A Horror Film Blog

Ruggero Deodato, director of the 'profoundly challenging' Cannibal Holocaust has died.  From the Guardian obituary : Ruggero Deodato, director of the notorious 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust, has died aged 83. Italian media reported that he died on Thursday.   Deodato had a lengthy film-making career and operated in a variety of genres but remains best known for his gruesome horror film, which was banned in multiple countries and even resulted in him being put on trial for murdering his actors.   Cannibal Holocaust was also a pioneer of the “found footage” pseudo-documentary genre: it purported to be the footage recovered from an American film crew’s expedition into the Amazon jungle.  The film became infamous for its real violence against animals, including onscreen killings of monkeys and a coati, as well as the depictions of extreme violence and torture. Less than a fortnight after its release in Italy, the film was seized by local magistrates and Deodato was charged w

If you can overlook the ludicrous premise of this film there is a lot of fun to be had here. The story is nonsense but the film makers play it absolutely straight. Christmas Eve, and foul mouth record store owner Tori (the awesome Riley Dandy) is knocking off.  Reluctantly, she allows her employee Robbie (Sam Delich) to talk her out of going on a Tinder date and get wasted with him instead.  They drink and bicker, which makes up the first act of the film.   Meanwhile, the ex-military war robot, reprogrammed as a Christmas Santa at a local toy store (I told you it was stupid) develops a bug and - I guess - re-sets to factory settings, which means it is looking for people to kill, ho ho ho.  For reasons unclear, in the second act, it decides Tori is its prime target and sets out to rain Hell fire down on her boozy 'default date' with Robbie.  Being a true and worthy Final Girl, she doesn't take to this idea, and the final act consists of the two of them mauling each other.  O