One of the first found-footage horror movies is also among the most notorious: Cannibal Holocaust led to its director being arrested for suspicion of murder.
Uniquely structured, Cannibal Holocaust is presented as a movie-within-a-movie, with the meat of the film being a faux documentary about a missing film crew meant to appear as real as possible. Actual animals were killed onscreen, making the fake deaths of the human characters more believable. To help sell the illusion, the actors' contracts included a provision that they wouldn't appear in other movies, TV shows, or ads for a year's time.
The high degree of verisimilitude came back to haunt director Ruggero Deodato, who was arrested by Italian authorities shortly after Cannibal Holocaust's February 1980 premiere in Milan on charges of obscenity and suspicion of making a snuff film. The fact that the actors seemed to have really disappeared complicated Deodato's defense, which ended up needing to be surprisingly robust. Deodato demonstrated the movie's special effects, showed behind-the-scenes photos, and brought actors from the movie into the public eye to avoid prison.
The real animal killings still led to the film being banned by Italian authorities, a judgment that was echoed by Australia, Norway, Finland, and New Zealand. Australian customs authorities confiscated copies of the film, and other countries, such as the U.K., only allowed the movie to be released in censored form.
YOU ARE READING
Horror movies banned for being too disturbing
RandomFollow me for more threads✨❤️ ADD ME ON MY FB ACCOUNT FOR MORE INTERESTING THREADS🖤
