MovieChat Forums > Cannibal Holocaust (1985) Discussion > Should be renamed to "Animal Holocaust"

Should be renamed to "Animal Holocaust"


The movie was just one massive genocide of all creatures great and small and nothing more than that.

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It's f.cking despicable. This is would be an amazing film, but those scenes, yeah, f.ck that, I can't look past them, it's absolute bullsh.t. There was absolutely no reason not to use effects for those scenes or if you REALLY can't afford it then just MAYBE not put them in the film? They aren't even the most shocking scenes, so that makes them completely pointless too.

"Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

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I guess it speaks to a general atmosphere where so many people value animals over their own species. The director sounds like a real unsavory character if a self aware one; I find it hard to appreciate his movie magic trick when he was such an *beep* pulling it off. I guess i like the idea of interspersing all this authentic death between the faux carnage, confusing everybody about what they are even watching but its a ghastly thing to actually go through with it IRL. Its more carny act than valid statement, other than 'I'm a clever a$$hole'. Like he knew exactly how he was playing everybody, having the actors sign an agreement not to appear in anything for a year after the film just to fool everyone into believing the whole thing was real. Part of me admires his balls and part of me thinks 'what a *beep*'

The only animal death that felt inexcusable was the Tortoise; those things live longer than we do.

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All creatures? That's quite an overstatement there.

Don't put the devil in the picture, cause' the religious groups won't wanna see it.

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I belief that depiction of animal killings was intended and meant to be highly symbolic. Although I also belief that the actual killing of animals was rather cruel and unnecessary. This makes the symbolic nature of this film almost ironical.


To begin, the murder of the turtle has a very high degree of significance. If you notice, the men are happy and content when killing the turtle, but the woman begins to throw up. She is experiencing an emotional discomfort which causes the physical effect of vomiting. Therefore, this scene is essentially meant to illustrate how humans are not meant to kill animals, it is something that should cause use emotional and physical discomfort. This is further supported by the other scene where another animal is killed. During the killing of the pig, the guy who shoots the pig yells excited "In the jungle,its daily violence of the strong overcoming the weak!" Therefore illustrating the fact, and clearly articulating it, that they were killing not for any reason other than to attain some feeling of superiority. That mentality is not entirely fictional, if you think about it even the mere eating of "steak" is considered to be a symbol of status in present, modern society.

Thus, the acts in the movie have some highly symbolic philosophical value, which then makes the killing of real animals almost ironic; which makes the film maker a twisted genius, or a completely delusional and self-unaware individual. The whole premise of the film is a based around the complete lack of empathy and the prioritization of film over human life and compassion. During the scene when there is a giant spider on the woman's shoulder, the on of the guys actually instructs the other to leave it and film it. Then during the first rape scene, the woman film maker observing the rape of another woman completely disregards any feelings of empathy, but instead becomes jealous the moment its her boyfriend doing the raping and begins yelling that it should not be filmed because it is a waste of film rolls. So then, during the movie the people filming continuously value the film footage over human life and empathy. Thus then, the killing of real animals makes the intention of the film somewhat puzzling. For in their absence, it would have made a good advertisement for animal rights and the preservation of life. But in their presence, it illustrates the film maker as an intellectual capable of illustrating animal cruelty as akin to rape and murder, but sadistic enough to commit them for himself for the very purpose of attaining some "real" footage; which was the moral fault of the characters in the movie.

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" National Lampoon's Animal Holocaust"

If it does not scary you know movie will- IMDB user

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Are people purposefully missing the point in this thread just for sake of argument?

We are not upset about the depiction of cruelty to humans in this film because it was fake. The animals are really being killed on camera, for entertainment purposes.

Also, it is NOT the case, as someone has stated here, that the animals would have been killed anyway, and they just recorded it for the movie's realism. The animals were captured and killed in order to get the shot for the movie. In fact, the spider monkey scene was done twice, killing 2 animals because the director wasn't happy with the first take!

If we're talking about the movie's plot, then yes. The animal death is depicted as either for food or in defence of themselves. So, the human torture and murder is worse.

But in the context of MAKING a movie, there's NOTHING to debate about whether it's right or wrong to have characters in a story killed. It's just a story. This depiction may be more realistic than most, but it's still FX, still simulated - as the animal killing should have been!

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EXACTLY!

People are like "well what about the humans"? Well, they weren't killed so what is the point? They did a very good job with the special effects when it came to the human deaths, why did they have to actually kill the animals?

I knew which animals were going to be killed so I fast forwarded during those scenes (it was the actual animal deaths that kept me from watching the movie years ago), but the spider monkey one still took me by surprise.

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I am just wondering why people find the animal deaths in this movie so despicable, when so many other movies kill animals much more recklessly. While I can't say that the animal deaths in this movie are a pleasure to watch, I think that there was supposed to be a point to them. What about all the dead fish and squid from Pirates of the Caribbean 1 because when they set off explosions they didn't protect marine life? The alleged 27 animals that died making The Hobbit? The donkey in Manderlay? Apocalypse Now I think is most comparable as the buffalo was going to be sacrificed anyway and in CH the natives did use the animals which were killed.

I just think that there are so many movies that have harmed animals, I don't get why this one is so bad compared to others.

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[deleted]

The allegations were about conditions on the farm where they were housed I think.

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[deleted]

Are you entirely stupid? Pirates of the Caribbean was probably filmed in a freaking POOL! The buffalo in Apocalypse Now was being slaughtered by a ritual tribe nearby the filming set and wasn't intended to be filmed for the movie. I don't know about these other occurrences but I'm sure even if they did happen that it wasn't in anyway intentional. The moron creators of Cannibal Holocaust purposely filmed animals being slaughtered with sole intention to make money off it, not for any other reasoning, and having no respect even if some of those animals might be endangered, or may be in the future (eg. the sea turtle, if that was even what it was). The individuals who made the decision to kill those animals should have been put in jail, or fined, big time.

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If I meet this ruggero deodato dude I would punch him in the face, I hate animal cruelty.

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Even though I get why some people would be upset about it, I don't think this should be a reason to judge people who don't share this opinion. I personally don't enjoy the fact that we see real animal killings per say, it still doesn't stop me from enjoying the movie. Plus, the fact that he the animals were eaten by the crew kinda make it less bad.

And how then call the movie "trash" or "crap" in a condensed way just because you didn't enjoy the movie is not really fair. The movie is technically revolutionary in its way.

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ITS THE TRUTH...

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