Shockumentary.

Shockumentary
Just like books, there are many different genres of film. Documentaries are the non-fiction substitute in film, and just like books there is a genre for realistic fiction. In the movie industry this genre is known as “mockumentary.” Mockumentaries present information in a documentary-like format, which often include accurate portrayals of content that at face-value would not necessarily appear to be fictional. While some say mockumentaries are merely a form of a hoax, others believe they are valuable situations. Mockumentaries often introduce new and innovative ways of thinking about society and its constructs. Some mockumentaries may contain extremely satirical possibilities in which to critique certain aspects of popular culture. Filmmakers use this genre as a strategy in shocking and challenging the audience’s perceptions of reality (Hobbs).
The film Cannibal Holocaust is a mockumentary that defies accepted standards of decency and morality. This Italian horror film was released in 1980 and directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Stars of the film include Luca Barbareschi, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen, Carl Gabriel Yorke, and Robert Kerman. The film received much critique and controversy for disturbing scenes of human torture and the inhumane treatment of animals (Bierly).
The plot of Cannibal Holocaust displays a documentary within another documentary. The film begins as a television documentary covering the disappearance of a film crew on an expedition in the Amazon rainforest. An anthropologist named Professor Monroe leads a rescue team from New York to the jungle in search for the missing crew, and after several disturbing events involving the native tribe, only recovers a few reels of film. The missing crew was in the process of documenting a native tribe, and the footage the crew captured is viewed by the television station that sponsored the trip. At first the footage seems reasonable to air, but it is soon discovered the beginning reels were initially staged by the missing crew in the Amazon. Professor Monroe is outraged by this and encourages the television station to view the rest of the footage before airing the documentary. The next few reels of film depict unedited footage of the jungle, and the events are so unsettling that the television station decides to burn the footage instead of airing it.
The events that take place in the jungle spur the most controversy from viewers. To begin, Monroe’s journey is shocking in itself. In the jungle he meets three different tribes, the Yacumo, the Yanomamo, and the Shamatari. One of the first things he sees is the punishment of a Yacumo wife by her husband for committing adultery. The scene depicts the Yacumo husband brutally raping the wife until she dies. Monroe goes back to the village and continues on with his search for the missing crew. He helps the Yanomamo escape an attack from the Shamatari and befriends the tribe. Monroe then gains the trust of the tribe and discovers the missing crew’s film in a shrine. The Yanomamo agree to trade the reels of film in return for Monroe’s tape player.
Monroe leaves the jungle and goes back to New York where he views the footage of the missing crew. The film starts off by showing the death of one of the crew members by the bite of a poisonous snake, which is then killed with a machete. The crew is disrespectful of the Yacumo people and shoots one of the tribesmen in the leg so he will walk slower so they can more easily find the village. Once in the village, the crew members force many Yacumo into a hut and set it on fire in order to stage what would appear to be an attack from a neighboring tribe. The film also shows a disturbing ritual in which the tribe forcibly aborts a baby from a pregnant woman.
The film continues to show the gang-rape of a young Yanomamo girl by the male members of the crew. When the female crew member attempts to stop them, they rape her as well. The tribe finds out about the young girl and impales her with a wooden pole because of her sexual impurity. The tribe then attacks the crew members and strikes one with a spear. Instead of running to his aid, another male crew member shoots his injured peer in order to have the opportunity to film the tribe castrating, disemboweling, cooking and eating the corpse of his friend. The tribe then captures the female crew member, rapes her, and beheads her. Luckily the remaining two crew members capture this footage on camera before they are found and brutally die as well (Jackson).
All these events are explicitly illustrated in the film and leave nothing to the imagination. The scenes are brutal, grotesque, and horrifying, especially to those not akin to viewing graphic horror films. Apart from the human torture, a particularly upsetting part of the film is the amount of animal cruelty. During the course of the film, seven animals were killed, six of them onscreen (Berg, 41). A coatimundi is stabbed in the neck by an actor, and a pig is kicked then shot with a gun. A spider and snake are killed with a machete; two monkeys are also killed with a machete, one occurring onscreen by having its face cut off. The most violent slaughter is that of a sea turtle, in which it is captured and decapitated. The actors then rip the living flesh from its pried open shell and then eat it.
The authenticity of the animal slaughters led many viewers to believe that the human killings were also real. Rumors began to circulate that Deodato had produced a “snuff” film, in which people are actually killed on screen. “In January 1981, a French magazine, Photo, published an article entitled ‘Grand Guignol Cannibale’ which suggested that people may actually have been killed during the making of Cannibal Holocaust” (Petley, 174). Because of pressure from the director Deodato, cast members were encouraged not to share information about how the special effects were executed. Viewers believed that along with the four main cast members, the young girl had actually been impaled with a pole on screen, even though later she revealed the method used to produce the visual effect. Deodato was arrested ten days after the film’s release on account of obscenity charges, where he faced life in prison for the murder of the actors in the film. He had to prove in Italian court that he had not killed anyone during filming. He was finally able to contact all the actors, and they appeared on television in order to prove that they were alive and well. He also had to reveal his visual effect secrets to the public as evidence. Charges were eventually dropped (Morgan, 561).
However, his problems were not yet over. The plan to release the film straight-to-video in order to avoid banning did not work in Deodato’s favor. On February 8, 1980, just four weeks after the release of Cannibal Holocaust in Milan, the Italian magistrate seized copies of the film and prohibited its sale. Due to an old law outlawing bull-fighting, the government was able to ban the film because it contained animal cruelty for what they classified as “entertainment purposes.” This not only prohibited sale of the film, but advertising, promotions, and other factors were cut short. Deodato along with his coworkers received punishment and were suspended from work for four months.
The film was also banned in Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Norway and several other countries, although most have since been lifted. In Britain the film was banned under the Obscene Publications Act, more infamously known as the Video Nasties Act, and also later the Video Recordings Act of 1984. It wasn’t until 2001 that the British Board of Film Classification finally lifted the ban of Cannibal Holocaust, providing that the film was cut short by almost six minutes (Morgan). This ban lasted 18 years and the prohibited film has cut out most of the animal violence and sexual torture.
Supporters of the film Cannibal Holocaust believe that it is either a frightful work of art or a valuable social commentary. The film asks many questions about our society, including considering what is civilized versus uncivilized, and what is actually right and wrong (Carter). The purpose of the film is to compare Western culture to the culture of cannibals. In the movie, the “civilized” Westerners behave just as, if not more, inhumanely as the cannibal tribes. The crew members brutally slaughter animals, take advantage of the native people, and are completely disloyal to the rest of their party. Even though the film is grotesque, there is a deeper meaning that can be taken from viewing it.
The answer to why the film is banned is obvious. Sexual exploitation and violence, animal cruelty, and graphic human disemboweling and castration all contribute to reasons for why the film is inappropriate and unsuitable for many audiences. Many countries have warned the public about the graphic nature of the film by labeling it with an “NC-17” rating. The “NC-17” rating is equivalent to the rating “X,” and recognized that content of the film is deemed not suitable for people under seventeen years of age.
I do not think that the violence depicted in the film would be any type of “gateway media,” like that of violent video games, to younger viewers. The scenes are not glamorized in any way, and the mood is unsettling. However, the violence is so disturbing and graphic that younger and even older audiences would be horrified and sickened. I would think that watching this film in my adolescence would certainly upset me and possibly give me nightmares. This is definitely not a film for a young audience, and so the restricted “NC- 17” rating of the film is appropriate.
I think that Deodato’s film exceeds limits for appropriateness and centers its efforts around being a “shockumentary” rather than a mockumentary. The shock value of the film somewhat overrides the social commentary. The most memorable parts of the movie are not the message of what it means to be civilized, but the visually and mentally disturbing scenes displayed throughout the film. The unethical treatment of animals in the film also raises many concerns. It is a personal choice of whether it is appropriate to kill an animal for a film. Even if people support this, many of those people may not agree that it is appropriate to violently slaughter animals on-screen.
The question still remains: Should this film be banned? Is the message worth sitting through the gore? I strongly believe that this film should not be banned. Nevertheless, I think that this film is not for everyone; there is only a small audience of people that would be able to stomach and appreciate this movie at its full potential. If you are not a horror fan, have an easily upset stomach, are an animal lover, or are extremely offended, you probably will not enjoy this movie in any way. As a fan of gory movies, Cannibal Holocaust is the most brutal film I have ever sat through, and I don’t think there are many, if any, other movies currently available that would exceed the gore-factor of this film. However, Deodato’s new film, Cannibals, is currently in post-production and its release is approaching in 2010. I am curious to see the extent of violence in his film since animal cruelty laws have been put into place. I am excited to see if his new film, a sequel to Cannibal Holocaust, can live up to its hype and controversy.

Works Cited
Berg, Chris. "Have Bad Movies Edged out Good?" Rev. of Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics, by Jeffery Sconce. IPA Review July 2008: 41-43.Www.ipa.org.au. Web.
Bierly, Mandy. "The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever." Entertainment Weekly June 2006. Web. 22 Apr. 2010.
Carter, David. "Cannibal Holocaust." Savage Cinema The #1 Cult Web Zine. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. .
Jackson, Neil. "Cannibal Holocaust, realist horror, and reflexivity." Post Script. (Vol. 21). .3 (Summer 2002): p32. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Ball State University. 22 Apr. 2010.
Jauregui, Carolina G. ""Eat It Alive and Swallow It Whole!": Resavoring Cannibal Holocaust as a Mockumentary." Invisible Culture 7 (2004). University of Rochester. Web.
Morgan, Ed. "Cannibal Holocaust: Digesting and Re-Digesting Law and Film." Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 16.555 (2007): 555-70. USC Research Computing Facility. Web. 22 Apr. 2010.
Petley, Julian. "Cannibal Holocaust and the Pornography of Death." The Spectacle of the Real: from Hollywood to 'reality' TV and beyond. By Geoff King. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2005. 173-86. Print.