What We Eat: The many flavours of cannibalism in horror media

Horror media uses the taboo practice in a multitude of ways, but they won't all be to your taste

Nishat Tasfia
Published : 28 May 2023, 02:00 PM
Updated : 28 May 2023, 02:00 PM

We are what we eat. What's in your fridge, on your plate, and how you eat it puts you in or out of a complex, fragile mess of identity, class, and many other factors. Sometimes even affording food becomes difficult. After all, poverty, homelessness, and biohazards restrict our access, driving people to desperation.

But, no matter how dire circumstances get, we tell ourselves that there are some things we will never eat because eating them would make us outcasts from society and horrors to ourselves.

One such item is human meat. Eating human flesh is a criminal offence today, but the practice has been considered taboo for ages. Ask anybody, and they would call it disgusting, repulsive, vomit-inducing. 

From the security of our current circumstances, we look at historical incidents of wars, shipwrecks, and extreme famine and wonder, "How did things get that bad?" and "What drove them to eat each other?". As bystanders, the idea seems cruel and vicious. When rare incidents of people killing and eating others crop up in our relatively stable modern world, it seems inconceivable. Was it morbid curiosity? Extreme starvation? Sickly obsession?

Our morbid fascination with the unknown and the darker side of human nature draws us to these questions. While such incidents are terrifying in real life, horror, as a genre of fiction, often uses the idea to gesture at broader themes, literally and figuratively. 

THE OTHER

The fear of cannibalism is rooted in its explicit opposition to our cultural notions of morality, value, kindness, and sympathy. 

The root of the term 'cannibalism' comes from colonising explorers who painted the native peoples of other lands with the word to describe them as uncivilised savages who were less than human. While some people practised ritual cannibalism, it was often a part of religious beliefs. It had significance in the ways they, for example, honoured their dead.

However, the label cannibal was used by colonisers to dehumanise native peoples, set them apart as vile and immoral, take away their liberty and exploit their land. 

These racist origins of the term are both depicted and challenged in one of the most infamous horror/exploitation movies of all time – 1980's notorious Cannibal Holocaust.

An early example of the found footage horror trend made so famous by The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, the movie follows a rescue mission for an American film crew who disappeared in the Amazon rainforest while filming a documentary about indigenous cannibal tribes. When they recover the team's footage, they discover the film crew were trying to stage incidents for excitement and attack a local tribe to generate dramatic footage. The tribe then avenged themselves on the crew, leading to the film's grotesque ending sequence. 

Even in 2023, the stark brutality of the oft-censored film is disturbing. It is shockingly gory, but simply calling it that ignores that multiple animals were killed for the movie. Cannibalism pops up frequently, in gruesome detail, but so do scenes of sexual violence against women and mutilation. 

The movie arguably criticises sensationalist media coverage that exaggerates and glorifies brutality. Still, it's hard to look past its graphic nature. Its attempts to thread the needle between depicting the racism of the cannibal genre while trying to critique it feels like having one's cake and eating it too.    

Cannibal Holocaust was one of many cannibal films made in the late 70s and early 80s as cheap exploitation fodder. Nowadays, all of them seem largely unpalatable. 

But othering can be viewed from the perspective of the ‘other’ as well. Consider Justine from the 2016 movie Raw. A young girl in her first year of veterinary school, she is at the mercy of a regular hazing ritual. She is viewed and objectified by all around her through unwarranted lust, instinctive judgment, and societal expectations. What would it be like for her to have autonomy over not just her own body, but that of others?

When Justine is thrust into an unexpected situation she finds she doesn’t fit in and also finds a growing hunger for something uncanny. Somewhere along the way her unusual individuality turns her into a monster in the eyes of others.

FRIENDS FOR DINNER

A monster attuned for a broader palate first made his appearance in Thomas Harris’s 1981 Grand Guignol crime novel Red Dragon. Dr Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist by trade, often likes to have friends for dinner. And he uses careful planning, cunning, and culinary flair to serve his victims before hiding away in plain sight.

The exacting serial killer quickly became a phenomenon, appearing in numerous popular adaptations including 1991 Oscar-winner The Silence of the Lambs and the beloved NBC TV series Hannibal.

Despite the doctor’s culinary interests, the franchise tends closer to mystery thrillers than outright horror, but Hannibal the Cannibal remains an icon of the genre and rightfully so. The show, in particular, builds complex character dynamics and employs chilling, creative, and disturbing imagery—both for the crime scenes and dishes that Hannibal carefully prepares— to give us glimpses into the twisted mind of the good doctor and those around him.

Hannibal’s mixture of elegant sociopathy – a shiny veneer over true darkness - has been the template for many other killers, though not all of them share his particular tastes. Still, there are a handful, like Dorothy Daniels from A Certain Hunger, who have also mastered the fine arts of butchering and preparing their own diverse delicacies.  

A similar idea of a shiny surface papering over corruption and depravity can be seen in cannibal movies with a familial edge. What better way to discuss nature vs nurture, what we take for granted, and what we truly value?

In the aptly titled 1989 movie Parents, 10-year-old Michael suspects his mother and father have a nefarious secret and enlists the help of a school counsellor to uncover it.

And what if a member of the family makes it difficult for everyone? In the 2010 Mexican movie, We Are What We Are a family of four has to find a way to carry on their family tradition after their father’s death. The problem is, their mother is against consuming certain groups of people.

THE LIVING DEAD

The thought of one's body being the object of another's consumption is frightening because it symbolises our loss of control over our bodies, boundaries, and autonomy. But this raises an interesting question. Are zombies – that most played out of famous media monsters – cannibals?

We regularly watch these ghouls chomp down on necks and feast on brains in movies and video games. But are they human enough to qualify as cannibals? Or are they undead and mindless? And what of the hordes or plagues or viruses associated with these undead?

What even makes zombies? After all, zombies were originally undead slaves to voodoo witch doctors, as in 1932's White Zombie. It wasn't until George Romero's seminal 1968 Night of the Living Dead that they began to eat flesh. And the brains didn't come until 1985's raucous rock comedy The Return of the Living Dead!

These collapsing corpses may deserve their own category of existential dread altogether. 

EAT THE RICH

If zombies were the last cannibal-adjacent craze, then these modern forays into class warfare are the new fad. 

Money can buy a lot of things if not everything. The best of foods, the finest of delicacies, and maybe even eternal youth. Aunt Mei, a former gynaecologist in the Hong Kong movie Dumplings (2004), prepares special dumplings for clients who want to hold on to their diminishing youth. The price might be more than they bargained for.

Another chef who finds similar inspiration for revitalisation is André from The Cannibal's Guide to Ethical Living. A veteran culinary expert, he explains to a food critic friend that he has found an ethical source of human meat by only consuming millionaires. After all, they do take more than they give. And frankly, it's boring and unfair if only rich people get access to the finer things in life. As André puts it in one impassioned speech: 

"Food is life, but also, food is death. It's like life eating life. Others must die so we may live; there is never enough food for everybody. The decision to live is the decision to kill."

AN EXPANSIVE MENU 

Like every horror subgenre, cannibalism has changed from one focused on shock and morbid curiosity to one that tackles a wide range of complex issues, including, but not limited to, revenge, coming of age, corruption, trauma, and identity.

Not all fiction has to have deep meaning, food for thought or social commentary. But horror often gets a bad rap for focusing more on the disgusting than the deep. 

Still, good horror can lay bare our most disturbing desires, deepest fears, and depths of emotions through wicked imagination and artistic freedom. It confronts us with a fundamental question – "What scares you?" – but comes up with various interesting, insightful, and intriguing answers. Whether yours includes the unknown, the hidden, the decomposing, or the political, the world of cannibal horror will give you something to chew on. 

This article is part of Stripe, bdnews24.com's special publication focusing on culture and society from a youth perspective.

REFERENCES

"Razza cagna: mondo movies, the white heterosexual male gaze, and the 1960s–1970s imaginary of the nation". Gaia Giuliani. Modern Italy. Cambridge University Press. 2018.