From the mind of Eli Roth… GREEN INFERNO (2013)!
An homage to the controversial Ruggero Deodato classic ‘Cannibal
Holocaust’, the film follows a group of student activists that travel
from New York City to the Amazon to save a dying tribe but crash in the
jungle and are taken hostage by the very natives they protected.
Currently in post-production, the film was shot in an Amazonian village with no
contact to the outside world. As a result the natives were unaware that
film or television even existed, and in order to solidify permission to
shoot, Roth and the producers would use generators to show the
Amazonian’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980). Thinking it was a comedy, the
natives loved the film and all of them agreed to the filming as well as
portraying cannibals in the upcoming release.
May 7, 1939
On this day in Horror History,
Ruggero Deodato was born in Potenza, Italy. Arguably one of the most
controversial directors of all time, Deodato’s 1980 Cult Film Cannibal
Holocaust would solidify his place as one of the most misunderstood
and infamous film-makers in the annals of the horror industry. The film
itself has been banned in more than 40 countries worldwide in the last
33 years and even resulted in Deodato being charged with murder for
sending the stars of the to their merciless deaths. Depicting the “Found
Footage” of documentary film-makers that face unspeakable horrors in
the Amazonian Rainforest at the hand of cannibalistic tribes, it would
garner quite the reaction upon its debut. Prior to the film’s release,
Deodato would require the actors to sign a contract agreeing to be
sequestered as to add to the realism that the film was the recovered
footage of their death. It turned out to be more believable than
intended, as it would not be until Deodato requested their presence in
the court hearings that his murder charges would be dropped.
Regardless of your beliefs and how you feel about the choices made by
the renowned director, there is little doubt that his unique and
powerful prowess in film evokes an unsettling terror that few in the
industry could ever hope to achieve.
“I make films that people
call "horror" because I want to make films about real things that
happen in the world, and most real things aren't very nice.” - Ruggero
Deodato
