And you thought planking was a stupid fad! Cannibalism is the new “thing” with kids these days. It’s even trending on Facebook and Twitter!
Zombie fanboys must have wet their pants with joy recently when the story about a naked man eating another man’s face in South Beach broke. Unfortunately for them, the guy was alive when the face-grubbing took place. He wasn’t dead until the cops drove him prematurely into the waiting arms of the Lord with several appetite-suppressing gunshots. That takes him out of the zombie category and puts him squarely in the cannibal zone.
At the very least, I’m hoping it leads to more cannibalism movies. There aren’t enough of them anymore, and that’s a goddamned shame. These are some of my faves from the Golden Days of Cinematic Flesh-Eating.
CANNIBAL GIRLS
Shot for less than half the cost of a Toyota Prius, this movie draws the conclusive line between city and jungle cannibals: Jungle cannibals hunt for their food, but the city folk variety just use titties and shapely buttocks to lure their dinner to them, further proving that urban people are just lazy domesticated bastards. Featuring Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin from their pre-SCTV days, it’s a weird little flick, but most distinct is the gimmick it used in theaters. Whenever a “scene of a shocking nature” was about to happen, a little bell would ring so the pussies in the audience could cover their eyes.
EATING RAOUL
Roger Corman regulars Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov are an elitist kind of couple with dreams of running a restaurant. They gather funds for this by killing, robbing, and disposing of sleazy, polyester-adorned swingers who cross their paths. Then a handsome burglar named Raoul gets in on the action. Then he gets eaten. There really isn’t a whole lot of cannibalism in this movie, except for the end which the title spoils the hell out of, but it’s a funny little movie about swinger culture worth watching. HONORABLE MENTION: For a similar ending, see the 70s post-apocalyptic flick A Boy and His Dog starring a young Don Johnson and tell me you aren’t laughing after that.
MOTEL HELL
“Meat’s meat, and a man’s got to eat!” This is the mantra of Farmer Vincent, played to the bone by legendary Western actor and all around manly man Rory Calhoun. Vincent and his sister Ida run not only a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere, but also a farm in which they make and sell smoked meats. It’s worthwhile to note that no mention of beef or pork are used. It’s just “meat.” Unfortunately, the meats are coming from a garden planted with human beings buried up to their necks. One memorable scene involves a pervert swinger couple who want to “play” with Vincent and his sis, and both get suckered into using a “special” kind of laughing gas. It’s special because as Vincent says, “You breathe the gas and we do the laughin’!” Plus, there’s a chainsaw fight, and for a movie that isn’t called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you can’t ask for much more than that.
BLOOD FEAST
Herschell Gordon Lewis’s classic drive-in flick Blood Feast is the granddaddy of all gore and splatter flicks. It warranted a place in Joe Bob Briggs’s book Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies That Changed History! It’s about a funny little Egyptian guy named Fuad Ramses who runs a unique catering business in Miami (hey, imagine that) which provides “authentic Egyptian feasts.” The downside is that he’s also an insane little guy who runs around with a machete and hacks up women for his ingredients. It holds up surprisingly well for being made in 1963. Where else are you going to see a greying maniac pulling out a good-looking yet cross-eyed blonde’s tongue with gobs of bright red blood and viscera? You sure as shootin’ didn’t see THAT in Silence of the Lambs.
CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
Cannibal Holocaust is the Citizen Kane of cannibal flicks. It’s known as “The One That Goes All The Way!” and brother, does it live up to that title. The movie deals with the disappearance of four young documentary filmmakers in the Amazon’s “Green Inferno,” and they send a guy who got to do Debbie in Debbie Does Dallas (Robert Kerman) to find them and their lost footage. They encounter natives, the totally dead filmmakers, and find out that the reason said filmmakers are dead is because they raped and murdered their way through the bush and got it all on film. It’s also worth noting that this film kind of pioneered the whole “found footage” thing that’s been employed by more modern flicks such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. This movie is pretty hardcore, as it contains not only spectacular scenes of humans munching on other humans, but REAL scenes of animal cruelty such as a live muskrat being disemboweled and its stomach fed to a native and a large turtle becoming lunch in painful detail. Shot on location in the Amazon, it features decent acting for a late-70s Italian production. Too bad it has that whole “banned in 46 countries thing” going for it. I’ve seen weaker-stomached folks projectile-vomit while watching this movie, and I laugh my ass off every time.
Hot nude girl gets impaled in Cannibal Holocaust.
My aunt (who’s a horror fan) saw “2 Girls 1 Cup” and said she hadn’t puked like that since Cannibal Holocaust. I was still a huge pothead when I saw the ending to “A Boy and His Dog.” I think I yelled, “What!?” for ten minutes straight. Funny stuff.
Nathan Lowery: watching it so you don’t have to. Since 1974.
That “Blood Feast” was disgusting. I mean who wants to eat meat with a soapy taste? Yecccch!
Boy, you don’t hear “Chicano” much anymore. It’s like calling Snoop Dog “a talented, young Negro”.
The most terrifying thing about “Cannibal Holocaust” is that infernal soundtrack..
Latest news in Canadian cannibals and Canadian movies:
http://blog.canuxploitation.com/2012/06/canhorror-linked-to-recent-murder-all-aboard-for-specious-reasoning/