Guilty Pleasures
Cannibal movies go places few of us dare to go. They take a subject that few willingly admit to being curious about and splash it boldly across our screens. You can’t go there delicately – unless it’s Hannibal’s Foie Gras Timbits.
With the new movies Raw and The Bad Batch hitting our screens this year I thought I’d ask twitter and Facebook what cannibal movies they liked.
Whilst instances of cannibal activity are rare things in the real world, often committed as an act of survival, when they do occur the shock value is high. It’s hard to consider in what circumstances you might be reduced to eating your fellow human. Even less easy to understand wanting to.
Raw
A vegetarian veterinarian student just wants to fit in when she eats raw meat. But as her true self emerges there are terrible consequences she must contend with.
The Bad Batch
A lone girl fends for herself in a Texas Wasteland when she’s shunned from society. Amidst cannibals and violent individuals she must survive.
Zombies
During the discussion on Twitter about cannibals, zombies shambled into the conversation. Do they count as cannibals? They are humans – albeit dead humans- who need to feed on still living humans. For the most part, we think of World War Z and Walking Dead when we talk about Zombies, there are also programs like iZombie and The Santa Clarita Diet that suggest smart zombies can keep living in the regular world, so long as there’s a decent supply of healthy meat. Whilst there are zombies that represent chemical or biological issue there are others that depict other things. Smaller things. Like, what we’re willing to put up with, to accept, to swallow, so we can continue with our regular comfortable lives. Uninterrupted.
Other Cannibal movies already available
- Ravenous
- The Green Inferno
- Hannibal
- Silence of the Lambs (and the other movies)
- Cannibal Holocaust
- Parents
- Delicatessen
- Trouble Every Day
- Musical
- Blood Diner
- Sweeney Todd
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- The Hills Have Eyes
- Man from Deep River
- Cannibal Ferox
- We Are What We Are
- Bloodfeast
- Motel Hell
Favourites from some people I asked:
“The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover” because even art films want to get in on the horror ticket! And this is pretty good – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342492/ Mads doing comedy for once@Suttope
Ravenous, with Guy Pierce, directed by Antonia Bird. Apparently, eating human flesh turns you into a super-virile Wolverine-ish sort. Lots of scenery chewed, sometimes literally. @malheurwoman
Has to be Delicatessen for me. Grim, dark strange fantasy with an eye with the surreal and the stunning. A fairy tale with an appetite for human flesh. We are the monsters here.@cjlongchris
I would have to go with Ravenous. @DerekClark1970
I move the end of Hannibal when Lecter feeds the brains to the boy on the plane. So cringy, yet amusing. @duncant82_d
What’s your Favourite Cannibal Movie?
Whilst not to everyone’s tastes, the chances are that if you made it this far down the post you don’t mind watching your onscreen heroes partaking in a little long pig. So let us know which cannibal movie is your favourite and why.
Horror and Fantasy Author – Also writing as K.T. McQueen. Love Western Horror, cowboy boots, my cactus Collin, & my Demon Cat.
Moths – I hate moths, the way they flutter at your face!