One of the most disturbing movies that I have ever watched was The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. It wasn’t a horror movie, though. It’s classified as a “crime drama art film.”
But it involved cooking and eating people, and that horrified me. I almost barfed during one of the “feast” scenes. Never before, or even since, has a movie made me sick to my stomach like that. (Although I was among the unfortunate few who fell victim to the janky cinematography of The Blair Witch Project. But it wasn’t the content that roiled my stomach.)
There’s something about people purposely eating other people that I find absolutely revolting. And yet, zombie movies are among my favorite types of horror movies.
Are zombie movies cannibal horror?
I don’t consider zombie movies “cannibal horror” necessarily. Sure, people are eating people. Raw, not cooked, no less. The gore of it is gross, but it doesn’t make me uncomfortable like people purposely cooking other people to consume. Well, sometimes they don’t even bother to cook them, like in the highly rated horror romance Bones and All. But when they do, that grosses me out the most.
So why doesn’t the thought of zombies get to me in the same way as cannibals? Maybe it’s the fact that the zombies are dead, brainless, and their appetites are instinctual, not intentional. Or maybe it’s because flesh-eating zombies don’t exist outside of fiction. But there are plenty of true crime cases with real-life cannibalistic serial killers, including Albert Fish and Jeffrey Dahmer.
Cannibal Horror Movies: Burgeoning subgenre or status quo?
Are there really more cannibal horror movies lately, or am I just noticing them more? It’s not like they haven’t been around a while. At least, they’ve been present in one form or another all of my horror movie-watching life.
There are a few such movies pre-1970, but I’m going to start with that decade as we explore this subgenre. As we make our way to the present, let me know if you think they’re becoming more prominent too.
Cannibal Horror 1970-2000
I’d argue 1973’s Soylent Green qualifies as cannibal horror, but for sure 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes does. Some might say the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) also falls into the cannibal horror frying pan. Real-life serial killer Ed Gein inspired the creation of Leatherface and his kin. They never actually eat anyone in the film, but the implication that’s what they’re into hangs heavy and adds to the movie’s tension. However, a 2006 prequel/sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, does explore their cannibalistic backstory.
The horror comedies Motel Hell (1980) and Parents (1989) were among the better cannibal horror films of the 1980s. Then there was The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 that featured not one, but two, serial killers with a taste for flesh. Although only one, Hannibal Lecter, really indulged in satiating his desires by eating people. (Preferably with fava beans and a nice Chianti. At least when liver was on the menu.) Buffalo Bill, whose character was also partially inspired by Ed Gein, preferred to wear the skin of his victims.
Another 1991 film, The People Under the Stairs, had a cannibalism element, but it wasn’t the main theme. Writer Ted Griffin drew inspiration from the real-life Donner Party and Alfred Packer cannibal horror tragedies for 1999’s Ravenous.
Cannibal Horror 2001-Present
Wrong Turn (2004) and The Road (2009) stand out in my memory as double-ought cannibal horror movies. But the 2010s were when the sub-genre seemed to really start amping up. The original 2010 We Are What We Are (Mexico) was so popular that it was adapted into a United States remake in 2013.
It was followed by The Green Inferno (2014), Raw and The Bad Batch (both of which released in 2017). Most recently, there have been films like Gretel & Hansel and Cadaver (both 2020 releases), Fresh and the already mentioned above Bones and All (2022), What You Wish For (2023), and Year 10 (2024).
It also appears that two more cannibal horror movies are slated for release in 2025: Cannibal Mukbang and Devour. (As ick as I find cannibal horror, I’m not going to lie. The mukbang concept cracked me up.)
So I don’t know. Does the cannibal horror subgenre seem to be picking up steam, or am I just trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole? (Or would “a whole human body fit in a 10-inch frying pan” be more apropos?)
Check-In
Has a movie, horror or otherwise, ever made you sick to your stomach?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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I can’t stand cannibal films. I don’t want that stuff creeping into my subconscious and then coming for me in my dreams. I learned that the hard way when I watched the original Night of the Living Dead when I was 14. I would have been fine if there had been a Marx brothers movie playing on another channel afterwards, but instead there was only a lame Debbie Reynolds/Tony Curtis reincarnation comedy: Goodbye, Charlie. First night, no problems. Second night, zombies showed up in my dreams. They’ve been a recurrent presence ever since, so I’m not crazy about Zombie content either, except the Zombieland films and Shaun of the Dead.
ACK!!!! I’m SO sorry, Maria! I get why Night of the Living Dead has haunted your dreams. I found it SO disturbing when I first saw it, which wasn’t until I was in my early 20s for some reason. But once I did, it freaked me out. Except, instead of haunting me like it did you, it’s the reason I love zombie movies. lol
I’m also LOLing about the Debbie Reynolds/Tony Curtis part of your memory. How do you always do that? Combine such great details to form a really great picture of the circumstances?
AND I love Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead! Little Monsters too. That was the first movie I ever saw Lupita Nyong’o in and she wow wow wowed me. Love that her career took off and was not hampered by appearing in a horror movie. Or maybe that doesn’t happen as much these days where horror hurts a career like it once did. lol
Anyway, as always, THANK YOU for your great comment!
Because of zombies, I learned how to pull myself out of the dreams. I couldn’t stop them, so I was forced to watch, which was stressful, but at least they couldn’t get me, too! These days I know when they’re lurking, waiting to come onstage in a dream, by the location and general atmosphere of the dream: usually some vacant-ish building with other people wandering around inside, or at night, in some kind of industrial park setting. I’ve managed to end those dreams before they started going by waking up. One of them had a funky set up: Michael Fassbender was driving my car; I was sitting next to him. Neither of us were talking; we were focused on the road and getting out of town (at night, driving past industrial park type areas). HOWEVER, my conscious mind couldn’t figure out why he was there and why he was driving MY car! It became such an argument between my subconscious and conscious mind that the dream just derailed. My brain is anarchic.