Notorious "Video Nasty" Cannibal Holocaust Is Getting An Interactive Sequel On Switch

I still love and hate this movie.
I love it because it's one hell of a ride, with awesome directing.
It created the "found footage" genre in a brillant way.
It's also one gorgeous soundtrack, by Riz ortolani, that I listen to very regularly !

I hate it because they killed real animals in front of the camera.
It was different times, I know, but I can't watch the movie anymore because of that.
I really can't stand it.

I'm very curious and excited about this surprise video game sequel !

That’s very strange and unexpected. They are going to need to keep it at an M rating or it won’t sell though.

Might be an interesting curiousity. But like Herschell Gordon Lewis, most Ruggero Deodato films aren’t very good even for fans of exploitation films.

@Damo Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Let's be clear : I totally admire Ruggero Deodato as a director.
It was different times.

"Ultimo mondo cannibale", one of his other movies, is for me a total masterpiece. With an even better soundtrack than Cannibal Holocaust ! Here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LHfAMQHo7w
And no animals were killed in this one

I can see it now;
Nintendo will get involved and tell him to make it a U/PG then he'll rename it Cannibal Crossing and it will be about the spirits of the animals from the first film coming back for you to make amends by building them huts and gathering resources to make them comfortable....

It’s an insane movie but important regardless. Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting this on Switch of all consoles.

I bought Cannibal Holocaust on DVD, then Blu-Ray, but only seen it 1 time 20 years ago.

A Norwegian company were actually the first to release it remastered on DVD 20 years ago.
Anyways. I never expected a game of this.

At least they won’t kill any turtles this time around. Hopefully.

Actual animal killing aside (and I appreciate that's a huge caveat) it's a really well made film and certainly not one you'd forget. It's amusing that these days the human torture present in the film really isn't all that different to stuff you'd see in what are now very mainstream films (torture porn was massive for a while, Hostel, Saw etc).

This is certainly unexpected and not the sort of thing you'd have ever expected to see on a Nintendo console up until a few years ago. Whether it'll actually be a decent game of course remains to be seen, but I'm a big fan of horror in any form and am always up for any new horror games coming to Switch.

@Benji80 Give me a break, dude. Other than the animal killing, which has been addressed, is bad, even the director agrees, it's just a movie. You don't have to like it, you're free to consider it sick and reprehensible, but why should it be illegal?

@smashboy2000 the UK Blu ray thankfully is animal cruelty free, and apparently directors preferred cut, but at the same time it doesn't change that the animals were harmed during the making of the film.

Fantastic film, but the same as you, the animal killings make it something I'm not comfortable watching.

This film was banned in many Western countries for the extreme acts of animal cruelty and abuse captured on film, with audiences calling it "disgusting".

However, it was actually quite popular upon its initial release in China, with most of the audience agreeing that the movie "looked delicious!"

How is it the “fourth” chapter?
There is “jungle” and “Holocaust”... but was there a third?

I don't and will never condone the animal cruelty depicted in Cannibal Holocaust, but, aside from that, the film itself is fascinating, raw, and intelligent. One of the first prominent uses of the "found footage" conceit in cinema (predating its adoption in mainstream cinema by decades), and with a still very valid concern about cultural exploitation and the ways in which the media creates its own sense of reality.

Is this satire undermined by the exploitative nature of the film itself? Probably. This self-contradictory layer is another thing that makes this film so interesting.

I’d rather it just be released as Animal Crossing DLC.

I saw this movie in the mid 90’s ... I don’t remember being shocked or impressed.
I was probably to young as teenager to get how transgressive it was...

I don’t know how this could be a setup for a good game, anyway...

@smashboy2000 Same here. Watched it a long time ago (or at least tried to), can't even say if I myself still ate animals back then, it could be over 20 years ago already, but I vaguely recall something with a turtle and I was furious, in tears, and my stomach turned. Stopped watching that instant.

@Shambo Same here. On the exact same scene.
I took a one week break to resume the movie.

@FatHedgehog Best comment of the day 😂

WTF? Wow.. I actually own this movie on bluray(and Cannibal Ferox). It is indeed pretty sick and depressing.

Just when I think about the good things my country has to offer, the Internet has to remind me of just how flat-out weird Italy can be is.

Aww yes!! Now, we need a videogame about "Pasolini's 120 Days of Sodom" and another about "A Serbian Film"

I am a huge horror fan but I have never seen this because I go to movies for escapism. Watching someone kill/torture a turtle and monkey for real isnt escapism. i get it from an artistic point of view, he was trying to blur the lines between movie and reality, to make the audience think this was real but it sucks. Might give the UK blu ray a go, though, going off what @wraggadam1 said.

However, Deodatp does get way more hassle for animal abuse than respected directors like Jodorowsky, Herzog, Peckinpah and Tarkovsky do. And compared to our food chain, he's a saint.

Absolutely insane that theres a sequel coming to Switch. Reminds me though that Ubisoft's first game was an unofficial adaptation of "Dawn of the Dead" called "Zombi" which was the name Dawn was released under in most continental European countries. The Wii U game was an indirect sequel.

Literally who.

@rushiosan If only you had in your hands a way to find out...

Remember when Nintendo wouldn't allow anything not sqeaky clean and wholesome? This is the end times!

@Benji80 So you edit out the animal abuse. As someone else pointed out, a version of the film that does that exists and is actually the director's preferred version. We can't change what happened when the film was made, but taking out the offending footage and genuinely acknowledging it was wrong to do things that way seems sufficient to me. The director seems genuinely remorseful for having killed animals in his film.

@Emceehamster That hasn't been true for years though, at least since the Wii U days. The only thing it spells the end of is needless puritanism.

Parents are perfectly capable of monitoring what their children play, we don't need corporations making those decisions for us.

That will be a hard no for me, but hopefully they can pull off a decent game for the fans.

Interesting.
An EXCELLENT film, one of "the big ones", back when I was discovering Italian, "grindhouse" and "extreme" horror.
(Some Lucio Fulci movies would make for a good premise for a horror game too, games have certainly taken a lot of inspiration from him over the years)

As for those who are whining about the "animal cruelty" in the film, I hope you're also a vegan.
The animals killed in the movie were eaten by the natives, this was part of their diet.
The animals in the movie CERTAINLY didn't suffer as much as those in the meat industry/factory farms/dairy industry or the numerous other ways we regularly use animals for food and entertainment, but I guess you just don't want to see how the sausage is made, so to speak. (and I'm all for eating meat, just don't be a hypocrite)

Ah yes, the good old times when Mortal Kombat was free of blood and Night Trap would never be released on a Nintendo console.

Not my cup of tea at all, but interesting.

Love this film!!!!

@Emceehamster Pretty sure Nintendo dropped their family friendly requirements as soon as the ESRB became a thing around the time Mortal Kombat 2 came out. We've been in the end-times for about 25 years now.

I never imagined that something like this would happen but controversy aside, this is rather interesting.

@Impaler-D I haven't seen any of Fulci's movies except his unofficial sequel to Dawn Of The Dead and that film was kinda boring to me. Great special effects but I didn't find the movie as a whole remarkable. Were his other films better and what games specifically took inspiration from him?

@YorkshireNed I guess it's easier to hate on a exploitation director who isn't concerned with class and high-brow culture unlike Herzog, even though the animals in Nosferatu suffered a great deal more than anything this guy filmed.

@Elvie I'd say if you didnt like Zombie Flesh Eaters [aka Zombi 2] then you maybe just ain't gonna enjoy his other films but if you did want to try another go for "The Beyond" or "City of the Living Dead". Btw, worst film I ever saw was one Fulci walked away from at the start of filming, Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 [aka Zombi 3]. Amazingly bad

The effects were so convincing that it’s difficult to watch the movie. There’s even a male genital mutilation scene. Ouch!

I hate this film. Really makes me sick to watch. Interesting turn of events, though. Strange to make a sequel 40 years later in a different medium, but I suppose these are strange times we’re living in!

@smashboy2000 You really should condemn this movie for other reasons. It is an exploitation film. It portrays native people in a way that is incorrect. The animal butchery is an aspect you may not like seeing, but still takes place. I don't like this movie as it portrays native people as being "savages," which was/is far from truth. Maybe at it time in history it could be seen as a good film, but I feel it doesn't really hold up.

Not really that great of a film and the movie is/was more done for shock value, than anything else. There are portrayals of abuse in the movie, which I wouldn't like to see in a game. Really, the movie is just a "Gore" flick. I hope they can actually make a good game from the concept.

@TomKnows Well, as for the native side, I don't take it as a documentary but more as a fantasy. A nightmare fantasy. "What if" this kind of people existed.
That was the purpose of the filmakers and that's what I expect when I start to watch this kind of movie.

But really, this movie is difficult for me but most of the others from Deodato don't have this kind of problems. Ultimo Mondo Cannibale is great from A to Z !

Perhaps the most shocking and most impressive horror movies I've ever seen. It's a genius movie with very unfortunate scenes of animal cruelty

@Impaler-D I can't speak for all the people complaining, but I definitely am a vegan. But even those who aren't should at least feel very uneasy watching those scenes. Obviously, instead of just complaining while consuming probably several "products" of any industry you mentioned a day, they should indeed question and change their ways to exclude supporting the systematic abuse of animals RIGHT NOW, EVERYWHERE. And then be vocal about cruelty right now, not that of, what, 40 years ago... That way, the suffering and death of some in the past, would prevent the useless suffering and death of many in the present, which arguably could make their suffering less senseless. I still can't watch it though.