Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 film from Italy, directed by Ruggero Deodato, running 96 minutes. reelscum files it under cannibal boom, video nasty and mondo.
- Year
- 1980 · 1980s films
- Country
- Italy
- Runtime
- 96 min
- Director
- Ruggero Deodato
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (6/100)
- Also known as
- Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust · Cannibal Holocaust
- Banned in
- UK · Italy · Australia
Defined in the glossary: Cannibal boom, Video nasty, Mondo
Seized in Italy with director Deodato charged over the killings staged on camera, a prosecuted DPP video nasty in Britain, and refused classification in Australia.
A serious film about media atrocity that committed real atrocity.
The one everybody has heard of, and the one that most resists a clean verdict.
Structurally it is decades ahead of itself: a rescue party recovers the footage shot by a missing documentary crew, and the film's second half is that footage, in which the crew turn out to have staged, burned and murdered their way through the material they claimed to be documenting. As a critique of the mondo tradition it came out of, it is sharp, and it invented found-footage horror on the way. Deodato was arrested on suspicion of having actually killed his actors and had to produce them alive in court to clear it.
And it kills six animals on camera, for real, in service of that argument. A coati, a turtle, a snake, a monkey, a tarantula, a pig. That is not a content warning, it is a description of what is on the tape. Deodato later said he regretted it. The scenes are still in the film, and the standard release cannot be watched around them.
Watch it if you're serious about the form's history. Don't watch it casually, and don't watch it to be impressed.
Trailer
The numbers
Nobody has rated this yet. Be the first to make a claim you'll have to defend.
Your call
Where to watch
Legal options in USA
Links open in a new tab (↗). Availability data via TMDB and changes constantly, so confirm on the service. Legal options only. Checked 8 Nov 2026. All options ↗
Discuss with AI
Open a chatbot with a question about this film already typed out. Useful for a second opinion, plot detail, or where to find a copy.
Written about
- Modern exploitation films after the drive-in and video
Modern exploitation films moved from the drive-in to the Palme d'or, the Academy Awards and streaming, and British censors still cut them today.
- Exploitation film examples, cycle by cycle
Exploitation film examples grouped cycle by cycle, from Freaks in 1932 to the video nasties, with the real dates, cut durations and censorship rulings.
- The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
- Mondo: the shockumentary, 1962 to 1978
An Oscar-nominated love ballad, a beach of dying sea turtles, a murder charge beaten before the film even opened, and a monkey brain made of cauliflower.
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
- The Italian cannibal cycle, 1977 to 1985
Eight years, a dozen films, one arrest, and a court appearance to prove the cast were still alive.
On these lists
- Notorious by reputation
Films whose legend outran them: banned, prosecuted, or argued about for forty years by people who mostly have not seen them.
Filed alongside
Cannibal Ferox
Lenzi chasing Deodato with none of the argument. Real animal deaths, no defence.
Mountain of the Cannibal God
The cannibal cycle in a dinner jacket, ex-Bond girl and real animal deaths included.
Anthropophagus
Almost entirely people walking around an island. Then two minutes of infamy.
Eaten Alive!
Lenzi recycling other films' footage into a Jonestown story. Grim work.
Cannibal Apocalypse
Vietnam veterans as cannibals. Sillier and kinder than the jungle cycle.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Almost bloodless, and still the most upsetting film here. The heat is the horror.
The Last House on the Left
Bergman's Virgin Spring, brutalised. Genuinely unpleasant and knows it. Tonally a mess.
The Evil Dead
Prosecuted in Britain. Actually a comedy, though it took years to admit it.
I Spit on Your Grave
The most argued-about film on this site. Read the glossary entry before deciding.
The Hills Have Eyes
Craven's meanest. The suburban family turn out to be the better killers.
Zombi 2
A zombie fights a shark. Fulci's splinter shot is still the worst thing here.
Tenebrae
Argento's coldest and cleverest. That crane shot earns its reputation.