Who Is Ruggero Deodato´s Cannibal Holocaust?

In today’s modern era, a lot of people would go on record and say that The Blair Witch Project was the originator of the found footage genre. While Blair Witch was groundbreaking at the time, it did not compare to its graphically grueling predecessor known as Ruggero Deodato's 1980 cult classic, Cannibal Holocaust. As the definitive predecessor, Cannibal Holocaust paved the way for films to be made in found footage fashion and taken seriously, providing multiple influences for filmmakers to recreate throughout time. Cannibal Holocaust is about an anthropologist that leads a rescue team to the South American jungle in search of a missing team of four American filmmakers that were documenting footage of cannibal tribes, only to return with a film that features extreme acts of disturbing, inhumane content. Upon reviewing this found footage as told in the second narrative of the film, the audience shockingly witness the American
filmmakers actually committing a majority of these despicable, cruel acts against animals to the people of the jungle tribe in the process. However, it is not so much what these characters are doing, but more who they are as people. Found footage films in today’s world have followed a similar pattern of having virtually unlikable characters perform degrading acts throughout a plot, typically casting one or two, self-absorbed men and a woman who will still partake in the men’s activities while being the voice of reason.
Take The Blair Witch Project for example. Throughout the exhibition into the forest, Heather is constantly ridiculed by her two guy friends as the tension increases and in the end, Heather is trying to protect them from not just the unknown, but from themselves. Meanwhile Heather’s guy friends continue to tell her to either to relax, back off, or she is crazy. This influencing trend of characters could be said for Cannibal Holocaust’s cast as Faye Daniels’s character is persistently abused both mentally and physically by her guy friends throughout the documentary. On top of that, Faye’s voice is basically ignored in favor of her team’s cruel intentions, but continues to stick with them until her very death because she still cared about their
wellbeing. Moving right along from the characters to the overall atmosphere of this horror film provided by the POV camera work. Traditionally, the art of the camera work is a cornerstone of found footage films since the moments that mean the most are the ones that hold on the “payoff” scenes. 2012’s Project X utilized this method to a tee in this over-the-top, college comedy. While Project X as a whole is less to be desired, the camera work is actually done well in certain points. The mischievous teens record the outrageous shenanigans that ensue, such as filming one of their friends finally touching a woman for the first time at their party in an attempt to become more popular amongst their peers at school and keeping their camera fixed on the best parts in order to wrack in the viewership. The same could be said for the camera strategy that Cannibal Holocaust employs. The team is solely focused on capturing the utter destruction of their fallen teammates all for the sake of attention, fixated on the possible outcome of fame to follow. The two scenarios may differ in many ways, but it is the goal of both directors that remains the same. Keeping the camera work steady and locked on the big moments is what can make these found footage films impactfully whether in a comedic feel or in a horror sense. In conclusion, Ruggero Deodato truly broke the mold when he brought Cannibal Holocaust into existence. The tropes presented in this film have now shaped the found footage genre and the technique as a whole. In a way, Cannibal Holocaust was an anomaly that could not be duplicated, but could certainly be imitated and it shows in a variety of found footage films to follow.