The most notorious found-footage film ever made is about to look more gruesomely real than ever. Grindhouse Releasing will unleash its six-disc Cannibal Holocaust Ultimate Edition on 4K UHD on November 24, giving Ruggero Deodato’s blood-soaked 1980 shocker the deluxe treatment its fans have long craved – and its detractors have long dreaded.
For the uninitiated, Cannibal Holocaust presents the “found footage” of four documentary filmmakers who meet a brutal end at the hands of a South American tribe of flesh-eaters. Its unflinching realism was so convincing that Deodato and his filmmakers were arrested upon the film’s original release and the movie was seized – a reputation that has dogged it for more than four decades, and one that paved the way for The Blair Witch Project and the entire found-footage boom that followed.
The centerpiece of the set is a new 4K restoration from the original 35mm and 16mm camera negatives, presented in Dolby Vision, across three different cuts: the original uncensored theatrical version; a new Special Edition that presents the film-within-a-film The Green Inferno documentary footage from the original 16mm negative in its native 1.37:1 aspect ratio for the first time; and a never-before-released “unseen” version. Crucially for many viewers, the set also includes an animal cruelty-free viewing option, along with an archival stereo DTS-HD Master Audio remix and the original mono mix.
The six discs – one UHD, four Blu-rays and a soundtrack CD – are packed with extras, including:
- Two feature-length commentaries: one with Deodato and star Robert Kerman, the other with stars Carl Yorke and Francesca Ciardi
- Searching for Cannibal Holocaust, a new feature-length documentary by Calum Waddell
- In the Jungle – The Making of Cannibal Holocaust, directed by Michele De Angelis
- Interviews with Deodato, cinematographer Sergio D’Offizi, production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng, camera operator Roberto Forges Davanzati, composer Riz Ortolani, assistant director/co-star Salvatore Basile, and stars Kerman, Yorke, Ciardi and Luca Barbareschi
- A 100-page book by Euro-horror expert Martin Beine
- Ortolani’s remastered and expanded soundtrack on CD, with ten additional tracks, including three never-before-released cues
- A rigid slipcover featuring the banned artwork from the original 42nd Street release by Marcus Boas, plus an inner cover with a newly commissioned painting by NYC underground artist Winter Anders Fiddes printed on Japanese art paper
- Still galleries, theatrical trailers and more than two and a half hours of hidden Easter eggs
The disc was produced by Grindhouse Releasing owner Bob Murawski, the Oscar-winning editor of The Hurt Locker, whose label has previously given lavish home-video resurrections to The Beyond, Pieces and Hollywood 90028. The new restoration has already made the rounds theatrically, premiering at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles before a run of select theatrical engagements across North America.
The Cannibal Holocaust Ultimate Edition is available for preorder now from Grindhouse Releasing, which notes the slipcover edition is limited.
