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''Diary of a Cannibal'' (also known as ''Cannibal'') is a 2007 German-American horror film directed by
Ulli Lommel Ulli Lommel (21 December 1944 – 2 December 2017) was a German actor and director, noted for his many collaborations with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his association with the New German Cinema movement. Lommel spent time at The Factory and was ...
. It is possibly inspired by
Armin Meiwes Armin Meiwes (; born 1 December 1961) is a German former computer repair technician who received international attention for murdering and eating a voluntary victim in 2001, whom he had found via the Internet. After Meiwes and the victim jointly ...
, the "Rotenburg Cannibal". Lommel's film changes the account from a "Rotenburg Cannibal" to a young Los Angeleno girl who is corrupted by her new lover, a man who talks her into killing and eating him. The film has gained infamy for its highly scathing reception by critics and audiences, and has occasionally appeared in a few lists of the worst films ever made.


Plot

A young woman named Noelle (Jillian Swanson) lies dying in a prison hospital bed after being severely beaten by female inmates. Police detectives interview her, pressing her for her account of the events that lead to her incarceration. In a flashback, she thought she found her soul mate online when she met Adam (Trevor Parsons). Eventually, they fall madly in love. Something about Adam isn't quite right, though, when he insists that Noelle eat him in order for them to be "truly one." Knowing his request is insane, she refuses and even stops taking his calls. However, Noelle finally gives in to his request. They drive out to the desert and bunk down in a warehouse. Noelle does the deed, cooks his innards, eats him, and then steps out for a smoke. A man shows up at the warehouse looking for old furniture, wanders into the grisly scene, and calls the police.


Production

''Diary of a Cannibal'' was shot under the title ''Cannibal.'' In 2004, one of director Ulli Lommel's collaborators, the German actor-producer
Marian Dora Marian Dora (born 1970 in Southern Germany) is the pseudonym most commonly used by an anonymous German art director, cinematographer, actor, screenwriter, editor, producer, composer, assistant director, makeup artist, special effects/sound/camera ...
, accepted Lommel's assignment to make a feature film in Germany that documented the Meiwes case. Dora's finished film was rejected by Lommel as being too gory, and Dora subsequently released the movie – '' Cannibal – Aus dem Tagebuch des Kannibalen'' – on his own in Germany within months. Lommel set about producing his own version of the Miewes case. Lions Gate Entertainment, the distributor in North America, had already used the title ''Cannibal'' when they retitled a French-Canadian production called ''White Skin'', so they were forced to change the title of Lommel's film to ''Diary of a Cannibal''. ''Diary of a Cannibal'' was filmed in late 2005 in
Venice, California Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed b ...
, along the canals and in
Pearblossom, California Pearblossom is an unincorporated community located in the Antelope Valley of the Mojave Desert, in northern Los Angeles County, California. The town has a population of 2,435. The ZIP Code is 93553 and the community is inside area code 661. ...
. The Venice pier location used in some scenes have been featured in several Lommel movies. The interior of the desert warehouse was filmed in
Marina Del Rey, California Marina del Rey (Spanish for "Marina of the King") is an unincorporated seaside community in Los Angeles County, California, with an eponymous harbor that is a major boating and water recreation destination of the greater Los Angeles area. The p ...
, at a furniture store. The dead boy's heart and other organs were taken from a pig's carcass.


Critical reception

The movie has received uniformly negative reviews and has bounced around the bottom-100 list on IMDb. On Yahoo Movies, 24 readers give Diary of a Cannibal an "F" rating. ''Dread Central'' published a negative review that stated, in part, " e film jumps around almost at random (flashbacks and flash forwards) and even repeats scenes that already added nothing to the story to begin with (i.e. they really loved to frolic on the beach – a lot). It's all done very abstract, using minimalist dialogue, buffering scenes with every Bible quote Lommel could find about eating or sacrifice, over directed with a masturbatory amount of fancy edits, fades, black & white footage, fake scratches to the digital image to make it look like an old 8mm reel, and montages out the wazoos. Oh, god, the montages...! The film should have been called Montage of a Cannibal since I'd reckon 85% of this movie is presented in montage form."Dread Central review
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References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Diary of a Cannibal 2007 direct-to-video films 2007 horror films Films directed by Ulli Lommel 2007 films Films about cannibalism 2000s English-language films