Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust Coming to Paperback
My book Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust is coming to paperback. The paperback edition is expected for November 26, 2026. Preorders are available now.
Since its 1980 release, the Italian horror film Cannibal Holocaust has shocked viewers and provoked censors with its graphic imagery and unrelenting nihilism. Following a summary of the story and the controversy over its release, Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust examines the film’s relevance to cinematic and literary history, anthropology, nature studies, ethics and censorship, media and journalism, documentary filmmaking, representations of cannibalism and post-colonialism, and genre cinema. The book also addresses some of the most frequent criticisms of Cannibal Holocaust including its depictions of native people and the inclusion of real-life animal killings. Matching the audacity of the film itself, Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust makes provocative arguments about the influence of corporate media, the purpose of art, the relationship between industrialized and indigenous people, the amorality of nature, and the roots of violence.
Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust has been praised as “an authoritative critical analysis” and “the definitive autopsy of one of the world’s most controversial and disturbing films.” The Ancillary Review of Books writes, “All in all, it is hard to recommend his monograph more strongly, both for its measured and methodical engagement with the source material and for his willingness to take seriously the historical, narrative, and structural substance of a film so widely condemned and so rarely analyzed as Cannibal Holocaust.”
