what if the shoe was on the other foot? Could we consider slave drivers to be anything other than barbaric?

Alan Yates (Carl Gabriel Yorke) definitely makes it in my short list of

top film villains. Here, he justifies colonialist violence by alluding to

the law of the jungle

"We are the cannibals" also pertains to our devouring the misery of others as entertainment. This apparently simplistic assertion, which could be understood as a mere critique of macabre news briefs, actually reveals primordial concerns about the ethics of documentary filmmaking. That said, Cannibal Holocaust tackles two crucial questions that have obsessed film commentators since the days of Robert Flaherty: the question of non-intervention and that of "staged truth".

The former question pertains to the inaction of the documentarist who detaches himself from horrific events by hiding behind the camera. In the present film, we see Alan and crew witnessing the burial of a newborn baby and the execution of his mother. Is their inaction a form of complicity in the events depicted? If you won't even consider this question under the present circumstances, consider this: a war journalist catching the wounding of fellow soldiers on tape. Must he drop his camera to lend a hand or must he continue filming, burshing thus a fairer portrait of war? If he continues filming, isn't he cannibalizing his felled comrades, using their individual plights as mere episodes in the drama of war? If you consider that sensationalist footage necessarily involves some sort of live misfortune bestowed on fellow human beings, isn't the very essence of sensationalism questionable? And isn't our wanting to see sensationalist footage akin to a death sentence made in the name of entertainment? If we come back to the example of the war journalist, which is a classic example in the appraisal of documentary ethics, we find that non-intervention can actually benefit truth in the sense that slow, painful death is a truth of war that needs to be captured and exposed for what it is, namely an unspeakable horror that needs never be reproduced. But the problem with the doctrine of sensationalism is that it benefits only the immediate sensibility of viewers in a bid to keep them tuned in. Truth is merely instrumental in the process and this tends to devaluate human life a great deal. If the capture of live deaths does not help prevent further deaths, but rather exists only to give nihilistic North-Americans a kick, then we're in a shitty state of affairs is what the film is trying to say.

As for the question concerning the manipulation of truth, it is also tied to sensationalism insofar as it helps channel the interest and opinions of viewers through shock. The scene wherein we see African militaries executing civilians plainly exposes the unethical nature of documentary filmmaking with an agenda. Québécois filmmakers have coined the term "assumed subjectivity" to describe how documentaries necessary reflect their makers' preferences in terms of framing and editing. That said, every documentary necessarily reflect its maker's outlook on life. But it is one thing to interpret the material at hand. Staging events is quite another. One involves simply a passionate opinion, while the other involves lying. Of course, utilitarians will tell you that lying is acceptable insofar as it benefits a good cause. But such logic is quite dangerous if you consider that the definition of "a good cause" varies tremendously from one individual to the other. After all, even Hitler was fighting for the "good cause"... but it turns out that this good cause was the extermination of Jews.

Crude political analogies aside, documentary filmmaking should be akin to science. Like a scientist, a documentarist should not have a preconceived idea about the material he is about to film. Of course, he is entitled to an opinion, which is what everybody has in regards to every possible topic. What he shouldn't have are inflexible biases and foregone conclusions. If a scientist conducts a study, he should never disregard any results on the basis of personal bias. Likewise, the ideal documentarist is one who forges his opinion as reality slowly reveals its nature in front of his lens. He must approach reality with initial candor, and not force reality to fit his agenda.

Many of the American and Anglo-Canadian representatives of direct cinema believed the ideal of documentary filmmaking to be "fly on the wall"-type observation. No intervention, just observation. The rationale behind this is that truth will reveal itself to all individual viewers in many varied forms. Truth is polymorphous, not unique. Hence, it cannot fit an agenda. This is what these idealistic pioneers believed. And these people here find reflection in the character of Harold Monroe, who, contrarily to Yates, favors observation and quiet awe to boisterous intervention and opportunistic lies. As for Yates, he rather belongs with the showmen, or people using the documentary medium to help sell their own brand of truth. Most famous of them is Michael Moore, the leftist answer to the swarming conservative pundits, the Democratic Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who makes a mockery of documentary filmmaking, especially in the sense that it was understood by the purists from the 50s and 60s.

Clearly, Moore is not a man of observation. He is a man of action. While that may be great for those who believe that the Left truly needs an impetuous strongman, it is not for those who cherish documentary cinema for what it is, namely a documentation of reality. Aside from cramming tear-inducing music, flamboyant theatrics and his own personal (and very effective) brand of fake whimsical candor into his films, he also disseminates half-truths and bare-faced lies... as if manipulation alone was not enough.

For one, I was fooled by Bowling for Columbine. But as soon as he crossed the border in Sicko, Moore brazenly entered familiar territory and that's when the mask fell off. I was appalled to see how he depicted health care in Canada. Health care in Canada, especially in Quebec, is hell! The system is grossly underfunded and incredibly understaffed despite the ample participation of every single taxpayer in the country. If you want to wait in the ER for 22 hours just to have three stitches done, then come to Quebec. Of course, this is the way we like it here. We like to know that we won't ruin ourselves if we get sick and we like to know that all of our neighbors share the same coverage. This is what Moore should've focused on. Instead, he decides to make Canada look like health care Heaven, which is a bold-faced lie.

I argued extensively with a friend about this issue but she wouldn't budge. According to her, the end justifies the means and thus lying is okay, as long as it conveys "the right message". Again, "the right message" is whatever anybody wants it to be. It can be mere spectacle, like the TV execs from Cannibal Holocaust wished. "The footage is unedited!", they tell Monroe as if such a consideration could justify the presentation of Yates' footage as documentary truth. What Deodato tells us here is that the news media have no use for the truth unless it is a by-product of agenda-setting and ratings-roofing sensationalism.

He also warns us about the suggestive power of manipulative images by highlighting the difference between Alan Yates as framed by TV cameras and the real Alan Yates revealed by his own footage. According to the opening TV report, he is a nice, friendly guy, which is how all showmen appear to be, given a little help by the studio heads who want to cash in on their power of attraction. But this is not at all the real Alan Yates, it is merely the Alan Yates that the studio heads want us to see, in order to better sell his footage later on. At first, we are all fooled by these images and we immediately suspect foul play from the "primitives", not from Yates. Thus, we too become the victims of TV and its version of truth, which we mechanically believe through years of conditioning.

Whereas Harold Monroe is more akin to D.A. Pennebaker,

Alan Yates would be Michael Moore

Despite its obvious superiority to most films of its ilk, Cannibal Holocaust has garnered a lot of bad press throughout the years, most of it pertaining only to dubious moral appraisals thereof. One of the funny things about mainstream film critique is that while most exploitation films are systematically dismissed, overlooked or discredited for what they are, any successful title whose influence exceeds the third run circuit will get a fairly different treatment. It will immediately come under severe scrutiny by the very same critics who would have dismissed its existence had it been contrived to the grindhouse.

In order to become prey to criticism, the successful exploitation film is instantly interpreted as something more than what it is by nature. And thus, it is reviewed as a serious, A-list film. In the case of Cannibal Holocaust, many of its detractors have pointed out the dubious morality derived from its use of violence to condemn violence and they did so without even considering the inherent contradiction in critiquing the immorality of a film which is immoral in nature. Hence, people have wrongly tagged it as a moralistic film containing exploitative violence whereas it is actually an exploitative film containing a moral, which is completely different. Criticizing Cannibal Holocaust for its exploitative violence is just like criticizing a porno film for its explicit depiction of sexuality.

Cannibal Holocaust is an exploitation film. Plain and simple. It was originally made with the sole purpose of showing graphic violence and sexuality in the tradition of other low-budget Italian cannibal films that have gotten much less publicity despite similar M.O.s. The only thing that seems to distinguish Deodato's classic film is the presence of a moral, which is what has pissed people off the most. According to bourgeois sensibilities, films of this ilk shouldn't even aspire to higher moral ideals since filth is filth is filth. For one, I believe that if an exploitation film contains social criticism, this should be considered a plus. Here, it proves that Deodato went above and beyond the call of duty and into the territory of higher art. I just wish that the snooty reviewers who analyzed his films as they would've Citizen Kane (1941) would simply think about the absurdity of doing so. I mean, haven't the detractors of Cannibal Holocaust ever watched a porno? If so, I wonder if they were angered by the lack of morality therein... and I wonder if this prevented them from jerking off to it.

What further pisses me off is the double standard at work here. While pie-faced moralism is the norm in many other genres, it is considered de facto to be incompatible with the horror genre. A lot of people seem to believe that you cannot condemn violence by showing violence, which is untrue. Just think about it with calm: if a director tries to repulse you with violence, which is the goal of horror, then he is not advocating violence. He is showing it to be repulsive. What's more is that most of the violence in Cannibal Holocaust is contextualized. The maiming of animals is done either for nutritional purposes or for protection, while the violence exerted by the cannibals is either ritualistic or defensive. As for the repulsive acts perpetrated by Yates and crew, they constitute the centerpiece of narrative construction. They are slowly revealed, with inserted commentaries and debates as to their unethical nature.

If you can't stomach animal "cruelty", then I doubt you're part of the target audience to begin with. But if you want to complain, go right ahead. You might have an argument in saying that entertainment cannot possibly validate the brutal slaughter of animals. Conversely, I believe that the death of those animals actually strengthens the main point of the film concerning human deaths as source of entertainment. Besides, these deaths greatly help consolidate the overall realism of the film, which further helps validate that point. Although I don't agree, I must admit that the doctrine vying for the right to life of animals over the needs of cinema is perfectly sound. And to its advocates, Deodato has made amend, stating in a 2000 interview linked to the release of the Grindhouse DVD, that killing animals was a stupid mistake. Personally, I think this is one of those fortunate mistakes that have enlightened film history, such as the inclusion of the impromptu line, "Here's looking at you, kid" in the final cut of Casablanca. But seeing the intense heat under which the film has come throughout the years, I will paraphrase Leone in order to best explain the situation. After seeing the Italian premiere of the film, the famous director of Once Upon a Time in the West is reputed to have written Deodato a letter containing the following comment: "Dear Ruggero, what a movie! The second part is a masterpiece of cinematographic realism, but everything seems so real that I think you will get in trouble with all the world". As stated by Leone, realism has indeed put Deodato in trouble, but at the same time, it has given him international recognition, proving once more that history is made by the rebels who will not shy away from rattling the foundations of received ideas.

Cannibal Holocaust's Amazonian jungle is not a paper-

mâché construct with brown tap-water running through

No matter what bias you may entertain toward the film, I'm sure you can grant it certain obvious merits. Cannibal Holocaust was shot on location in the Amazonian Rainforest. This alone is a sizable achievement. It was shot using a large cast of natives, which is another sizable achievement. This points to some really dedicated filmmakers who literally braved death (in the many forms it takes near the Amazon) to bring you back the images contained in the film. These are no mere sets that you see around the protagonists. There are no leaves tacked to plywood, nor are there rubber snakes being dragged by wires. What you see is real and there is thus real danger within every shot, which greatly heightens the realism of the ensemble to the point where you can hardly distinguish what is true and what is false, allowing Deodato to hammer his main point home with a swing from the mace. The man has made every conceivable effort in the name of cinema, and for this we should celebrate him, not dismiss him on moral grounds. After all, Griffith's Birth of a Nation is still a classic...

There is no contradiction at the heart of Cannibal Holocaust. It is a simply a superior exploitation film that transcends the stream of Italian cannibal films by reflecting on the nature of filmed images. It is not a critique of violence. I repeat, it is not a critique of violence. It is a critique of sensationalism in the news media and of colonialism, two traits that do not characterize the film. The difference between the violence depicted in the film and the violence depicted in the film-within-a-film is that the latter is real. And only as such is it dangerous. You see, genre cinema is a form of entertainment whereas the news media are a source of information. What you see in genre films are thus not lies, they're stories made to thrill you. You can't accuse them of being dishonest. On the other hand, Yates' footage, for which the media are vying, is. By staging events, not only does he misinform the viewers, but he creates full-fledged myths, such as that of cannibals, which Deodato works to deconstruct, defusing in the process the media's hold on our consciousness.

4/5 An historical document, not only in its realism and self-reflexivity, but in the international resonance of its unique message.