Cannibal (2006 film)

Lore & Background

In the intro, a mother reads the story of Hansel and Gretel to her young boy. The setting then moves to the present day, where The Man goes about his day-to-day routines and occasionally chats with others on his computer, where he looks for someone who shares his cannibalistic fantasies. The Man meets with several people he had chatted with, but he either rejects them or is rejected (and in one case attacked) by them, except for The Flesh, a suicidal man who volunteers to be killed and eaten by The Man. The Flesh travels to The Man from Berlin, and the two bond, having sex and frolicking in the nude both inside and around The Man's home. When The Flesh decides that its time for him to die and be devoured, he tries to coerce The Man into biting off his penis, but The Man is unable to go through with it, even when The Flesh uses drugs to knock himself out in an attempt to make things easier. Disappointed, The Flesh chastises The Man. The Flesh decides to give him another chance when The Man begs him to stay just as he is about to board a train back to Berlin. Returning to The Man's home, The Flesh ingests a large amount of alcohol and pills, then instructs The Man to castrate him with a kitchen knife, which The Man succeeds at doing. The two then fry and attempt to eat the severed penis, before The Flesh seemingly dies of blood loss in a bath The Man places The Flesh in. The Man drags The Flesh's inert body (which vomits and defecates repeatedly) to a room he has readied for slaughter. Before he can begin taking The Flesh apart, The Man is shocked to discover The Flesh is still alive, so he stabs him in the throat. The Man then beheads, guts and dismembers The Flesh, buries the inedible parts, and cooks and eats the rest; he places The Flesh's severed head at the head of the table. The Man then masturbates to snuff film footage of what he has done, and leaves.

Reader's Guide

The film was released on DVD in Germany in April 2006 and in the United States by Anthem Pictures on December 19, 2006. In Germany, the film was confiscated by the district court of Neuburg an der Donau due to Paragraph 184a (Dissemination of pornographic content depicting violent acts) and may no longer be offered for sale.

Did You Know?

• The film is the feature film debut of writer, director and producer Marian Dora.
• The film is loosely inspired by actual events, though this is not a universally accepted fact.
• The film was confiscated in Germany under Paragraph 184a for disseminating pornographic content depicting violent acts.

Origins & Creative Vision

Marian Dora wrote, directed, and produced Cannibal as his first feature-length project, delivering a 2006 German exploitation horror crafted for the direct-to-video market. The story follows a mentally disturbed figure referred to only as The Man, whose cannibalistic obsessions drive the entire narrative. The film opens with a mother reading the Hansel and Gretel tale to her young son, a fairy-tale framing that casts a long shadow over what follows. In the present, The Man searches the internet for a kindred spirit, meeting several online contacts who either reject him or turn violent. His search culminates in The Flesh, a suicidal man in Berlin who volunteers to be killed and devoured. The cast includes Carsten Frank as The Man, Victor Brandl as The Flesh, and Manoush in the role of The Man's Mother, alongside L. Dora, Carina Palmer, Tobias Sickert, Joachim Sigl, and Bernd Widmann.

Narrative Structure & Escalation

After The Flesh travels from Berlin to The Man's home, the pair bond through sexual intimacy and playful nudity around the apartment. The tension breaks when The Flesh tries to force The Man to bite off his penis; The Man freezes, even after The Flesh drugs himself unconscious to simplify the task. The Flesh berates him and nearly boards a train back to Berlin, but The Man's desperate plea brings him back. The Flesh then downpours alcohol and pills, instructing The Man to castrate him with a kitchen knife. They fry the severed organ and attempt to eat it before The Flesh appears to succumb to blood loss in a bath. Dragging the inert, incontinent body to a prepared slaughter room, The Man is horrified to find The Flesh still breathing. He stabs the throat, then beheads, guts, and dismembers the body. He buries the inedible portions, cooks and consumes the rest, sets the severed head at the head of the table, and masturbates to snuff footage of the act before walking away.

Release & Censorship

Cannibal bypassed theatrical distribution entirely, arriving as a straight-to-DVD exploitation title. In Germany, the disc hit shelves in April 2006, while American audiences received it through Anthem Pictures on December 19, 2006. However, the film's home-market life was cut short by the legal system. The district court of Neuburg an der Donau seized the title under Paragraph 184a of the German criminal code, a statute targeting the distribution of pornographic material that depicts violent acts. The ruling effectively barred the film from being sold in Germany going forward. The US release via Anthem, a label specializing in extreme and transgressive cinema, became the primary accessible channel for international viewers. The combination of its niche subject matter, direct-to-video format, and subsequent confiscation cemented Cannibal's status as a deeply restricted artifact of European horror.

Critical Reception & Divided Response

Reviewers split sharply on the film's merits. Scott Weinberg of DVD Talk awarded two out of five stars, acknowledging it as one of the most transgressive pictures to emerge from a country already steeped in extreme cinema, while conceding only a thin thread of interest tied to its claim of being grounded in real incidents. Joshua Siebalt of Dread Central, also at two stars, identified the graphic cannibalism as the sole hook and lamented the long stretches of inert screen time that preceded those set pieces. Sean Leonard of HorrorNews.net took the opposite stance, describing the second half as an unbroken sequence of suffering, dismemberment, and consumption that felt voyeuristically intimate, as though peering through a wall. He underscored the chilling implication that actual footage of the events exists somewhere. The film's alleged basis in real occurrences added a layer of unease that no reviewer could fully dismiss, making it a genuinely polarizing entry in the German exploitation canon.