Cannibal Holocaust
Growing up, Ruggero Deodato’s film was forbidden fruit. To try and watch it under the roof of my parents’ house was not a good idea. Through college, it never struck me that I should watch it. I had heard the stories surrounding the film. I’d seen the infamous image of a body mounted on a spike. Alas, I chalked it up as one film that I needed to mentally prepare myself for. I’m not a fan of real on-screen animal violence and I had heard there was a lot.
And so, sometime around 2006, I grabbed a six-pack of beer, the collector’s edition DVD and settled in. The ride was not as turbulent as I expected. In fact, the film surprised me in a lot of ways. For one, there was a cohesive narrative. Totally unexpected. Here I was thinking that it was just an endless platter of cruelty and gore gags, but a story was there albeit an ugly one. And, technically, I found it fascinating. It was more polished than I had anticipated.
I walked away from the experience not as disturbed as I thought I would be. And perhaps that had to do with being desensitized to a degree, not just from the cannibal fare I watched before it but all of the horror films I had already seen.
