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Ruggero Deodato, director of “the most controversial film of all time,” dies at 83.
An inspiration to filmmakers including Oliver Stone, Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino, he is best known for the 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust.
Italian news outlet Il Messaggero reported that he died on Thursday (December 29, 2022), but the cause of death has not been announced.
“Cannibal Holocaust” is so realistic that Ruggiero is on trial for murder.
The shocking film, which featured sadomasochism and real-life animal slaughter, led to the film being banned in several countries.
To make it feel more real, Ruggero also convinced the cast to disappear entirely for a year—but police seized all copies of the film and sued the filmmakers for allegedly killing the cast.
Facing 30 years in prison, the director persuaded the film’s stars to testify that they were still alive, saving him from sentencing.
He claimed the film was a satire on the exploitative violence that was in the Italian news at the time, adding that much of the film’s plot was improvised: “Tomorrow we’ll impale a girl, tomorrow we’ll kill the unfaithful.” Wife…tomorrow we’re killing a pig because a crew got tired of eating fish.
“I can’t kill real people, so animals are killed, but all animals are eaten. They don’t just die for this movie.”
The plot follows an academic who travels to the Amazon forest to find a missing American documentary film crew who fear being eaten by a tribe of cannibals.
He found a film they had recorded while they were alive, and the film said it was “real” footage.
The film has been hailed as the inspiration for the “found footage” horror genre, which includes “The Blair Witch Project” and “V/H/S.”
Ruggiero accused the makers of “The Blair Witch” of stealing his idea and said he “didn’t like” the 1999 horror hit.
He also accused Oliver Stone of “almost exactly” replicating the village-burning scene from “Cannibal Massacre” in his Vietnam film “Platoon.”
Ruggero started his career as assistant director to Roberto Rossellini and worked under Sergio Corbucci at Django in western Italy.
He also guest-starred in Eli Roth’s 2007 “torture porn” sequel, Hotel II.
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