Cannibal Holocaust and the Savage Cinema of Ruggero Deodato (Book Review)
Controversial Italian horror and exploitation director Ruggero Deodato is the man who brought us the polarizing and completely nihilistic Cannibal Holocaust. The film has been censored and banned all over the world and to this day remains one of the most graphic and unapologetic pieces of cinema ever created. But Deodato was more than just one movie, he was a man of many genres; horror (The House on the Edge of the Park), action (Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man), adventure (The Concorde Affaire ’79), more cannibal mayhem (Jungle Holocaust) and even sexploitation (Waves of Lust). He has stayed in the movie business now for over 40 years due to his willingness to change and adapt to the cultural changes around him. Ruggero Deodato is an uncompromising artist whose films will be relevant long after we are dead and gone.
The absolute kings of genre film books FAB Press has now reissued an authorized reference book to the career and films of Deodato that was originally published in 1999. This new collector’s edition is an utterly gorgeous hardcover (the original was paperback) that is newly revised and updated with 16 extra pages of information, interviews and killer images from the movies. The book opens with a fantastic introduction by the Managing Director and cult film author Harvey Fenton who gives us a quick yet thorough overview of Deodato and the mark he has made on cinema. Then we are privy to a 1999 interview Ruggero did with Gian Luca Castoldi that spans from his humble beginnings as an assistant director under Ingrid Bergman’s husband and collaborator, Roberto Rossellini in the 1950s to his TV project Zimbabwe: Sotto il cielo dell‘Africa, covering everything in between.
Possibly my favorite part of the whole book is the locandina (playbill or poster) gallery that features eight full page, high quality poster art for some of Deodato’s savage films. There is also loads of other high resolution posters, lobby cards, playbills, productions stills and screen captures throughout the 128 pages of pure awesomeness. The lion’s share of the pages are comprised of incredibly detailed technical info and movie reviews of the full canon of Ruggero Deodato’s filmography. They include exhaustive information on each title like cast and crew, variant titles, theatrical and video distributors, video and audio and finally a comprehensive, informative and entertaining review of the film. And as a bookend, Xavier Mendik’s fantastic 2011 article and interview with Deodato rounds out this remarkable book. A prologue comes in the form of a very interesting article by Julian Petley who explains the five minutes of Cannibal Holocaust that was censored by the British Board of Film Classification and its subsequent waiver.
This very worthwhile Special Collector’s Hardcover Edition of “Cannibal Holocaust and the Savage Cinema of Ruggero Deodato” is already available from the FAB Press website, to order from Amazon.com you will have to wait until it is released in the U.S., but it will be cheaper.
