movies left for dead


Cannibal Holocaust (1980) If there has ever been a film that you can call "not for the squeamish," it's Cannibal Holocaust--hell, it was banned in like 50 countries. A groundbreaking, shocking cannibal film that, although isn't perfect, set the bar for copycats (Welcome to the Jungle, anyone? Kenyon raises his hand). Shot on 16mm, it's gruesome and explicit, even by today's standards. It's even controversial within the film itself, while the production and filming faced all sorts of problems. If you want to get deep, read up about the social-political messages it represents. Without spoiling anything (really, it's just something you have to see), most of the first half of the film follows an anthropologist searching in the Amazon jungle for a lost group of people who were filming some sort of twisted documentary about native tribes, and apparently, cannibal tribes. Although the group is notorious for setting up graphic scenes, they are now dead, and likely eaten. The search party is able to obtain the film reels and bring them back to the U.S, where they discover that the footage is not at all appropriate for public exposure. As the film within a film progresses, the documentary crew pushes things WAY too far in their quest to fabricate their story. Inevitably, they end up as bones. Now, there are some scenes in Holocaust--some of it is REALLY effed up--that are REAL. That said, the uncut version deserves an NC-17 rating, as it is difficult to forget. [rating: $10] -Kenyon