Trivia / Cannibal Holocaust

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• Acting in the Dark: Carl Gabriel Yorke didn't even have a script when he arrived in the jungle to film, and the first scene they did was the amputation of Fellipe's leg. He admitted to not knowing whether he'd been lured into a snuff film for a while.
• Amateur Cast: The first Japanese dubbed version for DVD was dubbed by rookie voice actors who mostly never worked in anything else. Averted with the 2024 version, since it uses professional voice actors instead.
• Banned in China: And a whole lot of other countries. The most notable exceptions were Japan, where it was slapped with an R-18 rating and the US with an X rating. Eventually, a few more countries (most notably Australia) passed it uncut. As of May 2011, the UK's only problem with the film is the turtle, monkey and snake being killed onscreen (though a cut version has been released with the highest UK rating).
• California Doubling: Rome doubled for New York in a few scenes, mostly interiors.
• Cast the Expert: Neither Felipe nor Miguel's actors (names unknown) were actors. They were actual jungle guides given speaking parts.
• Cast the Runner-Up: A different actor was cast as Alan but had to drop out shortly before the production team left for the Amazon. He was given a smaller role as an ex-colleague of Alan's.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the 2024 Japanese dub, and while he is also a voice actor by his own right, Mark is voiced by theater actor Takeshi Hirabayashi.
• Completely Different Title:
  • German, Nackt und zerfleischt (Naked and Mauled)
  • Japanese, 食人族 (Cannibal Tribe)
  • Russian, Ад каннибалов (Cannibal Hell)
  • Bulgaria: Cannibalistic Doom
  • Canada: Hell of the Cannibals
  • Czech Republic: Cannibals
  • Denmark: Cannibal Massacre
  • Finland: Burnt Offerings of Cannibals
  • Poland: Naked and Torn Apart
  • South Korea: Holocaust
• Creator Backlash: Ruggero Deodato came to deeply regret making the film, and has vocally denounced the animal cruelty shown. Almost none of the other cast and crew have anything kind to say about it, either.
• Creator Couple: Robert Kerman's girlfriend was cast as one of the station executives, because she was available to film in both New York and Rome.
• Deleted Scene: Ruggero Deodato wanted a scene in which the natives fed an enemy tribesman to piranhas, but he didn't have a working underwater camera. Only still shots of the scene exist.
• Descended Creator: As the filmmakers couldn't find any native women willing to play the adulteress, the wardrobe mistress Lucia Constantini was given the part. Other sources say that it was a member of the Colombian wardrobe crew who goes uncredited.
• Fake American: Faye and Mark's actors, Francesca Ciardi and Luca Giorgio Barbareschi, were Italians and their casting was to appease Italian law that at least two actors had to be native Italian speakers for the film to be considered Italian. The two were native Italian speakers studying in New York.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Things behind the scenes were a complete mess. Tensions were extremely high on set throughout filming. Robert Kerman and director Ruggero Deodato would get into long, extended fights that brought filming to a halt, and many of the cast members reported being underpaid, with principal actor Carl Gabriel Yorke threatening to walk out on the project unless he and everyone else were paid fairly. Kerman would later complain of Deodato being unfair to the natives, and refusing to compensate them for their time on the film. He also described Deodato as a "sadist" in his treatment of the cast, crew and natives.
  • Francesca Ciardi had agreed to appear nude and had no problem with it, but she felt it was unnecessary for her to appear topless for a sex scene between Faye and Mark. Ruggero Deodata dragged her off the set and screamed at her until she agreed to do it.
  • Another huge point of contention was the real life animal cruelty depicted. Robert Kerman reportedly stormed off the set during the coatimundi death, and actor Perry Pirkanen wept after filming the butchering of the turtle. Carl Gabriel Yorke also flat out refused to shoot a pig as part of a scene, leaving it to another actor to take his place.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: For decades the film was unavailable in the US on home video until the mid-2000s, when it was released on DVD. Until that point, fans had to make do with bootleg VHS copies reproduced mostly from the Japanese laserdisc release of the film (which was censored to blur genitals) to watch the film, as that Japanese laserdisc was the most complete version of the film available for a long period of time.
• Looping Lines: Carl Gabriel Yorke is the only actor who isn't dubbed.
• No Dub for You: For obvious reasons, this movie never got dubbed elsewhere, except in Japan, when it was dubbed twice: One for a DVD release and a Blu-Ray 4K remasterized version, with a newer dub at 2024.
• No Export for You: The film is one of the most banned films ever made with many countries refusing to allow it to be released. Subverted in the US however. In 1985, Trans American Films acquired the rights to the film and released it with an X-Rating. However, it's release was super super super brief, barely lasting a month before it got yanked out of theaters and Trans American Films never bothered to secure home video release for the film. As such, there has been a longstanding belief that the film never released whatsoever in the US until it's DVD release in the mid 2000s.
• Practical Effects: The scene in which one of the actresses appeared to be impaled from anus to throat was so shocking and realistic that it was used as evidence the movie was a real snuff film; no one, the prosecutors argued, could have faked it. The director demonstrated before the court how the effect was accomplished: a bicycle seat was mounted atop the lower half of a pole and the actress sat on it. The upper part of the pole was a short length of balsa wood held between her teeth. With her head tilted back, the pole appeared to come out of her mouth. The director claimed that the most dangerous part of the stunt was balancing his actress on the bicycle seat, which was several feet off the ground.
• Romance on the Set: Allegedly. In a 2005 interview, Carl Gabriel Yorke said that while rehearsing the sex scene with Francesca Ciardi, she suggested that they go out in the middle of the jungle and "actually do it". Yorke declined, saying he had a girlfriend back in New York. However in 2009, Ciardi stated that the sex scenes were not simulated, and that she and Yorke were lovers off-screen during filming.
• Star-Derailing Role: Robert Kerman was a porn actor trying to establish himself in mainstream films. After this movie, "legitimate" roles dried up, and he went back to porn.
• Throw It In!: During the scene depicting the gang rape of the native girl, when Francesca Ciardi pulled Carl Gabriel Yorke off and threw him in the mud, he admits to getting Lost in Character and pushing her down before going back to finish the scene. He's described that as the "most honest" moment in the movie.
• Viral Marketing: The movie advertised itself as a true story, and the actors were contractually bound to avoid public appearances as to keep people think it was real. Remember anything? It worked too well since the director was arrested for multiple murder until he could prove that it was just a movie—which he had to void the original contracts of the actors to accomplish.
• Wag the Director: Alan was supposed to kill the pig, but Carl Gabriel Yorke refused to do it, so Mark does it in the scene instead.
• What Could Have Been: As notoriously gory as this movie is, it could have been even worse. The director had planned on a scene in the beginning where the natives fed a man from an enemy tribe to piranhas. Unfortunately, he had no adequate underwater cameras, so the scene was never finished, and only a few still photos remain of this "lost" scene.
• Word of God: Director Ruggero Deodato stated in interviews that while the story was inspired by media coverage of the Red Brigades, he ultimately had no artistic motives in making the film and just wanted to tell a story about cannibalism. This was further confirmed by Mark's actor Luca Barbareschi, who insisted that Deodato only used his films to "put on a show."
• Working Title: The Green Inferno. This was changed at the last minute to its current title as it was considered more shocking (especially with the word "holocaust"). Eli Roth would later make a cannibal themed horror film titled The Green Inferno as an intentional homage to this film.

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