Let's get the obvious out of the way, this is a very disturbing movie, and as someone who can watch abbatoir footage completely stonefaced, this is somehow worse. Watching it at times I honestly felt sick and finishing it I vowed I would never watch it again. This is a very uncomfortable film. Approach with caution.Now that's out of the way, while I don't like this movie for a few reasons (I'm not even going to attempt to say why) I do have to admit it is pretty clever. In spite of its hypocritical production (again, I'm not getting into it) the basic idea is about sensationalism and how the media chooses to spin things, so to be completely fair it is pretty clever......at first. Like I said, this movie is very disturbing and veeeeery uncomfortable. It is admittedly very well acted, though inevitably some of the ADR is kinda flaky, the idea is quite clever and I hate to admit it but it's directed and shot very well, especially by 70's/80's exploitation standards, but none of this justifies anything that happens on screen. My five out of ten grade was very begrudging. Make of that what you will but don't say I didn't warn you

I reluctantly decided to watch the infamous 'Cannibal Holocaust', and I found it to be every bit as shocking as people make out. It was by far the most uncomfortable experience I've ever had watching a film. From the sickening violence and killings to the torturing of animals and graphic rape scenes, this film is as morally low as they come.'Cannibal Holocaust' is not art - it's not even entertainment. How can anybody enjoy watching a coati being repeatedly stabbed as it screams in pain? Or a turtle being decapitated and then pulled to pieces? It makes for an extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable viewing experience. Unfortunately, it's also an unforgettable one, so watch at your peril.

The message of this movie is suppose to be anti-imperialist, claiming that civilized western society is no better than cannibals. Whilst western civilization has done plenty of evil stuff in the name of science centuries ago, to claim that we are no better than cannibals is a ridiculous statement fuelled only by white guilt. There are numerous things wrong with this idea: First of all: The movie implies that 4 psychopathic film students are representative of the white western race and western science. If he had said that about any other race he would have been branded a racist.Secondly: The movie also implies that this is how anthropology and nature documentaries are done.....I assure you, it isn't.And Thirdly: The tribesmen were already practicing ritual sacrifices, rape and cannibalism before the documentary makers came along.The director's message also states that the west unethically exploits primitive cultures and nature for the sake of sensationalism. Yet ironically the only one who unethically exploited living beings for the sake of sensationalism was the director himself when he ordered the slaughter of numerous exotic animals on camera in gruesome ways. They: stabbed a baby Coati raccoon(which was wrongly identified as a muskrat in the movie)in the face, dissected a large river turtle, decapitated a Boa constrictor, chopped the face off a squirrel monkey, squashed a tarantula to death and kicked and shot a pig in the face at point blank range.I give this movie a 5/10. Whilst the realism is certainly astonishing. The message of this movie combined with the animal cruelty it displays are the work of a morally bankrupt mind and shouldn't be condoned. Ruggero Deodato set out to prove something about western civilization but all he ended up proving is that he himself is an uncivilized barbarian.

For his work on the film, the director was arrested by Italian authorities on suspicion of murder charges and faced life in prison, following its 1980 Milan premiere. He endured a trial when Italian authorities were unconvinced that the footage was indeed staged. Deodato lost the original trial, and all prints were to be destroyed, but he managed to have the ruling overturned in the early '80s when the actors finally appeared on TV to prove otherwise.Some five years passed before the film saw release in Deodato's home country. This movie was banned for twenty years in many countries.Only for fans of disgusting footage...