Why Research Cannibal Holocaust?

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On this edition of Parallax Views, film writer and critic Nathan Wardinski, author of Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust, joins me for a spooky season deep dive into one of the most infamous, controversial, and, perhaps, critically misunderstood films in horror history. We explore how Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust defies easy categorization within either progressive or conservative politics — a film that seeks to explode racist hierarchies even as it offers a bleak, reactionary view of human nature. For Deodato’s jungle nightmare, civilization itself is just a thin facade: whether “modern” or “primitive,” we are all savages beneath the surface.

Wardinski and I also unpack the film’s unique structure, the enduring myth that Deodato and his crew were tried for murder due to the film’s realism, and the strange, lifelong relationship the director had with his most notorious work. In the final portion of the conversation, we tackle one of the film’s most controversial aspects — the onscreen animal slaughter — clarifying the difference between slaughter and cruelty, and placing Cannibal Holocaust within a larger cinematic and cultural context where animals have been killed on camera, from ethnographic films to even mainstream television. Some of the portion of the discussion is in the earlier part of the conversation, but most of it is back-ended to the final 10 or so minutes for the benefit of listeners who may not want to hear about that aspect of the film due to the subject matter.

It’s a challenging conversation — one that asks uncomfortable questions about art, exploitation, and our own complicity as viewers.

Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - Track: "Exorcism"