Turtle Soup Anyone? CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST Midnights This Weekend at The Tivoli

“Would you like people to make money off your misery?”

I can’t believe I’m getting the opportunity to see Ruggero Deodato’s CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST on the big screen again for the third time in 10 years. I have a history with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. It was made in 1980 but never played theatrically here in St. Louis. Notorious for its realistic and barbaric violence (and also for the on-screen killing of real animals) it was too rough for even Fangoria to cover and I only read about it in some of the fanzines that I subscribed to later in the decade. That’s where I first laid eyes on some mind-blowing images like the one of the woman impaled on a pole — through her vagina and out her mouth! (I’m still not sure how they faked that….if they faked that!).

Finally, in 1988 I attended my first Fangoria Weekend of Horrors. Chas Balun, the late editor of Deep Red Magazine was set up there and sold me a 5^th-generation dupey VHS of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. It looked like crap and I couldn’t make out what was going on half the time, but at least I was able to see it. So what has made this the controversial film it is today? And what makes it extremely hard to watch? Well, there’s plenty of graphic cannibalism for starters and the aforementioned animal cruelty including one scene that I just couldn’t watch where they mutilate a giant turtle after decapitating it. This is all real, as far as the animal scenes go. A monkey is also killed, and a pig is shot, but the turtle is by far one of the most graphic scenes in the film. Then try and stomach about five rape scenes. Followed by an abortion – tribal style, and genital mutilation. It’s extremely hard to stomach, but you keep watching because it all really is compelling stuff, and Riz Ortolani’s haunting score is amazing. All the acting is surprisingly good, actually. You’d expect it to be terrible, but it’s not.

I was able to upgrade my copies of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST over the years and about ten years ago, the Tivoli ran it at their Reel late at the Tivoli midnight show. Then about three years ago, the Destroy the Brain guys ran it at their Late Night Grindhouse show at the Hi-Pointe. Earlier this year, I upgraded my DVD to Blu-ray.

Because of the animal ‘snuff’ stuff, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is a film that it is impossible to either praise or ignore without taking a moral point-of-view on it. The turtle scene is the only part I really have trouble with, probably because those guts are so gelatinous, but I think CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is a great film, and I will watch it again and again though it’s definitely not for everyone, I think that all horror and gore fans that think they can stomach anything in this day and age and are bored and unresponsive to the rapidly deteriorating convulsively violent horror films being released in large numbers these days should check this out.

And everyone will have that opportunity this weekend when CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST screens midnights again as part of The Tivoli’s Reel Late at The Tivoli midnight show. The Tivoli’s located at 6350 Delmar Blvd., University City, MO. Admission is a mere $8! ADULTS ONLY!

The Tivoli’s website can be found HERE

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm

Here’s the Reel Late at the Tivoli Line-up for the next two weeks:

Oct. 24-25 and Oct. 31-Nov. 1     ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW – All tickets $10 for ROCKY