Ruggero Deodato, the director of the infamous 1980 horror movie Cannibal Holocaust, died on Thursday, Dec. 28, according to the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero. He was 83.

Deodato, who is credited for trailblazing the “found footage” style that was later popularized by American movies like The Blair Witch Project, famously directed Cannibal Holocaust, which was banned in several countries due to its graphic violence, depictions of sexual assault, and real-life animal cruelty.

The controversial movie follows a group of filmmakers as they travel through the Amazon rainforest studying local cannibal tribes. However, when the crew goes missing and all a rescue team can recover is old footage, an American news station decides to air the tapes.

Speaking in an interview with The Telegraph earlier this year, Deodato revealed that much of the movie had been improvised.

“Tomorrow we’ll impale a girl, tomorrow we’ll kill the unfaithful wife … tomorrow we’ll kill a pig, because a crew member is fed up with eating fish,” he said. “I couldn’t kill real people, so the animals got killed, but all the animals were eaten. They didn’t just die for the film.”

Following the release, Deodato was charged with obscenity as well as murder — in which he faced 30 years in prison. The director had reportedly made any actor who died in the movie sign a contract that they would remain out of the public eye for a year to preserve the plot’s authenticity, leading to the media’s belief that he may have actually murdered them on set.

While his film license was ultimately revoked for three years, Deodato was eventually cleared of all charges after he proved the actors were all still alive and explained the movie magic behind the graphic death scenes in court.

Aside from his fame with Cannibal Holocaust, Deodato, who was born in Potenza, Basilicata in 1939, later went on to release more violent films including The House at the Edge of the Park and Cut and Run. 

No cause of death has been confirmed.