I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies lately, naturally given the season. Most of these have been films from the lates 50s through the early 80s, thanks to my general disposition and because that’s what easily available on TV.
A surprising number of these movies have been about cults, which I think probably came from shifts in suburban living, religious thinking and, later, a good dose of Satanic Panic. What’s lurking behind our neighbor’s drawn shades? Does that unfamiliar religious symbol by the doorway have a sinister meaning? When does community degrade into decadence, or worse?
Personally, I’m a fan of cult movies. Something about the combination of scholarship and fraternity appeals to me, just minus the living sacrifices and allegiance to dark forces. Maybe that’s why Lodge 49 is one of my favorite shows, because what is a fraternal organization but a pseudo-cult? Substitute bloodletting and orgies for dollar-beer night and orgies (I assume), and you’re there.
Anyway, this made me think of a friend of mine, who told me once that movies centered around cults give him a particular case of the creeps. I can see it—the mindless devotion and willingness to say or do anything in furtherance of a belief is what pushed me away from religion. But it made me think about what pushes my button, and it’s definitely cannibalism.
For a long time I’ve had a sort of idealized image of humanity. That most people are decent and good, that hurting others is almost always an accident—and if done purposefully, an aberration. “We are better than that” is a good way of summing it up.
Of course, I’ve since learned that’s not true, at least not in the naive way I thought about it. But there are still limits, and I do think consuming the flesh of our fellow human beings is a line we agree on. And that is why cannibalism in horror, whether it’s movies or books or whatever media you choose, just makes my skin crawl.
Somewhere in my lizard brain, the idea of cannibalism sets off alarm bells. It’s a betrayal of our humanity. It’s an ultimate violation of the flesh. Something about a cannibal is fundamentally broken, and therefore dangerous. Everything about the concept sets off my flight response. Zombies don’t get that reaction out of me exactly because a zombie is no longer human. But a human eating another human? No, thank you.
And yet. For some reason a lot of my favorite movies feature cannibalism to one degree or another. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is on one of them. I love The Rocky Horror Picture Show unabashedly. The Road, Silence of the Lambs, A Boy and His Dog, Sweeney Todd, Alive (and other based-on-true-events survival stories) are all fantastic. Ruins, a two-part comic about an alternate Earth where Nick Fury says Captain America introduced him to the practice, has squatted in a corner of my brain for years. I watch and read these stories, but I probably won’t be ordering a burger for a day or two after.
I remember my first real exposure to the concept of cannibalism. It was a now little-known movie called Nate and Hayes (Savage Islands outside of the U.S.), a pirate swashbuckler starring Tommy Lee Jones and Michael O’Keefe (“Danny Noonan” in Caddyshack). I haven’t seen it again since its original 1983 theatrical run, a time when so many movies tried to catch that Indiana Jones action magic, but I remember it had its share of adventure and daring stunts. What I can’t remember exactly are the details of a scene about cannibals. But I know it was there. It had to have been, because otherwise why would it still give me the creeps all these years later? Maybe my faulty memory makes it worse, but there’s something about it that still makes me queasy.
(I just realized I saw Conan the Barbarian the year before Nate and Hayes, and that included that fantastically gross scene of Conan pushing over a pot full of boiling body parts. For some reason this doesn’t bother me at all.)
Halloween is my favorite time of year. Part of the reason for that, I think, is for the same reason people enjoy horror in general—it’s fun to be scared. It’s a thrill to watch or read something and feel the goosebumps prickle across your skin. It’s a wonderful, terrible sensation to put aside one’s natural cynicism and have that pleasurable sense of irrational dread and delight. To be safely reminded that the world, for all its beauty and bounty, is also a place of danger and mystery.
I’ve told my wife that if we’re ever in a situation where I’ve shuffled this mortal coil and she needs to eat, she has my permission to chow down on me. If anything I’d encourage it, because I’d want her to survive and I’d be beyond caring much at that point. I’ve even suggested which cuts to start with (the glutes). She says no, and that there’s no way she could do that.
Maybe we need to join a cult.
Yay, new Beef from Max!
Reminds me I've seen a recent book release called "Tender Is the Flesh" by Agustina Bazterrica, an Argentinian writer. The premise is that a disease has swept the Earth that's made all animals toxic to eat -- except for humans. Faced with the choice between vegetarianism and cannibalism, humanity immediately starts breeding humans for meat. Maybe less horror, more socio-political dystopian fiction...
My main "No Thank You, Sir" for horror is possession. And eye trauma.
I'm 100% with Scott. Possession is the one that gets me. Someone or something else is driving and I'm in the passenger seat in my own body.
FWIW, I'm with ya: Don't care what happens to this meat when I'm done with it.