If you’re a fan of the horror genre like me, surely you’ve fallen into the sinister rabbit hole or the darker side of the Internet several times, including looking for those rare cult classics and controversial so-called ‘snuff’ films. To this day, one of the most notorious horror movies in history remains Italian director Ruggero Deodato‘s Cannibal Holocaust from 1980.

That movie was and still is, banned in many countries for its sickening depiction of real animal cruelty and alleged sexual assault. Deodato was even charged in court for apparently filming real deaths of several cast members, but he later presented evidence proving that they were still very alive.

That’s why it’s extremely surprising that Rome-based Fantastico Studio has announced Cannibal, an interactive horror graphic adventure game and the fourth chapter of Deodato’s Cannibal film trilogy. Yes, there were three movies in the ‘series’, including 1977’s Jungle Holocaust, 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust, and 1985’s Cut and Run.

The Telltale-like game will launch for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and mobile sometime in November 2020.

Cannibal will be powered by the Unity engine, with the direction and script of Deodato, as well as the original drawings of Solo Macello. Players will take control of different characters to learn the reason that led them to a desperate expedition to the virgin jungles of Borneo.

You read that right, my fellow Malaysians. This game will somehow be set in (present-day?) Borneo (AKA Sabah and Sarawak of Malaysia, Brunei, and Kalimantan, Indonesia).

I’m afraid that the developers won’t exactly be tasteful when depicting the local people and culture. The game is called Cannibal for Pete’s sake. When will Westerners stop using Borneo as a commonly-used (and offensive) trope for a barbaric place populated by savages?

In a press release (via Gematsu), Deodato said:

“Experimenting is one of the things that I consider most fundamental in this field.

What really interests me is to test myself, try something new.

Maybe that’s also why I waited so long to return to the world of the jungle and cannibals.

At the time we went to the jungle, lived with the natives, showed the public a reality that they could never have personally experienced and understood.

Today, instead there are dozens of documentaries and films that show life and nature of those places, and for me the theme had lost its appeal.

Meeting the Fantastico Studio guys offered me the opportunity to return to those atmospheres, to those themes, but trying something new:

contaminating my world with the video games language is a new challenge, making the story interactive opens up many new possibilities

and I hope it will also help to bring young people closer to my narrative universe.”

According to the official overview of the game, the Cannibal video game will feature the themes that made the saga popular: “natives lives, told in its rawness, and cannibalism – powerful metaphors that reveal the most disturbing and deep impulses in our society.”

Well, it’s terribly clear from Deodato’s words that he has never visited Borneo, or anywhere in Malaysia/Southeast Asia, for that matter. This game already sounds like a bad idea and a scandal just waiting to happen. In the meantime, check out the trailer below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHjW-n4P3zk&w=560&h=315]