MovieChat Forums > Cannibal Holocaust (1985) Discussion > I love that the opening score really doe...

I love that the opening score really does not match the tone of the film.


I always felt it was pure genius. Riz Ortolani opening score is sweet, gentle if you listen to it on it's own you would expect it's taken directly from a family film or a moving drama but it definitely is not lol I think the score makes the film even more disturbing. The fact that the images and the lovely score does not belong together makes the all thing even more uncomfortable. It's like the red and green combination on Freddy's sweater in a Nightmare on Elm Street, two things that should not be together, it's really unsettling for an audience. Credit to the composer and director to come up with that ..

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It is a moving and beautiful opening theme
I play it in my house pretty often
I just dont tell the family where its from ;)

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Hahaha Don't, especially if your kids are young...or have a pet turle...

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I just watched it for the first time today. Loved the soundtrack! I downloaded the main theme and the theme that plays when the cannibals massacre the film crew.

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It is an unusual and interesting combination, adding something beautiful to something so horrible, creating an amazing effect in film making.

Reminds me a lot of the opening to Rescue Dawn, see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp-NAkZNHBc

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The score itself on its own is very dark with its use of the deeper lower sound and fits this film perfectly as the film as a whole symbolizes the romantic beauty of the wildness of man, without this score the film would not be able to say fully what it says, even as a 8 tyear old kid when I watched it the first time, I knew this film was not some horror film that is supposed to scare people, far from it, and even 30 years later as a raw vegan, a spiritual yogi and a deep lover of animals and in service of God, this film for me still examplifies the true beauty of the anarchic spirit and the conscious existence living within all things, material or immaterial, and that includes death, rape, rage, etc, Ruggero Deodato himself was also not satisfied when some people labelled this as a horror, to me it is a severe misinterpretation and self projection, the film shows darkness as indelible part of the nature, the film goes much further than just a social commentary, it shows paralells between materialism and nature, and how only a material world can judge the nature, not vice versa, and that's what this film does to this day, it sets up a mirror on the society that is weak enough to judge it. The nature is wild, just like the universe-God, it does not judge, it does whatever it needs to happen, only a man (the viewer of the film) is capable to make moral adjustments, even though morality itself is man-made based on social consciousness. In a society that is programmed a different set of values impregnates a different set of moral values. There is no good or bad in the universe, which is fully neutral, ignorant, empty and ever loving. If this film did not include real animal killings, which are extremely necessary for the philosophical purpose of the whole film, it would not be able to use the same parallels as a film, it uses it to unlock the subconscious, is the nature mind speaking, or the material mind when viewing scenes that are part of the nature? Is it entertaining ideas that a film should not use such scenes, that killings should be fake? Why? A film is supposed to create a feeling that it is all real, if it can not convince the spoiled mind that can't handle real violence, it is perhaps the time for the cinema to start using real killings of humans and animals, so the mind and the heart can start to feel again. The men could ask themselves, am I trying to watch as much edgy films as possible so I could feel as deeply as possible? And when they watch something like this film, they are disgusted or can't handle it. This film actually provides that internal conversation, to ask ourselves what we feel, and why we feel it. Notice how many people love films more because of how much they make them feel. This film can also remind us of what reality really is, an illusion, a matrix, which we all live in, it is all fake, the film is fake too, as well as the real killings, what is the difference? The difference lies in the separated hypo-critical condition of the mind, its ultimate separation from God.

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Hahaha I always thought the same thing. Actually, my mother heard the score and she thought it was beautiful. She asked me where it came from, I simply answered: "A movie you most definitely don't want to see!"

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'Riz Ortolani opening score is sweet, gentle if you listen to it on it's own you would expect it's taken directly from a family film or a moving drama but it definitely is not lol I think the score makes the film even more disturbing. The fact that the images and the lovely score does not belong together makes the all thing even more uncomfortable.'

Absolutely, it was used to great effect.

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