This character was downvoted a while ago, but I got permission from an admin via Discord to repropose the character. I honestly feel like some pointers were ignored in the original proposal, so I’m going to rediscuss him here.
What’s The Work[]
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 cannibal-exploitation film.
Who is the Candidate? What Have They Done?[]
Mark Tomaso is a member of Alan Yates’s film crew. In 1979, he travels to a remote rainforest along with Yates and the other crew members (Jack and Faye) in order to film a documentary called “The Green Inferno”. At first, the crew members appear to be normal and amiable people, but the documentary footage they made reveals what they’ve really been doing.
After reaching the rainforest, the film crew capture and kill a turtle. Mark and Alan film as Jack and Felipe mutilate the turtle. Upon following the natives to their village, Mark burns down the entire village with the natives in them under Alan’s orders and laughs while doing so.
Later, Mark takes part in gang-raping a native woman, and in the next scene, he films the woman’s impaled corpse with the implication that he and the other crew members killed her.
When Jack is killed, Mark is completely apathetic and films his death. Then when Faye is captured, Alan tries to save her, but Mark convinces him to leave Faye to die. He then proceeds to film her gruesome death.
Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors[]
No. No remorse, no empathy, zilch. And although he initially maintained a friendly facade, he was only doing it to manipulate people and hide his true nature.
Heinous Standard[]
Although Cannibal Holocaust is an exploitation film, it still has a message about savagery. And what separates it from a generic schlock film is the fact that is it one of the most controversial and banned movies ever made. While the movie features cannibals who kill and rape, they are seen as victims of the film crew.
Now, the reason I’m making this re-proposal is to acknowledge some arguments that were ignored in the original proposal. Specifically, it’s the claim that Mark was the one who convinced Alan to let Faye die (the original EP erroneously stated that Jack was the one who did this, but that’s besides the point). Most people claim that Mark doesn’t do anything beyond following Alan’s orders, but the main problem is, he does. For one, he is blatantly sadistic and has absolutely no problems doing Alan’s cruel stunts for him, from burning several natives to death to gang-raping a native woman to filming the deaths of his fellow crew members. But then, what really puts him beyond a generic henchman following his boss’s orders is the fact that he was the one who convinced Alan to leave Faye to die. Whether Alan tried to save Faye out of genuine concern or not is debatable, but Mark still destroyed the only possible redeeming quality Alan has. This arguably makes him worse than Alan. So yeah, I feel like this needs to be brought to consideration.
Final Verdict[]
Honestly, I’ll have to give an easy yes, seeing how Mark committed almost the exact same crimes as Alan (who is currently one of the infamous villains here), and he even proved himself to be somewhat worse than Alan.