This Horror Movie Is So Gross It Got Into the Guinness Book for Being the Most Banned
And it is a title that is well-deserved.
"The most violent film ever made," "banned in 31 countries" – that’s how the distributor of Cannibal Ferox also known as Make Them Die Slowly promoted Umberto Lenzi’s exploitation horror movie. Moreover, later the film was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most banned movie ever. And although there is another title called Cannibal Holocaust that was supposedly banned in 60 countries, this has never been officially confirmed.
The topic of cannibalism began to gain popularity in European exploitation cinema in the early 1970s, and the inventor and popularizer of the genre was Umberto Lenzi himself, who released the first full-fledged cannibal movie, Man from the Deep River, in 1972.
However, it was not until the breakout success of Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, mentioned above, that the subject became popular.
The premise of Cannibal Ferox is pretty original and satirical. Gloria, a young student, goes into the Amazon jungle to prove that cannibalism is an invention of white imperialists to discredit Indian tribes. As you may have guessed, she will be very disappointed by the end of the movie.
Gloria goes on a trip with her brother and friend, and later they meet Mike — and if they had known what they were going to face because of him, they would have gotten on a plane that very second.
Mike kills a native girl — he kidnapped her in order to escape from the tribe, since he killed the native guide right in front of them. Not the wisest decision, considering the tribe is considered cannibalistic.
It turns out that Mike is a criminal and sadist who came to the jungle to use the natives to produce cocaine and mine emeralds.
As expected, the tribe members soon get tired of the uninvited guest's impertinent behavior and set out on a vendetta. From this point on, a typical cannibal horror plot begins — the poor victims try to escape, but the insidious natives find them anyway and eat them one by one.
The movie is especially known for its graphic scenes of violence, which included not only humans but also animals. Unfortunately, some of the animals were actually killed during the filming.
While this was a common thing to do at the time, later on, after a barrage of criticism, Italian filmmakers abandoned the practice and soon the widely known disclaimer became generally accepted: "No animals were harmed in the making of this film."
Source: Guinness World Records