Yeah, everything you’ve heard about Cannibal Holocaust is true. One of the defining films from the “cannibal boom” era of Italian exploitation filmmaking, Ruggero Deodato’s controversial 1980 gorefest (and this week’s Friday Midnight Movie at the Belcourt) is extreme in every sense of the word. The movie has murder, rape, dismemberment, continuous cruelty to animals and, of course, cannibalism. There’s also a very awkward Riz Ortolani score (easy on the drum machines there!) and a finger-wagging plot that takes on media outlets willing to forgo ethics for some juicy material. The film also features the trope of white people treating other cultures more savagely than the supposed savages the white folks are disrespecting. But along with seeming so real that it earned Deodato murder charges that were later dropped (that’s true, son!), Holocaust basically set off the found-footage genre of horror filmmaking. It scorched a path for such similar shaky-cam put-ons as The Blair Witch Project, which will be the Belcourt’s Midnight Movie on Saturday. Midnight at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
Midnight Movie: Cannibal Holocaust
