Cannibal Holocaust

Ruggero Deodato died in December of last year. He directed 36 films ranging from comedy to drama to horror to science fiction, but he’s probably best known for what is widely considered to be the most controversial film of all time: Cannibal Holocaust.

It was only a matter of time before we got around to discussing this film, and now we have the perfect opportunity. Listen in as we revisit this disturbing and notorious cannibal classic from Italy, which has inspired filmmakers like Eli Roth and Oliver Stone. And let us know what YOU think of this movie in the comments – if you are brave enough to watch it, that is…

Expand to read episode transcript

Automatic Transcript

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Episode 332, 2 Guys & A Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, here we are doing our, I believe, our second tribute episode of the 2023 Year

Craig: Man. 2023. Just started two already. I know.

Todd: crazy. Well, the person that died, uh, was Ruggero Deodato, uh, infamous Italian film director. Did lots of different films, some horror movies, more or less was credited with starting the cannibal genre back in the seventies, although I believe Umberto Lenzi did a couple cannibal movies before he did. Deodato died in December, I believe, of last year. So just about a month ago, Craig messaged me and said, oh shit. Does this mean we’re gonna have to finally get around to doing Cannibal Holocaust. And I said, yeah, of course. . Yeah. So here we are, 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust.

I mean, you know, I think ever since we started this podcast, we knew we were eventually gonna have to get around to doing this movie. We’ve

Craig: probably mentioned it a dozen times. Yeah. You know, throughout the course of this, I, uh, yeah, I, I, and honestly, I haven’t been looking forward to it. I, I’ve seen this movie before.

I think I first saw it when I was in my early twenties by myself. I think I rented it and watched it by myself, just because I knew how infamous it was. I don’t really remember what my reaction to it. At that time was, I think that I had it in my mind that it was so scandalous that I would be scandalized and I w I didn’t feel scandalized.

Um, I, I think that I had just hyped it up so much in my head, um, that when I actually saw what it was, although it is something, it just didn’t have the impact that I expected. And I, I’ve seen it since then. I don’t remember why I watched it again, but I did, and I rewatched it for this. Um, I don’t know. I don’t even know because I’m so ambivalent about this movie because on the one hand I actually think it’s a good movie.

I, I think that it’s well made. Uh, I think that Didado accomplished something that isn’t really easy to accomplish, and I think that the movie has something poignant to say. But I, I don’t, I don’t enjoy watching it.

I, but, but that’s the thing. Like, uh, there’s there and I’m, I really am excited to talk about it cuz I feel like there’s so much to talk about. Yeah. Um, but I, I, I’m just torn. I’m, I’m torn cuz it’s one of those things where I guess I don’t like it, but I respect it for what it is and I think it deserve.

Talking about, and it deserves some recognition. So we’ll see how it goes. Well,

Todd: yeah, I mean, I’m right with, I’m right there with you. I saw this movie first. I think I was either in high school or maybe I was in college. I don’t remember which. But of course, it’s been notorious. And even back then, before the internet, you know, this, this movie kind of made the rounds as a notorious film, supposedly banned in 60 plus countries.

I remember seeing it sitting on the video store shelf, touting that fact. It looked like a uhhuh, , sheep, you know, movie. You know, like something like a phases of death kind of film that, yeah, that, that really presented itself as this forbidden fruit. And so I did, I, I watched it and I would say, , I, it had an impact on me.

It definitely had an impact on me at the time. I think the sexual violence was really upsetting and remained so. Mm-hmm. , although, to be honest, by today’s standards, it does come off as looking a little fake maybe, and silly in some ways. I don’t know, actually, I, I, I don’t know why I say that because some of it’s just not terribly convincing.

It’s a lot of people kind of naked, naked people flopping around, you know what I mean? But in the same sense, like within the context of the film, it’s really off-putting and really disturbing. Mm-hmm. , the movie itself is really off-putting and disturbing. And I agree with you that I think even after the first time I saw it, I said, honestly, it’s, it’s pretty genius.

Yeah. Like it really is. And even more so that the statement that the film makes and it makes a very definite statement. Is very prescient. Yeah. Maybe even more so today, you know, about what we do to each other and violence and people trying to gain notoriety by going to extremes. And you know, in this case, filming it and it’s, it might be a little on the nose, but honestly I think that the message is real and valid.

And like I said, even more in today’s, in the, in the era of YouTube where people do crazy things for YouTube and TikTok views this, the message, this movie fits right in to the point where now it almost seems a little quaint, but when I saw it back then, Don’t you think? So? I

Craig: still think that it’s pretty relevant and, and

Todd: oh, I didn’t say it’s not relevant.

I, I’m saying it is

Craig: relevant. Right, right. I I get what you’re saying. I get what you’re saying. Quaint. I don’t, I don’t agree because I think that it’s very much in your face and, and, uh, I, you know, you, I, I know exactly what you’re talking about. The, the scene that you’re talking about, the sexual violence.

There’s a, there’s, well, there’s more than one, but, well, the first, the first gang rape scene, it does look very awkward and clumsy. Um, but to me that was more realistic. Mm. With, with a woman. S you know, if, if a woman, which I, God, it’s just even horrible to talk about, but I assume that a woman would struggle and that struggle would lead to.

Ness as far as bodies together. I mean, we all know how the biology works. Uh, right. But, you know, it would lead, it, it, it didn’t look fake to me. It made me very uncomfortable. It made me very uncomfortable to know that that girl that played that role was 14. Uh, so much, so many things. There are a

Todd: lot of things to, to make you uncomfortable about this movie.

Right. But I

Craig: think that the movie has so many statements to make and I, I feel like you were talking about, you know, what people will do for notoriety. And, and I, I think that’s true. And I think there’s a lot to say about that in terms of deodato himself. Uh, cuz I think that’s what he was going for. He was trying to push buttons.

But I think that the commentary is more about us. You know, I, I, I think it’s as the viewer, you’re right, we’re w we as polite society will sit back and say, why would anybody make this? Why would anybody make a movie like this? As we sit here and watch it. And I think that that’s what, right, that’s part of what it’s, it’s commenting on, and I don’t want to, you know, jump ahead, but I really feel like the thing that hit me the most, uh, watching this, it’s about this group of kids, really young filmmakers, who are going out to make a documentary about these, uh, native tribes in the Amazon, uh, you know, kind of untouched by civilization.

Um, and they are just completely exploiting these people for their own success and fame. And then eventually, you know, they go missing and somebody has to go in looking for them and they recover all this footage. And they, the guy, the doctor of anthropology who recovered all the footage and these producers all sit down to review the footage because they wanna put it together into a documentary, but it’s so horrible.

What’s they find on the footage that the anthropologist obviously objects, but the thing that got me the most was near the very end of the movie is they’re sitting there and watching it, and they’re talking about how terrible it is. The female producer says, come on now, professor, let’s be realistic. Who knows anything about the Yakumo civilization today?

People want sensationalism. The more you rape their senses,

Todd: the happier

Craig: they are. I think that that’s kind of the point that they’re trying to make. Yes. . Uh, no. And, and I think that’s very true, not only of this time. I think that we were very much aware of it of this time, cuz you already mentioned like Faces of Death, uh, and, and oth these other extreme cannibal movies that were showing extreme violence and brutality.

Um, and not even just those, but movies like Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your grave and you know, these really, really gritty, brutal, violent movies. There was an audience for them and there still is. And yeah, I, I it, it almost makes you a little bit, you know, ashamed like . Yeah. I’m the person that they’re making these movies for.

I

Todd: guess. And there’s another layer to it as well. I mean, around this time, or shortly before this time anyway, there was a series of, they call them Mondo Films cuz the kind of, the first one on the scene was Mondo Kane, also Italian, these ostensible documentaries, which had real footage of a far flung civilizations.

And they’re weird practices, what we would call weird. Like, hey, look in on this tribe of people out in the Amazon, for example. Look at these, at these people out in, um, the desert, the nomads, and the, you know, basically for quote unquote Western white society to gaze upon and sort of. , uh, otherwise in a way for entertainment, yeah.

These people and their practices, which could come across as shocking and oftentimes kind of were, you know, almost in the same way. Like, look, oh, the natives are walking around naked. Or, you know, oh, look at their death rituals and how barbar or barbaric they are, and look at how they slaughter animals and things like that.

And these, these movies would be shown as documentaries, but they were obviously shown for sensational, you know, they were obviously shown to a public who got kind of a cheap thrill of watching it. And also in a sense, really of a feeling of superiority. Like, oh, look at how civilized we are and how far we’ve come in watching these movies.

And, you know, these, these kind of movies would not really be done today. But Mondo Cain was so popular that the, the, um, it, they spawned lots and lots of sequels and copycats and the title song from it. , which, um, was written actually by the guy who also did a lot of the music for this movie. Got an Academy Award for best song that year.

Huh? More so, um, you know, I think there’s that layer of it too, where you’re looking at this movie and this movie does a pretty good job of trying to portray these native tribes as savages. And that plays into therefore the plot and theme of the film where, like you said, this group of people go in with complete and utter disregard and very much othering these native people to the point where they can inflict violence on them.

You know, they, they, they at one point get them into a hot and burn it, like, and just all they’re doing is laughing and filming the whole time. Yet fast forward to this scene here where this producer, like you said, is saying, oh, we gotta release this documentary. It’s enter. , she is not appalled by what they’re seeing and all of this brutality, most of which is inflicted upon these native tribes until she sees a similar level brutality inflicted upon the white people.

Right. And that’s the thing that gives her pause to a hilarious degree, really in the screening room, to the point where they all kinda leave without looking, without talking. And one guy gets on the phone to the projectionist and says, you know, burn all the footage. To me that’s telling as well, and that works too on that level.

So, you’re right, the, the movie’s got a lot of different things to say and then of course, , the obvious thing this movie we are watching is, you know, we’re implicated in it. Right, that’s what I was trying to say, because we’re participating in the exploitation and, and, and the director and creator of this movie is making an exploitation movie.

And it

Craig: is . It is, it is exploitive, obviously. And I, I want to put that out there. It, it exploits, uh, these native people who are actual, um, native people who probably had very little understanding of what they were doing, though I’ve not read anything about them being mistreated or anything. Like that.

Right. However, uh, it is, you know, it’s exploitive when you go in and you put people in a position where they don’t really understand what they’re doing. And I was just talking about this with a friend yesterday. You know, they’re, they’re acting and they’re not under duress. In fact, what I’ve read is that they had a wonderful time and they were very much, uh, entertained, you know, by, they thought

Todd: it was hilarious.

Apparently. They thought it was

Craig: hilarious. You know, they were treated well based on everything that I’ve read, but they don’t understand that they’re wildly misrepresenting themselves. Mm-hmm. and who knows if they would even care. But you said something about presenting them as savages. And I, I think that that is actually a misunderstanding or a misperception about the movie because I don’t think that it does a, aside from the fact that it does portray them as cannibals, they, they eat the flesh of their enemies.

Ritualistically And I, I don’t believe that that’s true. I don’t, I don’t think that that was true. So that’s, that’s not, that’s, that’s fiction. Um, but aside from that, they’re really not portrayed as Savage. I, I, I guess depending, depending upon how you define that. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. I think the point of the movie is to show that they are not the Savages, it’s the white characters in the movie that are the savages.

Yes. And they very much

Todd: are. Yes. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. I don’t think I said that the movie itself portrays ’em as savages. I think what I said was that the people, the, the fictional characters in the movie come in and treat them as savages. Ah, okay. And the, the, the, the, the producer of the film and, you know, when they’re watching it, you know, they’re, they’re making these comments and even the professor in the film really, who actually is portrayed in a very good light and seems to be quite sensitive, you know, as an anthropologist should be as he goes in, in his.

you know, way of, uh, of, uh, trying to find out what happened to these guys. There’s a, there’s a very distinct difference, obviously, between the, um, professor who is, uh, what Harold Monroe. Mm-hmm. . He’s got this guy Choco, um, who’s a guy that they have, uh, hired, uh, to take them in there. And they’re constantly talking about how dangerous the jungle is and how savage it is in there.

And, and, uh, and, and the movie does a really good job, I think, of trying to, not just from the tribes, but you know, it talks about these two warring tribes, this tribe of, um, people up in the trees like a tree tribe. Mm-hmm. of the Yamamoto. Then this other tribe, the, the swamp tribe tari, both real tribes who are not represented in this movie at all the way they actually are.

Right, right. You know, not just these two tribes who are, who are fighting each other, but also, you know, the dangers of the jungle itself. , right as they’re going in to try to find this missing crew. You know, they’re crossing through the water and one guy gets leeches on him. There’s constant shots of like jaguars that they have to shoot at and, and, and, and run away from and, and monkeys and screeching at them.

And, um, spiders just, it just goes really out of its way to portray this is where, as a jungle, as a place where there’s danger around every corner. Just natural. That film producer sees all of this footage and is excited about putting together this documentary. And up to now the footage that she’s seen and she’s so excited about is really about these white people raping the jungle of its animals.

And we’ll get to that in a minute. And then literally raping this tribe and killing these people and burning them up in huts, she’s still saying, oh, well, you know, the people want this. This is such a great documentary. And it’s not until, like I said, she sees that same activity going on to the, the white people that she’s suddenly stunned and upset by and decides that this isn’t worth releasing.

You know, that is a point that I think had been lost to me in previous viewings of this movie That Right. That really, um, hit home to me, uh, right now. So that, that’s what I mean, like that’s that other layer over it. I think that, um, that really shown through this time around. See,

Craig: and that’s the thing, like I think that I watched the movie this time around more thoughtfully.

So I think I took more away from it this time, which is why I have respect for it. I also, you know, in preparing for this, I also watched, um, some interviews, um, with cast and crew and the director. Uh, and I, I understand that this is, uh, Ruggiero d Dato’s, um, tribute episode. He seemed like a real dick. Yeah.

probably, probably a brilliant dick. He just seems like one of those, you know, stereotypical pretentious artists who is so certain of his vision that he doesn’t really care how he accomplishes it. And, and, and he’ll walk right over people. He’ll treat people terribly and, and not really have any remorse.

even though. I guess late in his life he said that he regrets making this movie. He regrets all the decisions that he made that people have criticized. I think that’s bullshit. I think that he Cow towned. Yeah. To pressure and criticism over the years, because the things that I’ve seen him say, he doesn’t seem remorseful at all for any of this.

In fact, he seemed to take a little. Pleasure in it, like in, in recounting some of the scenes that the actress, uh, who played Faye

Todd: Francesca

Craig: Cidi Cidi, um, there were several, well, at least a couple of scenes that she was uncomfortable doing. And, uh, he just, he berated her into doing things that she didn’t want to do, like literally screamed and, and yelled at her until she would just succumb and do what he wanted her to do.

In the interviews that I saw, I saw them both recount that story and, and the other actors were present and witnessed this happen, and the consensus among the actors was kind of like, God, you know, that what a, what a dick thing to do, even though it got her to do what he wanted. You know, Deodato tells the story and he’s giggling through it, like , she was fine.

Yeah. So I, again, it’s one of those things where, . I, I, I don’t like the movie, but I can appreciate that. I think that it is, uh, there, there’s something to it. There’s something substantial and of quality to it. Oh yeah. Uh, Deodato kind of seems like a dick, but he also seems like a good filmmaker, , you know,

Todd: like, well, you know, you get the same, I’m not, I don’t mean to compare him to James Cameron, but you know, you get the same sort of thing.

You know, James Cameron, um, Uh, who has, who did The Shining Stanley, uh, Kubrick. All of them are well known as, you know, directors who are difficult, difficult on set. They berate people. They kind of use a different tactic to get the performances that they want, but then they end up turning out, you know, stuff that people really like and enjoy.

So, you know, I mean, that’s just, that’s just the way life is. Right? Sometimes really dickish people bad. We all have bad bosses that, and end up doing great things, , you know? Yeah. So that, I mean, that’s, that’s gotta be true though. Even Robert Kerman, who was the star, um, who played, uh, the professor Harold Monroe, who actually came from the porn.

feel. Mm-hmm. , uh, surprisingly, and went back to it. Quite a good actor actually.

Craig: I thought, I actually thought he was quite good in this too. And sympathetic, probably the only sympathetic, a aside from the native people, the only sympathetic character. Mm-hmm. , um, yeah. And, and he had, he came from porn and, and did this.

And then I guess after this he couldn’t get any more, um, mainstream work, so he went back to porn, um, struggling actor, which it’s, I again, seeing, um, interviews, people who worked with him said he, he was a good actor. He really was. But he also kind of had an Adonis complex. Like he, he thought he was real hot shit.

That’s funny. So may, I don’t know, maybe his cockiness had something to do with the, him getting

Todd: rolls later. I don. He said he almost came to blows with deodato. He said he felt like the man had no soul. And I think he even said that contemporaneously, uh, you know, after filming, shortly after filming the movie.

And, uh, I think what bothered him and a lot of the castmates on the movie wasn’t necessarily any of what we’ve been talking about so far, so much as the animal cruelty. And that’s a whole other level of disturbing aspect to, to this film.

Craig: Okay. So I’m real, I’m are, are we gonna talk about that now or are we saving it?

Yeah,

Todd: why not? Go ahead, .

Craig: Well, no, I bec because it’s one of the most talked about things. It’s one of the most talked about things about the movie. I mean, we can go, I, I don’t wanna go through plot point by plot point because it’s a very simple plot really. And I, I feel like we can. kind of hit some of these big topics because these are the interesting things.

Yeah. And this is one of the most hotly, you know, debated parts of this movie is the treatment of animals. Because there are, as you mentioned before, you know, they shot this in the Amazon, and so there are lots of real animals around, and you do, you see snakes and spiders and monkeys and turtles and, you know, all kinds of wildlife.

Um, but there are these infamous scenes where they slaughter live animals on screen. And I’m, I want to hear what your thoughts are on it

Todd: before I go . Well, I maybe, I’m gonna sound like a terrible person. The animal cruel. I don’t think so. The animal cruelty turns my stomach to a degree, but, and, and I’m not a fan of doing something like this just for a film.

The way that Dio Dato , it’s so hard because look, let’s, let’s be honest here. Um, you could do accomplish this sort of stuff with special effects and movies nowadays, do this. Anytime you’re gonna show animal cruelty, you’re absolutely not gonna kill. You’re not even gonna kill a spider. No. You know, we did a Acto phobia here and, uh, we talked about how the great lengths that they went through on that film to make sure not even a spider was harmed.

Right. You know, and they had hundreds of spiders swarming around the sets. So, uh, I think the general tenor is none of us want to know that an animal was killed for a film, let alone watch it in all of its gruesome detail on screen. Ah-huh . That being said, , it does serve a point to the movie, both in the reality of the making of the movie and in what they’re trying to accomplish.

I think it was Lloyd Kaufman who said, look, it’s kind of a mixture here of reality and fiction, and by including these very real scenes of real animal murder that are unmistakably real deodato accomplishes this magic where you’re not sure, you know, this is, maybe we didn’t even, we didn’t bring it up.

This is, I know. Something like the first, this is like the first found footage movie. Really? Yeah. And people thought it was real. People thought it was real, and that was the intent, you know, he shot it for this R in this way. The actors were under contract to disappear for about a year after the filming.

Mm-hmm. , just to kind of heighten that idea that maybe they really did die in the movie and, and even like the credits at the end and at the beginning have little things in it. Are just like Blair Witch project basically, that are trying to make you believe that this is actual found footage. And so by adding these actual elements of animal death and murder in here, uh, it, it adds to the documentary feel of it makes it feel real.

And you, this is the kind of stuff you might see in the Discovery Channel, except usually it’s animal on animal. It’s not person on animal. Right. That being said, he claims that, you know, none of all these animals were

Craig: eaten that Yeah. They were, they were eaten. None of them were wasted. They were eaten.

Mm-hmm. that’s, see, I, of course, I don’t think anybody, anybody with a healthy mind enjoys watching animals. be hurt. Right. Like you say, you know, it’s one thing if you’re watching a nature documentary and you understand that that’s, you know, the cycle of life, that’s a different story. But when it’s, you know, people intentionally harming animals, that’s, it’s difficult to watch mm-hmm.

And it does because it’s real. You said, we can accomplish these things with special effects. We absolutely can and should, but you can tell this is real and I don’t think that you could Yeah. Accomplish that. The, the, the part that gets me the most, they, they kill a little ground animal. I don’t know, like some kind of squirrel muskrat type thing.

Kyoto, I don’t know what it’s called. They kill that. And then there’s a scene where they kill a monkey. And the one that gets me though is the turtle. They, they, they drag this giant turtle out of the river, um, and slaughter it, and they start by cutting off its head and, and when, you know, it’s, it’s one blow with the machete takes the head off.

So, to be fair, Even the way that they killed the animals, except for that little ground thing. He kind of stabbed that, that was gross. But, you know, chopping off an animal’s head is a, a fairly humane way of killing an animal. But you, you see the animal’s body react to it. And then even after it’s been beheaded, they’re grabbing for the, uh, turtle’s.

Legs. Legs. And it, it, the, the animal, even though it has a head, it doesn’t have a head. I’m sure this is all just nerves, you know, whatever. But it, it’s still trying to pull its legs into the safety of its shell. And that’s really disturbing to watch. And I, and I wanna be, I want to take a, a, a, a moral superiority standpoint and say, that’s terrible.

You shouldn’t do that. And that’s so hypocritical because I eat meat. Yeah. And somebody has to kill it. I just don’t. Have to watch it, you know? So it’s hypocritical of me to be e especially, and it makes me feel better that these are animals that these native people ate. Yes. Anyway, that they hunted and ate and the, it was, you know, the, they were, at least they claim now whether or not they’re telling the truth, I have no idea.

But they claim that this meat was given to the natives and it was used as food, and I don’t have any problem with that. So I suppo it. It’s troubling, but I feel like if they’re telling the truth, they did it the right way and it does have, Purpose and it is effective, as troubling as it may be,

Todd: even in the context of the story really.

And, and even in the context of the situation. I mean, when that monkey, and I think there were two takes and two monkeys, but the natives were thrilled because monkey is a delicacy of theirs, , right? And so, you know, the natives, I think the, the scene is when the monkeys killed, uh, it’s the natives themselves that do it.

And it’s a, it’s a quick, uh, machete to the head that lops off half this monkey’s head, and then they, they start eating the brains and stuff like that. But I mean, this is actually part of their practice. They were clearly knew what they were doing. They were quite skillful at it, right? And so, you know, even within the context of the story, it all makes sense.

It’s not. , but, but we just don’t like, we don’t like having this mixed with entertainment and we’re watching a movie ostensibly to be entertained. And again, that is the point of the film. What do you consider entertainment? Is this entertaining to you? Right. I mean, it all serves a purpose.

Craig: And what do you consider entertaining?

An at what cost? Hmm. What, what’s most disgusting? Uh, to me, you know, these four, I, I feel bad. The, these four actors who played the young filmmakers, first of all, they’re, they’re infants, you know, they, they’ve gotta be in their twenties, they’re kids. Um, and these were all young actors. And I feel bad that now they all express like, deep regret in having participated in this.

Mm-hmm. , uh, the, the girl who played face as, it’s the biggest regret of her life, it, it haunts her. One of the guys, the, I don’t remember what his name is, the, the blonde. Cameraman, um, you know, who is one of the main cast . He just, after the movie, you perfect that. I think he just, well, yes, he just dropped off the face of the earth, like went into height.

He won’t talk about the movie. He, you know, stays out of the public eye, like, huh. It must have been a traumatic experience for them. And in part because they had no idea what was going on. The guy who plays Alan, the director, he said that he, at one point, honestly didn’t know whether they were making a legitimate film or a snuff film mm-hmm.

Um, and, and he wasn’t entirely sure up until the end. But what I was getting at is I feel bad. I, I’m not being critical of the actors because I think that they were just doing a job. They probably didn’t know what they were getting into. And ultimately, I don’t think that they really did anything wrong. I think that they just have such distaste.

for it. Uh, I don’t, I don’t know. I can’t say what they think, but anyway, they’re, what’s gross? Like they’re supposed to be documentarians, but they’re not in any way. Documentarians are supposed to be objective, and these people, they even, I don’t even know. Somebody says it. Yeah. You know, they go in looking for savagery and when they can’t find it, they provide it themselves.

And that’s exactly what they do. They, they treat these native people as though they are not human beings, but just. The subjects of their documentary just, just inhuman things to be moved around on a stage. Oh, it’s sickening. Um, and they do, they do, they do terrible, terrible things. You know, it’s, it’s, uh, they, they have difficulty finding them.

And then when they do find a group of hunters out, they shoot one of them in the leg so that he will be slow in leading them back to their village. And then when they get to their village, they shoot them for all of 15 minutes before they feel like they need to produce some drama. One of them executes their pig, which I assume is their food source.

Uh, and then they torch the whole village. They, they corral all of these people who have no understanding of what’s happening. They don’t speak the language here. These white people with guns show up and corral them all into this one hut and then set it on fire and try to keep them in there and film it as though this is a documentary as though it was their.

Neighboring tribe, their enemy tribe, that had done this to them. And they just, they do it with absolutely no remorse. They do it with

Todd: relish. Oh, with relish and glee. I

Craig: mean, Uhhuh, . And it, at one point, it, it’s, it’s a later point, another infamous point. But the, the one of them is behind the camera and he’s filming this atrocity that they have committed, and the director is in the shot, and the cameraman has to remind him to look somber because he’s smiling at this disgusting, depraved thing that they have done.

And that really struck me this time too, is just how awful they were. Again, I, I think it’s commentary, you know, we are

Todd: implicit. Yeah. I mean, it’s honestly stomach turning. , the movie bothered me then it bothers me now. And, um, I didn’t think it would bother me as much on the second or third viewing. I, I think maybe this is the third time I’ve seen it, it’s been decades since I first saw it, and it bothered me maybe even more now than it did then.

The, the utter glee and, and it even starts early on at one point, and I’m not even clear why I think their guide Felipe gets bit by a snake or something. Yeah. And, and without any treatment or anything like that, they, they decide they need to lop his leg off and they just grab him. Hold him down and while they come over and hack his leg off, like, it’s like just the same way.

And, and I think this is intentional too, just with just the same level of ease as they, you know, hack the head off of that turtle. Yeah. But one of them, I think his name is Mark, he’s holding him down, this guy down and he has almost a sinister smile on his face while this is happening. And they hack the leg off and they get, um, they take the same knife and then try to cauterize the leg mark.

I think the last bit of this image, which is shot very chaotically as though it were, you know, documentary footage still. The last shot of this, of this image is of Mark kind of looking at the camera and he looks almost scary, wild-eyed, scary with this gr. that this is going on, and they’re constantly saying, when this stuff happens, even when a spider falls on this girl, and she’s like screaming and and terrified, and the guy just was saying like, oh, this is really, really, really dangerous.

Alan is running over saying, no, no, no, no. Get the shot first. Get the shot first. You know, before we do it. They’re utterly callous. Utterly callous, right? Because that guy, their

Craig: guide dies. Yeah. You know, even though they, and they’re just like, oh, well he died, but we’re just gonna keep going. Felipe was a great buddy and a top-notch guide.

We’ll miss him, but even more we’ll miss the security he gave us. We’ve decided to go on, but now we’ve only got the compass and our instincts to show.

Todd: This, this guy Alan, um, who’s the director is really set off to be a sociopath, um, in this movie. And he’s the one who’s constantly turning and looking at the camera and giving narration like you might in a documentary, you know, and it’s

Craig: established that they’ve done this before, successfully.

Like we see a different movie that they had made, I don’t remember what was called, something About Hell, like The Road to Hell or something. Yeah. The Last Road to Hell. Mm-hmm. . And it was about some like insurrection in some other country, I don’t know, and, and South Africa or something like that. And, uh, Deodato used actual historical footage of some re revolution or something, I don’t know.

Some executions and things. Yeah, yeah. Um, but, uh, you know, when the, the producers who are talking about putting this documentary together, they’re like pretty powerful stuff, huh? Well, just to give you an idea how Alan and the others worked, everything you just saw was a put on. You mean this wasn’t, that was no enemy Army approaching.

Alan paid those soldiers to do a bit of acting for it. You know, look how successful it was. Like that’s kind of how they’re justifying trying to put all this together. But it is gross and I wanna say so extreme, almost as to be unbelievable. But not, it makes you think because it seems so real. And that’s one of the things that I think that he does so well.

It seems real. It seems real in the way that Blair Witch seemed real. And I’ve confessed on this show before that I saw Blair Witch opening weekend before it was revealed that it was fiction. And I was totally fooled. I totally thought it was real, and I can understand how people would think this was real.

And I think that’s a real testament to the filmmaking, um, because of the style of it. And because in the end there are some really, really convincing effects that wouldn’t have been as convincing if they had been shot differently. But the way that they’re shot, it looks super real. And I could totally understand how people would mistake this for, uh, actual.

Documentary footage. Oh,

Todd: absolutely. And, and that said, I think the movie does have a couple shortcomings in that department. I think mostly in the wraparound story. I think that some of the acting is a little wooden, and some of it’s a little fake, especially when they’re going to interview. You know, there’s this point in the beginning where Professor Monroe is going to interview like the parents and the friends and the ex-wife and all that of the, of the.

people. And those , some of them are better actors than others. I would say more convincing than others. But the actors in the film itself, like in that found footage, uh, seem very real. Mm-hmm. , I, I mean, hats off to Carl York as much as he says he disliked making this movie still, uh, he puts on a hell of a performance and, uh, really portrays this sociopathic guy quite well.

Yeah. In the midst of all this turmoil and, and animal cruelty that apparently for the actor was, you know, turning his stomach and then, like you said, like, like it’s shot in a way, there’s this, there’re just really some moments of genius in here that, that I, I want to call attention to. I think after we see them torch this village, then there’s a clip of Allen.

Getting on top of,

Craig: uh, Faye, right? Is that

Todd: what you’re talking about? Yeah. I think this is the, their sex scene that apparently the actress herself really wanted to rehearse by actually doing it. , there are very,

Craig: I, this is one of my favorite points of discussion, because there are, depending on who you talk to, the story is very different.

Oh, yeah. Both actors involved. Say that she propositioned him and said, let’s go off and do it together. And he says, he said no, he turned her down because , because according to him, there was no way that he was gonna go off into a field in the Amazon and take his pants off. That was what he says.

Todd: Um, well also he had a girlfriend Ryan

Craig: together.

Well, , he did have a girlfriend, which is why he says that the sex in the scene was completely simulated. And, you know, they shot multiple takes and it was totally simulated. And she says that it was not simulated that they were actually having sex in that scene. Yeah. But this is also the scene that, uh, she didn’t want.

To show her breasts. I’m not really sure. Sure. Why? Because she’s fully nude In other places. May, maybe it was the sequence of filming. Maybe they hadn’t filmed for other nude scenes yet. I don’t know. Um, but she didn’t want to show her breasts. And, uh, Deodato directed the other actor, make sure you get her turned around sh in his, you know, words show her tits to the camera.

Mm-hmm. . And, and so when the actor, Alan, the character, when he tried to do that, she got very angry and she protested. And that’s when Dedo took her off into the woods and yelled at her for 20 minutes until she finally came back and, Did it. Mm. But yeah, that it. It’d be she says, she says that he is saying that it was simulated because he did in fact have a serious girlfriend back home.

Yeah. So

Todd: who knows? Who knows. Well, all that being said, I, I think this is kind of a genius moment because again, it’s another realism aspect where I think the idea is that these guys with the cameramen are further away and have zoomed in on her, laying down, seeing that he’s gonna come over and start to make out with her.

And this is, I think, a very natural. Progression of events of how he’s kind of, you know, he’s kind of messing with her and then she kind of takes her clothes off, but not all the way, and they, they kind of awkwardly struggle with the clothes a little bit. But then, then like, you know, they’re almost like in a, in a fun way

Craig: having sex.

I, I, right, I get what you’re saying. It’s rough, but you know, it’s consensual. It’s fine. Yeah.

Todd: It, yeah, that’s what I mean. It, this part

Craig: made, it gave me the total ick. This part. No,

Todd: it’s ick. It’s very ick. Because, so here’s the deal. They’re doing that and, and it’s bad enough that you know that they did this other stuff and now they’re gonna have sex.

But then the camera angle changes, it’s from the other camera, and it’s a wider shot. And you can see that having sex in the remains of the burned out building, that they just burned down while the tribe is sitting in the distance together, scared by the side of the river, watching them. . Uh huh. Just changing the shot suddenly gives you a whole new context and a whole new feeling of disgust for these people.

It’s really genius how that’s done. Mm-hmm.

Craig: and, and the tribe, you know, the tribe’s, people are back far enough in the distance that they’re not out of focus, but it’s kind of soft focus. I, yeah, I mean, that’s why I said it was so gross because it’s. Alan especially gets off on what they’ve just done. Yeah.

Like he’s so pumped up. It’s literally , right? That, you know, he, he can’t control himself and he has to just take her. Right? There’re in the open, but worse than anything in front of these people who they’ve just brutalized. And then I feel like the very next scene is maybe the next morning and they’re kind of washing up.

These, by the way, are the swamp people who aren’t even the people that they’re interested in. They’re trying to find the tree people, cuz nobody’s ever, you know, infiltrated the tree people before. So right after that, they’re gonna head off and they’re like washing up by a river and the camera just casually pans to this woman who I assume was terribly, terribly.

in the hut that they burned up and she’s laying there by the river dying. And this person just casually says, when the old members of the tribe feel death approach, they wander off to a secluded spot after she dies. This old woman, this old woman will probably end up his lunch for some alligator in the jungle.

Nothing goes to waste. Nature recycles everything. He’s probably just making that shit up. Yeah. And this is a person, it, you know, alive, laying there in agony, dying, and they’re just, you know, having their coffee and chit chatting. They’re treating her like a prop.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. It’s gross. Yeah. And then there’s a scene of a woman, I think it’s around this time too, where they’re, they’re like, oh, come, we’re gonna check out, um, this not never before scene ritual where, you know, they have to take care of their, their sick or whatever.

And there’s this pregnant woman, uh, and I guess it’s more or less like a forced abortion. Uh, that the tribe is performing. But as shocking as that would be, and again, this is perfect material for Mondo type documentaries. They can’t leave well enough alone and just film it in. All of its disturbing this.

They’ve gotta go in and push people around and try to get up close and almost like become participants in, in this, you know, it, it, it’s just so crazy what they’re doing. Yeah. And this isn’t even a thing that they made happen and they still had to come in and make it worse by terrorizing these people.

Yeah.

Craig: And I, I had, I totally a hundred percent agree. Um, and I had forgotten about that part. You know, I had said earlier they, the filmmakers don’t, well, Deodato doesn’t frame the natives of Sav as savages. Well, this ritual is pretty savage. I didn’t really even understand. Why it was happening. Yeah. If she was sick and so they couldn’t allow her baby to be born because maybe it would be sick and they kill her too.

And then there’s another scene very early on when, uh, the anthropologist, when Monroe first arrives, the first thing that he witnesses is a native man br, like it’s, I guess a, a ritualistic killing, a punishment for adultery. Um, and this native man, the actress, they couldn’t find a native actress to do it.

I don’t know what that means if they just couldn’t convince one to do it or what, but. And, and there’s, uh, varying stories. Some say it was like a costumer, I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter. But it was a, a white woman who they covered completely in mud to try to hide the fact that she was white, but this native man brutalizes her with blunt instruments, you know, rapes her with these terrible devices and, and eventually beats her to death.

And it’s a terribly, terribly brutal, brutal and gruesome scene. So I guess I wasn’t entirely fair, but even then, these are presented as rituals and I am hesitant to, uh, criticize rituals that I don’t have a full understanding of. So I don’t know. Yeah. Are you still ? You know what I mean? Like, like I don’t support that, but I don’t want to disrespect another culture that I am ignorant of.

so that out, I

Todd: mean, who knows? Maybe it’s true. I thought it probably wasn’t . Oh no, I’m sure. No, I’m

Craig: sure it was fictionalized. I’m just, uh, I don’t know. Like I, I, you know, that, I think that, um, circumcision is, uh, barbaric,

Todd: right?

Craig: So I’m, I’m just saying I try not to judge other cultures, but anyway, pretty fair enough, pretty bad.

The other, and that, uh, I think one of the other things that people are, are shocked and disturbed by as well, they should be, is the sexual brutality. But that’s just one of the things that I was so shocked by. There’s a scene when they, that when they, I say they find the tree people, they find one young girl, um mm-hmm.

who is a, a member of this tribe, and their immediate response is to chase and grab. and gang rape her. Mm-hmm. , all three of the men in front of Faye, the woman who is Alan’s girlfriend, and Alan participates in this too. And it’s one of those things, we saw a movie once, I don’t remember where, what it was.

Maybe it was, uh, the, the rage, the monkey Rage. Where these, these, oh yeah, these three guys were gonna gang rape this girl. And she ended up getting out of it, I think, cuz she had the primal rage. But it was obvious that they had done it before. And, and that was the only thing that I could think of in this moment.

Like, th these guys, it happens so quickly. There’s no talk, there’s no, what are we going to do? There’s no hesitancy. They just immediately grab and start raping this girl. Um, yeah, and it’s, it’s so shocking to watch. And you’re, you’re right, it’s animalistic, it’s awkward. They’re rolling around in the muds.

They’re half naked, bodies are completely covered in mud. And the guy that played Alan, I saw him interviewed and he said that this was the hardest scene for him. He didn’t want to do it. He tried calling in sick on the day, but that didn’t work. And uh, he realized when he was doing it, it was so brutal.

This girl was fighting back. , you know, so hard. She, she, she launched him off of her and he fell with his naked butt into a puddle of mud. And he said he felt the mud literally shoot up his butt. And that moment made him realize kind of the raw intensity of this. And then he just went even crazier, um, and threw himself into the role and continued.

But, uh, the woman, um, Francesca, who played Faye talks about filming this scene and how she was just horrified and her response is largely real. Uh, you know, trying to tear Alan off of this girl. You hear Deodato talk about it and he says, you know, he talked to this girl beforehand. He casually mentioned somebody casually mentions that she was 14.

Um, he says he talked to her beforehand and told her that they were going to be rough with her, but that they weren’t going to hurt her. and it wasn’t real. But if you watch the scene, either she’s a hell of a good actress or she was in some distress. And, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s hard to watch. Now they all say that when the scene was done, they all went and had lunch together and everything was fine.

But, uh, of all of the scenes, that one, and there are lots of rough scenes, but that one just the depravity of it. And, and in my mind I’m thinking, Ugh, God, nobody would really do that. And then the voice further in the back of my mind. But would they ? I don’t know. Well, I’m,

Todd: I mean, honestly, like, I think even more now than ever before, uh, it’s easier for me to believe because I see what people do for.

Views and hits and likes it, it gets kind, it gets pretty insane. We have real life examples of this kind of thing, sadly, much more often now than we did when this movie was made. So, uh, no, and that’s why, another reason why I think the movie’s so prescient, it feels more real and more realistic to me now than it even did then.

That people could be this cruel and this brutal just for, you know, I mean, they even talk about it in a couple of the clips. Oh, we’re gonna be famous, we’re gonna be rolling in the money. I’m gonna get a mansion and I’m, and a, and a chick and all that. It can happen. . And so I buy it. I buy it hook, line and sinker.

I bought the reality of that scene. It was very raw, it was very disturbing. And then afterwards, this same, I think it’s this same girl is up on a spike.

Craig: This is the infa. Yeah. This is another one of the infamous things, and it, I, I remember this from the, the v h VHS cover. Oh, yeah. It was, uh, I, I don’t think that it was a photo or a still, or if it was, it was kind of blurred just a little bit, probably to make it a little bit less graphic, because it is terribly graphic.

But she’s, and this is the scene that I was talking about where Alan is caught smiling, looking up at her, smiling mm-hmm. . And it’s disgusting. She’s on an. Post. Oh, it’s an amazing effect. It is a brilliant effect. Completely impaled from the bottom between her legs, all the way up through her throat, and it’s an enormous, I mean, we’re talking in diameter, probably 10 inches.

This, this huge, oh,

Todd: she’s off the ground by feet,

Craig: you know? Oh my gosh. Yeah. It looks, it’s, it’s horrifying. And one would hope that it, you know, was, uh, uh, an excellent special effect, which it was, but you would almost hope that that wasn’t a real person up there, but it is. Mm-hmm. , and, and this is one of the images, this and the final scenes of the documentary footage, these were the ones that reportedly got deodato in trouble.

Now, reportedly the Italian government or police arrested Deodato and the cinematographer. And seized the film and brought them in and accused them. Now, Deodato says, the judge asked him, why did you kill these actors? And believed that they were killed according to Deodato. And according to Legend, he had to bring in all the actors to prove that they were alive.

He had to bring in this girl and demonstrate how this was done. And how it was done was she sat on a bicycle seat on that post, and then she held in her mouth. You know, the, the upper part, it looks fantastic, like I, and, and oh, it’s amazing. Deodato said, you know, that girl just. inexplicably still. Like she was just so still, um, even he couldn’t believe it.

And it, it looks horrible. Um, but it looks, uh, amazing. Now that is one a again, another one of the reasons that the film is so infamous. You know, it was banned all over. It was seized by the Italian government. He had to prove all of this. The guy who plays Alan, I saw him in an interview and he says, I don’t really talk about this.

He says, all I will tell you is I never heard anything about it at the time, and I was not called into court. What that suggests to me is that he is implying. this a, a lot of this story may be sensationalized for publicity. Um, and if that’s the case, and I have no idea if it is, it could be a hundred percent true.

I’m just saying it seemed like this guy was suggesting that some of it may have been sensationalized. And if it was true, it was genius and it worked and it, yeah, made it, made this movie a, uh, a phenomenon really.

Todd: Yeah. And, and again, picked up by Blair Witch, the guy, the, the Blair Witch people.

Craig: They claimed they hadn’t seen it.

They claimed they hadn’t seen it and were completely unaware of it. And in fact they say that if they had seen it, they wouldn’t have made Blair Witch, cuz they would’ve felt that they were copying.

Todd: Interesting. But, but really , I don’t know.

Craig: I don’t know either. Lots of similarities. Yeah, similarities in that.

I think even the Blair Witch people had a similar deal with, with their actors that they had to disappear. They did, uh, for a while afterwards in the aftermath. Um, but we, you know, we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t leave out, even though I’ve alluded to it, we shouldn’t leave out the finale because the finale’s pretty impressive and it’s entirely brutal.

But honestly, more than anything, I kind of found it satisfying. I felt like, oh yeah, these, these people were awful people. Who got what they deserved and that the natives were, uh, entirely justified in doing what they did. Yeah. , like, I, I, I, I give them a round of applause, ,

Todd: after they stare up at this, uh, after they stage something here by the spike so that Alan can look up at and go, oh, good lord.

It’s unbelievable. It’s, it’s horrible. I can’t imagine the reason for such cruelty. The next shot is they’re in the woods and they’re just surrounded by this tribe. And even though they’re being, um, threatened by this tribe who’s gotten them surrounded, even still, uh, I think it’s Alan is shouting, keep rolling.

We’re gonna get an Oscar for this. Mm-hmm. Jack jumps up on a log, uh, and is aiming his gun to try to shoot those guys. And then I think, doesn’t Mark or Alan shoot Jack?

Craig: I don’t think so.

Todd: Something happens because the girl yells and says, what did you do? And he says, no, she was, he was gone or anyway, . Uh, and I thought the implication was that he had shot Jack so that the tribe would kind of be distracted by him and he could get more footage.

Oh, maybe I just missed it. I don’t know. Well, Jack falls down in any way, and they drag him away and, and Alan and Mark are still filming. He’s like, keep filming Mark. I’ll cover you. And you see Jack being held up and they castrate him, which looks

Craig: incredibly real. I have no idea how they did that. . Yeah. But, but all of this is being filmed on shaky cam because it’s handheld and mm-hmm.

you know, they’re running and, and so everything is, and leaves and branches. Yeah. And, and so everything is quick takes and, and, and shaky takes so they can probably get away. Oh, yeah. With, I don’t know, with, you know, as far as special effects go, but what we see, I mean, you clearly see it happen and it totally looks uncomfortably

Todd: real.

It looks uncomfortable real. The music here, by the way, is insanely good. You know, the editing and the filmography, just the chaos of it all, the voyeurism of it all. I mean, it’s, it’s pretty crazy. And in a way, in this, in this moment, the movie kind of becomes what it’s criticizing, right? . It’s this very voyeuristic, don’t look away.

You’re gonna see all this horrible real stuff happening to these people. And it’s shot in that manner. Mark’s still talking to the camera and talking about how screwed up and trapped they are. And then the tribe gets Faye again from a distance through the trees and the shaky cam style. We say Faye just screaming her head off as they strip her down and they rape her.

And it is, mm-hmm long and protracted. And it’s horrible. It’s extremely uncomfortable. Uhhuh . And there’s full frontal, I mean, you get it. It’s uncomfortable, you know, not that the other ones weren’t uncomfortable, but this is uncomfortable too. They beat her to death. And then the pretty music comes on again for a moment.

Uhhuh , you know, we had in the beginning and then comes back, they pull her hat off and toss it around. And then it becomes obvious again. It’s almost, it’s, it’s like player witch really . They grab Alan, you know, who’s the one filming apparently. And, uh, the, the camera kind of goes to the sky and spins around and falls to the ground and we see Alan’s head fall down, um, dead in front of the, uh, view of the camera.

And that’s the last bit of the footage that they were able to recover from this crew. And that’s when we’re back in the screening room now, where, uh, everybody looks at each other in silence and they kind of file out. And one of the producers, you know, calls up the projectionist and says, please burn every bit of this, which was just what the anthropologist had to had asked.

Uhhuh . And, uh, he goes out sort of smug and satisfied and lights his pipe and stares up at the, at the jungle of New York City, the skyscrapers and wanders out and says, I wonder who is the real cannibals are. Yeah. and uh, that was a bit on the nose. It

Craig: it is,

Todd: but . But he’s saying this throughout the whole movie, Uhhuh.

I mean, he has a whole bit in the middle where he like a long dialogue about it, where he is saying it. And uh, yeah, that’s where I said earlier, I think that the movie is just a little too on the nose at times for now. Especially like, I think we get this without needing to be told directly. And that’s where I think it fails just a little bit.

It’s trying too hard to make this point, but it makes the point brilliantly still, so. Yeah.

Craig: Um, yeah, I just, I, I don’t know. I, I disagree a little bit. I, I feel like by being that pointed about it, they are just making it very clear. You, I’m talking to you , like, here’s the mirror I’m holding. To you, and maybe I’m just dancing.

That’s not t