Cannibal Holocaust (1980): How Bad is the Animal Cruelty?
 

I recently saw Eli Roth's The Green Inferno. Decent film. Got me in the mood to watch a couple of cannibal movies.

Obviously the most famous is Cannibal Holocaust. I kinda wanna watch it, known about it for years and I haven't sat down to watch it for one reason....
The animal cruelty!!

Now, I'm fine with gore in movies. Heads exploding and skins flayed, all that stuff I'm fine with. Mostly because I know it's fake but I heard that the animal cruelty in Cannibal Holocaust was real.
For people who've seen it, how bad, graphic and long are these scenes?

I don't really feel like watching a movie were animals are killed for my "entertainment".
Is the rest of the film good enough to sit through the animal cruelty???
::wink::

I watched some of Cannibal Holocaust, and yes, real animals are killed for your viewing entertainment. One in particular was a knifed little coatimundi varmint, which was unnecessary - wasn't required for food. There were 6 real animals killed on camera. The scenes are about "average length of time", I don't think their duration will matter, rather their inclusion. I'd suggest you can live quite well without seeing the film. As I haven't sat through the whole thing, I can't be definitive, except that it seemed a rather murky feature.

The animal cruelty is vile,i would happily love to watch the film without it.The turtle scene especially is haunting and anyone who thinks it is fine needs to see a quack,it isn't.

The film itself is very good in my opinion,the music unsettling and for most part the actors believable,though some of the human kills by the cannibals are exaggerated but what would you expect from natives.

Overall a good movie to watch,just fast forward the unnecessary animal stuff,that's what i do.I don't need to see such stuff to enjoy a movie.

There are versions of the film with the animal cruelty parts cut out floating around, if that would satisfy.

I feel that's tha kinda thing that makes that flick iconic, next level horror.
Is it right? Is it humane to toture and kill other living creatures for our entertainment? No...... To me it's acceptable tho....Don't be callin' ALF on me!
Animals are used for lots of stuff...I mean where's line?

Won't watch the movie because of the animal cruelty.

**SPOILERS**

Don't read this if you want to watch the film and get the full, shocking effect. A film like this, you can only experience once for the first time.

...

No animals are really tortured, but several are killed, although you could make a case that the tortoise didn't suffer the quickest of deaths.

One is a snake slowly squeezing a small mammal to death -- something you might see on Animal Planet. Another is a little monkey thing gets the top of its head chopped off and a native slurps the brains out. (Two were actually killed in the shooting of the scene.) The tortoise scene is the most infamous, where natives dissect a giant tortoise and eat its guts. I think there might also be a giant lizard killed and eaten, but I might be thinking of a different cannibal film.

None of these bothered me too much from a moral standpoint because they all represented natural occurrences, or natives killing animals to eat. I'm not a vegetarian, and I accept the fact that animals kill other animals. However, they were pretty gross, the tortoise scene being downright nauseating. The actress in the scene seems quite affected, and as it turns out, she was pretty traumatized.

The one animal death that I did find shocking was when one of the actors playing a documentarian shot a pig for no reason while going on a rampage. This was shocking because it was not a documentary-like capture of an animal death for the purpose of eating, but rather a story element written into the narrative. (However, I'd be surprised if the natives didn't eat the animal off camera, as it's clearly one of their livestock raised for food.) I also found it unsettling that it involved an actor waving around a loaded gun, and actually firing it, and actually killing something. Regardless of what you think of the animal death, this is exactly the type of scene that makes this film so effective, and at times you start considering the possibility that other parts of the film are real.

Everyone always points out the animal deaths as being the most exploitative and unnecessary part of this film. However, there is a scene where video footage of *real human deaths* is being viewed, but in the script, the video is described as fake (which isn't true). This is actually part of the brilliance of the film. The viewer never knows for sure what's real and what's fake, and the overall effect is unnerving.

If you are interested in being shocked, I recommend seeing this film. All the other Italian cannibal films have similar animal death scenes, but this one is so much better than the rest in its writing, acting, social commentary, and effective, purposeful use of exploitation. It's also perhaps the first film that explores a found footage technique.

You make a couple of good points. The natives at least used the animals for food just like I would with a chicken.
Maybe I will watch the movie and if the cruelty seems too much I'll just skip ahead.
I remember a scene towards the end of Apocalypse Now when the natives cut up a cow. I wasn't that upset by that even though I was a little shocked so maybe Cannibal Holocaust won't be so bad.... Maybe!

I am a meat eater but do not like to see an animal killed.I know it happens but i do not wish to see it.Humans however i couldn't give a shit.::big grin::

I've heard of it and I'm aware of the animal cruelty in it, and that's why I've never watched it. I can't. I'd either be in tears or ill.