Do you want to see ‘Cannibal Holocaust’?

Add to Netflix

Cannibal Holocaust (1979)

tomatometer

All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 15
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 6

No consensus yet.

No Score Yet...

Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 1
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 1

audience

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 23,834

My Rating

Added to your Facebook Timeline. — undo

Movie Info

An anthropologist heads a rescue party into the South American jungle to find a missing film team making a documentary on cannibal tribes but can only return with their footage, which reveals their crueler intentions.

NC-17, 1 hr. 35 min.

Horror

Directed By: Ruggero Deodato

Written By: Gianfranco Clerici

In Theaters: Jan 1, 1979 Wide

On DVD: Dec 20, 2005

Blackest Heart Media

Cast

Robert Kerman
Professor Harold Monroe
Francesca Ciardi
Faye Daniels
Perry Pirkanen
Jack Anders
Luca Barbareschi
Mark Tomaso
Salvatore Basile
Chaco Losojos
Paolo Paoloni
Chief NY Executive

Critic Reviews for Cannibal Holocaust

All Critics (15) | Top Critics (1) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (6) | DVD (11)

[VIDEO ESSAY] Apart from being a truly disturbing film, "Cannibal Holocaust" serves up a cold plate of scathing social commentary.

November 14, 2011 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com

| Comment

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Cannibal Holocaust is certainly unpleasant, uncomfortable, even offensive - which is to say that it is uncompromisingly true to its genre - but that is not to undermine its fierce, probing intelligence.

September 20, 2011 Full Review Source: Little White Lies

| Comment

Anton Bitel

Little White Lies

Deodato became confused and made the very thing he was ostensibly criticising.

July 6, 2011 Full Review Source: What Culture

| Comment

Ed Whitfield

What Culture

Basically perfect: it achieves its goals in virtually every respect. Deodato made a movie whose purpose is to make me feel awful, and I do.

September 8, 2010 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy

| Comment

Tim Brayton

Antagony & Ecstasy

This is, bar none, the most revolting, weird and disturbing cannibal film I have ever seen.

March 20, 2010 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews

| Comments (5)

Dennis Schwartz

Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Ruggero Deodato's purposefully unwatchable opus questions the film image's validity while debasing it

November 16, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion

| Comment

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

The completely heinous nature of the film...is exposed through its own inconsistencies.

October 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Projection Booth

| Comment

Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

A film that really has, and continues to test the limits of our idea of free speech, how willing we are to allow artistic expression only until it offends us...

July 10, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Threat

| Comment

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Film Threat

The effect is now familiar, but back then it was incredibly shocking, as most viewers believed every word of it.

July 15, 2006 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com

| Comment

Christopher Null

Filmcritic.com

Its pointed attack on exploitative film-making seems somewhat rich in the circumstances, but this is well made, uniquely unpleasant and almost deserving of its huge cult status.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out

| Comment

Time Out

It may be the nastiest of the Video Nasties.

May 27, 2006 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com

| Comment

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

... there's nothing else out there even remotely like it.

January 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Dread Central

| Comment

Johnny Butane

Dread Central

... specious commentary on the manipulation of violence in news and documentary footage and the exploitation of sordid spectacle for entertainment.

December 14, 2005 Full Review Source: St@tic Multimedia

| Comment

Sean Axmaker

St@tic Multimedia Source: St@tic Multimedia

Most of the enduring grindhouse movies lose the residue of sweaty misanthropy through the simple, inevitable obsolescence of their hard-candied centers of shock value.

October 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine

| Comment

Eric Henderson

Slant Magazine

The actual savages involved with Cannibal Holocaust are the ones behind the camera.

August 30, 2005 Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness

| Comments (14)

Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

Whether or not it was his intention, it is also possible to discern a message amid the cruelty: read this as a savage indictment of the power of the media in general, and exploitative documentary filmmaking in particular.

October 4, 2003 Full Review Source: Film4

| Comment

Film4

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Cannibal Holocaust

View All

It's an ironically venomous counterpoint to have melodic, almost beautifully serene music to play over pornographically violent images and Deodato masters it. In the sprawling jungle, barbaric, "backwards" tribes live by their own "rules of conduct" which include a baneful punishment for adultery and cannibalism. This

October 22, 2011

Cory Taylor

Super Reviewer

There is no possible way to walk away from watching Italian horror maestro Ruggero Deodato's magnum opus, Cannibal Holocaust, without being changed by it. Quite possibly one of the hardest and most savagely unwatchable films I have ever struggled to watch succeeds what it sets out to do, make the audience feel

September 27, 2011

Matthew Roe

Super Reviewer

Cannibal Holocaust Quotes

View All

1. Professor Harold Monroe: I wonder who the real cannibals are?
– Submitted by michael s (14 months ago)

Character	Quote
	Enter quote here...	Delete

A Gift from Rotten Tomatoes!

As a thanks for being a loyal RT visitor, get a full-length gift movie to own! Start by selecting one of the movies below:

Austin Powers

70%

Select

Lethal Weapon

86%

Select

Dog Day Afternoon

97%

Select

DVD

Top Rentals

85%	21 Jump Street
85%	The Hunger Games
44%	American Reunion
50%	The Three Stooges
49%	Mirror Mirror

More…

New On DVD This Week

54%	Dr Seuss' The Lorax
95%	Marley
28%	Bel Ami
43%	Blue Like Jazz
75%	Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq ...

More…

Movies Like Cannibal Holocaust

The Dead

The Human Centipede II (F...

The Blair Witch Project

View All

Latest News for Cannibal Holocaust

September 22, 2010:

Ranking I'm Still Here Among the Great Film Hoaxes
Now that we know "I'm Still Here" was just a hoax, it's time to ask: Where does it rank among the...

View All