Written by: Sam Santiago
We’re known as TRULY DISTURBING for a reason, and one of the very few films that has ever truly earned that label from us as horror fans is Ruggero Deodato’s infamous Cannibal Holocaust. We still remember the very first time we saw it. It was years ago while working at Feedback Records in Covina, California, during one lonely afternoon shift. The shop was practically dead silent except for the occasional stray punk rocker or street kid wandering in just to kill time and see what weirdness we had lying around.
Somebody handed us a VHS tape with no label on it. No artwork. No warning. Nothing.
We popped it into the VCR expecting some forgotten exploitation flick and instead got hit with something that felt genuinely dangerous. We were shocked, sickened, disturbed, and somehow completely unable to look away. That’s what Cannibal Holocaust did to us all those years ago. It crawled under our skin and stayed there. If you are an animal lover, this film is definitely a hard watch.
WATCH THE TRAILER FOR CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST BELOW
Now a whole new generation of horror fans will get the chance to experience that same uncomfortable descent into madness the way it was meant to be seen: on the big screen.
Ruggero Deodato’s cannibal classic Cannibal Holocaust is officially headed back to theaters nationwide courtesy of Grindhouse Releasing in a newly restored special edition presentation. Originally released in 1980, the controversial film remains one of the most notorious and influential horror movies ever made, inspiring decades of found footage terror long before The Blair Witch Project made the format mainstream.
Grindhouse Releasing recently premiered the new restoration at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles and is now booking exclusive theatrical screenings ahead of the film’s upcoming 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release.
For those somehow unfamiliar with the film’s legacy, Cannibal Holocaust follows the recovered footage of four young documentary filmmakers who vanish deep within the South American jungle while shooting a documentary about cannibal tribes. Months later, their footage is discovered and what unfolds is still one of the most brutal, nihilistic, and psychologically punishing horror experiences ever put to film.
This newly restored version reportedly presents the footage fully uncensored and restored to its original 16mm aspect ratio for the very first time.
Grindhouse Releasing warns that “Cannibal Holocaust is now more disturbing than ever,” calling it “the ultimate version of Deodato’s controversial masterpiece.”
“It’s a whole new and perhaps even more powerful experience watching the movie this way, with the alternating aspect ratios,” said Grindhouse Releasing owner Bob Murawski, the Academy Award-winning editor behind Send Help. “This is essentially the same way we constructed Orson Welles’ long unfinished masterpiece The Other Side of the Wind.”
Tickets are already on sale for select screenings at Alamo Drafthouse locations beginning Friday, May 29, starting at the Alamo Drafthouse City Foundry in St. Louis.
Love it or hate it, Cannibal Holocaust remains one of the most talked about horror films ever made. It’s ugly, mean spirited, controversial, and absolutely impossible to forget. Even now, over four decades later, the film still feels dangerous in a way modern horror rarely dares to be.
