Hey Kids, It's the Cannibal Holocaust Live-Tweet!

There are some things in life that you don't really want to do, but you have to do. I've been called to task in the past for never having seen Ruggero Deodato's sleaze opus Cannibal Holocaust--although I had glimpsed some of the nastier bits on YouTube to satisfy my morbid curiosity, I had never seen the film all the way through from beginning to end.

I knew I had to eventually change that, but I wasn't thrilled about it. I can easily devote an entire post to my moral opinion on the movie, but suffice it to say that I had a serious problem with the notion of killing animals on film, for one thing. Yes, I know I like to eat meat; yes, I know this stuff happens all the time without cameras rolling. But that's far different from cruelly murdering living things in order to make a movie. There are reasons things like this are prohibited, and I don't care what the "artistic purpose" was, to be quite frank. I mean, if you're gonna off six exotic jungle beasts, it should at least be for a movie that's better than Cannibal Holocaust.

But I digress. Needless to say, I was not relishing the idea of sitting through 90 minutes of real gore, and gratuitous simulated violence and rape. Not my idea of a pleasant evening. And, in fact, the DVD had been bouncing around on my Netflix queue for almost two years before it finally found its insidious way to my doorstep last week. Then, it sat on my kitchen counter for eight days.

Finally, I could stall no longer. The time had come to face the film I had long dreaded. But I wasn't going on the ride alone. Oh, no--thanks to the wonderful Twitter phenomenon, I was given the opportunity to invite others to join me on an odyssey of growing disgust and revulsion. And so, the Cannibal Holocaust live-tweet was born. For those not familiar with the practice, what I basically did was tweet my live reactions to the movie as I was watching it. Followers could choose to watch along with me, or simply read bemusedly as I streamed my train of thought online.

All in all, it was a pretty fun experience, which is ironic considering the movie I was watching was about as far from fun as it is possible for a movie to be. Lots of people responded, and I even gained some new followers in the process. Now, for those of you who actually had better things to do Monday night, I present the full transcript of the live-tweet--keep it handy for the next time you sit down to enjoy Ruggero Deodato's light-hearted South American romp!

Cannibal Holocaust has been placed in the player. Let the live-tweet begin... #CHlivetweet

#CHlivetweet 00:25 Thomas Jefferson and Santayana have been quoted. Let the phony self-righteousness begin!

#CHlivetweet 1:49 Riz Ortolani's haunting theme....so astoundingly inappropriate, yet so beautiful

#CHlivetweet 3:34 "Today we are on the verge of conquering our galaxy...." ????

#CHlivetweet 6:55 First glimpse of cannibalistic hyjinks..... Yummy.

#CHlivetweet 10:42 I'll say this is already about 20 times more ambitious than House by the Edge of Park, the other Deodato flick I've seen

#CHlivetweet 14:22 These cannibals have lovely bob hairdos. Very Clara Bow...

#CHlivetweet 16:28 Leeches! I've been freaked out by them ever since The African Queen....

#CHlivetweet 18:33 Worm filled skull! I like where this is going.....

#CHlivetweet 19:49 OK the dude just cut the throat of that weird little rodent
thing......Reprehensible. Yet couldn't stop watching. Mouth aghast.

#CHlivetweet 21:44 Aaaaaand mudrape. How pleasant.

#CHlivetweet 23:03 My first "why am I watching this again?" moment.....

#CHlivetweet 28:59 I think this particular cannibal went to the Lee Strasberg school....

#CHlivetweet 31:32 God I haven't seen an Ellesse track suit since my days growing up in Bensonhurst...

#CHlivetweet 34:23 More wanton rapiness and mutilation. I'm guessing there is no musical number imminent.

#CHlivetweet 37:04 This is just SO bizarre. Naked ppl in the river...Ortolani's sweeping theme.... What the holy hell....

#CHlivetweet 38:36 Bodies of the filmmakers discovered. I will say, this quasi-documentary style was pretty ahead of its time.

#CHlivetweet 41:22 "They just invited us to dinner." Lovely.

#CHlivetweet 43:31 This TV newscaster's cardigan is disturbing me more than almost anything I've seen thus far

#CHlivetweet 45:05 And the faux documentary film begins....

#CHlivetweet 48:47 '70s bush sighting

#CHlivetweet 51:32 Brooklyn! Wow, didn't expect this. Ah, the accents of my homeland....

#CHlivetweet 54:17 Oh no. Turtle.........

#CHlivetweet 55:03 Jesus H. Christ.

#CHlivetweet 55:53 How the hell much did they pay these actors to get them to do this shit? Good god in heaven.

speechless

#CHlivetweet 1:00:00 I have to finish this, right?

#CHlivetweet 1:04:04 Monkey's head chopped off. That leaves only the pig-shooting to get through..... lalalalalala

#CHlivetweet OK, pig shenanigans coming up 1:05:47

#CHlivetweet 1:06:55 The little pig is screaming and quivering. Delightful. These people should've been incarcerated.

#CHlivetweet 1:08:44 Tribal massacre. I can totally understand now how people might've thought this scene was real.

#CHlivetweet 1:10:39 And now, a sex scene. Yeah, cause nothing puts one in the mood like animal slaughter and the immolation of natives.

#CHlivetweet 1:14:10 Ah, heavy-handed moralizing. Look dude, you're making an exploitation movie. Own up to it.

#CHlivetweet 1:16:01 I am angry at this movie.

#CHlivetweet 1:20:52 Again with the rape.

#CHlivetweet 1:22:51 CHICK ON A STICK! CHICK ON A STICK!

#CHlivetweet 1:25:23 Looks like the cannibals are about to get some payback....

#CHlivetweet 1:26:38 O_O

#CHlivetweet 1:20:06 Wow. This is some full-on cannibal nastiness. Feel bad for the girl, though. She wanted no part of it.

#CHlivetweet 1:32:41 Apparently these were real natives?? I wonder what the hell they thought of all this....

#CHlivetweet 1:34:19 "I want this material burned. All of it." Agreed.

#CHlivetweet 1:35:01 Is that the World Trade Center in the final shot? If so... yeesh.

#CHlivetweet Yo Adrian, I DID IT!! .....*whew*

Thanks 2 all who diligently followed my Cannibal Holocaust live-tweet! I made it. OK, who's got some shrimp w/ lobster sauce, I'm hungry!

There you have it. Might have to do something like this again sometime. If you're not yet on board the B-Sol Twitter train, feel free to follow me here.

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