10 Banned Horror Movies That Found A Home In The US – /Film

One of the first found-footage horror films, "Cannibal Holocaust" is as notorious as it is legendary. Including depictions of cannibalism and very real on-screen animal deaths, the film was presented as a real-life documentary, charting the gruesome voyage of anthropologist Harold Monroe (Robert Kirkman) who leads a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest to look for a crew of filmmakers.It's gruesome and thoroughly upsetting ... and was so realistic that director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder upon the film's release. Really.

The controversy began when a French magazine suggested that "Cannibal Holocaust" was actually a snuff film, with several death scenes presumed to be too realistic otherwise. Italian magistrates, who already hit Deodato with obscenity charges, then amended them to include murder. Questions were asked about the lack of media appearances of the supposedly deceased actors, who it turns out, had signed a contract not to make any media appearances for one year after the film's release, all in an effort to make the fake documentary seem more real.

Luckily, an appearance from the "dead" actors convinced the courts that Deodato was not actually a murderer... but the film had already earned its place among the most notorious horror movies of all time.

"Cannibal Holocaust" was banned outright in Australia, Norway, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, and Singapore, and while the U.K. released the film straight-to-VHS, it was eventually banned as part of the U.K. governments video nasties list.Nevertheless, the film found a home in the U.S.Originally banned across the States, it was eventually released unrated in 1985 and even made its way to DVD and Blu-ray. But it remains one of the most controversial horror movies of all time.

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10 Banned Horror Movies That Found A Home In The US - /Film