THE BAD BATCH
Ana Lily Amirpour, Human Stew Factory 2016
Among the genre of Cannibal Movies it is rare to find a big budget one with A-list actors. The Bad Batch is an exception to that rule. Jason Momoa, Keannu Reeves and Jim Carey star in this tale of post-apocalyptic dystopia that can be described as Mad Max meets the Hills Have Eyes at Burning Man. "The Bad Batch" refers to undesirables that are outcasts from society. Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) is one of these and is banished to a wasteland in Texas where US laws do not apply. Almost immediately she is captured by cannibal women who cut off her arm and leg for a snack. Killing her captors she manages to escape and is rescued by "The Hermit" (Jim Carrey) who takes her to a place called "Comfort", a settlement led by cult figure "The Dream" (Keanu Reeves) where drug-fueled all-night raves happen. After living in Comfort for a couple of years Arlen, now equiped with prosthetic limbs to replace the ones that the cannibals ate, rescues a young girl from one of the cannibals. The girl is the daughter of Miami Man (Jason Momoa) who is the leader of the cannibals. I am getting a headache just trying to describe it. Who are the bad guys and who are the good guys? That's really the only question of this movie.
Pedro Almodovar, Tesauro 1983 (Spain)
Spanish director Pedro Almodovar brings us this whacky story of a lounge singer who has run into trouble with the Spanish equivalent of the mob. Going on the run, she hides out with a convent of nuns whose order believes in getting closer to God through self humiliation. One of the nuns drops acid and engages in masochistic self abuse to get "visions." Another nun writes and publishes pornographic novels. The Mother Superior is a heroin junkie and possible lesbian. Although it is never shown, all the nuns are in morning and reverence for the youngest and prettiest of their number who was eaten by cannibals in their African outpost. In Spanish with English subtitles, a twisted art film for connoisseurs of the bizarre.
aka Out Of Rosenheim
Percy Adlon, Pelemele Film 1987
This is one of those movies (like Gentlemen Marry Brunettes or Loose Shoes) where you would never expect a sequence with cannibals and a woman in a pot to appear, but yet there it is. German actrees Marianne Sagebrecht plays Jasmine Muenchgstettner, a German tourist staying at an out of the way cafe in the Mojave desert. CCH Pounder plays the bemused cafe owner. In one (very) brief scene toward the beginning of the film, Jasmine imagines herself being cooked in a pot by cannibals. The movie was later made into an unsuccessful television series starring Whoopi Goldberg.
aka Welcome to Hell
Timo Rose, 2007 (Germany)
Another "campers meet inbred cannibal family in the wilderness" horror/splatter flick. The only difference is this one is from Germany. This family seems to like blood more than flesh. In fact, they are always covered in blood all the time. Their house is covered in blood. Even the closing credits of this movie are covered in blood. In fact, blood should have gotten a starring credit in the movie. So, if you like a lot of blood you will like this movie. Otherwise, you have already seen it because other than being made in Germany there is nothing new or different in this typical gore drenched horror flick.
Club Dead
Another cannibal video short from Club Dead. In this one, amateur model Jade is made into a barbecue in what looks like the same kitchen Tanya got "All Buttered Up" in. Other than that, it looks pretty much the same as the other video. Club Dead promises another cannibal video. This is now featured on Club Dead's complilation video, "The Strange Files."
Jon Gorman, Blood Bath Pictures 2007
Debbie Rochon stars as a girl's athletic coach whose team members are being stalked and killed by a chef that just kills girls and doesn't cook them. Debbie gets killed pretty much right away and we never find out where the chef comes from or why he is killing the girls and stealing their intestines. In fact, we never get to understand why this movie was ever made in the first place.
Brian Clement, Frontline Films 2002
A bunch of average girls are fashion models, and they have a secret (other than the fact that they don't look like fashion models). They're cannibals, and they need to eat human flesh to keep their only slightly above average looks. Three ex-cop PIs are looking for answers, and one of them provides the only skin before she becomes a cannibal herself. A Canadian production done in British Columbia.
Jackie Kong, Lightning Pictures
1987
Two young boys who own a New York diner follow the instructions of their dead uncle (or at least the brain of their dead uncle) to resurrect the ancient Egyptian goddess Shiitar. They construct a new body for the goddess made up of cheerleader parts and prepare a "blood buffet" made up of various parts of the local "bad girls." The last thing is to sacrifice a virgin cheerleader to be dined on by the newly revived Shiitar. If all of this sounds similar to Hershel Gordon Lewis' "BLOOD FEAST", it is.
Hershell Gordon Lewis,
Friedman-Lewis Productions 1963
The original Hershell Gordon Lewis gore classic. Insane Egyptian caterer Fuad Ramses prepares the "Blood Feast" in honor of the Egyptian goddess Ishtar. The ingredients consist of Playboy centerfold Connie Mason as well as other pin-up girls. The "roughie" that started it all.
David F. Friedman, Herschel Gordon Lewis. Queso Grande Productions 2002
David Friedman was Excecutive Producer of this 2002 remake/sequel of the H.G. Lewis classic with Something Weird's Mike Vraney as Associate Producer. H.G. Lewis himself directed. With all those credentials you would expect this movie to be better than it actually is. Fuad Ramses (actually, his grandson) is back as the psycho cannibal caterer and he is hired to cater the wedding of sexy debutant Tiffany. Tiffany's bridesmaids like to get naked and whenever they do, Fuad kills them in a gory manner and puts parts of them on the menu for the wedding feast. The idol of Ishtar in the back room of his store apparently has the power to cause bad acting. The inept police can't figure it out, which is not surprising given the always eating head detective's fantasies about his sexy secretary. John Waters has a cameo as the gay minister presiding at the wedding. The Special Edition DVD has lots of extras.
Alan Smithee (Dean Tschetter),
Saratoga Film Corporation 1991
Tries - and fails - to be a Herschel Gordon Lewis campy horror film. It is more of a spoof of HGL, but really fails even as a spoof. Featuring ex-porn star Veronica Hart, the film is so bad that the director put his name as "Alan Smithee". In other words, Bloodsucking Pharaohs from Pittsburgh, Sucks.
Andy Milligan, Constitution Films
1970
"Their prime cuts were curiously erotic ... and thoroughly BRUTAL." A re-telling of the Sweeny Todd story Andy Milligan style. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and his accomplice dispatch customers who wind up being served at the Inn as steak and kidney pie. Special Parts are reserved for Special Customers. Someone finds a woman's breast cooked inside a meat pie and its all over. As Michael Weldon says, "...if you're an Andy Milligan fan, there's no hope for you."
Joshua A. Siegel, Arcadian
Entertainment 2010
Pretty much the typical low-budget high-camp slasher film this one seems like it is trying to be a comedy. Featuring a cast of unknowns and shot in Butte County, California (home of Cal State Chico) which is an area of some horror flick cred. A documentary film crew is making a fake Bigfoot documentary in the forest when they find a naked bloody woman. Soon after that they are pursued by a bunch of cannibals. The usual festival of fake blood effects ensue.
aka Adam and Eve versus the Cannibals
Vincent Green (Enzo Doria), Alex
Film International 1983 (Italy)
A European ripoff of "Blue Lagoon", this is the tale of Adam and Eve after getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Eve falls in love with a dashing, blue-painted caveman, leaving heart-broken Adam wishing for an extra rib. But, when Eve and her new beau are captured by a tribe of cannibals making a guest appearance from "Quest for Fire", Adam manages to save them both and win Eve's love back. After that you really won't much care what happens.
Candid Press
An old and obscure "roughie" circa 1964 done by a now defunct Bondage and S&M outfit called Candid Press. As near as I can make out, it's about a couple of girls who get picked up by a white slavery ring and sold to an Arab Sheik in North Africa. They manage to escape the harem and wander south, where they are picked up by some white miners who decide to emulate the areas cannibals. The girls are stripped, tortured and put into a big pot, but are rescued by the natives who, it seems, have much better ideas about how to cook a girl! The other story I've heard is that it's about a couple of girls who are picked up by some hillbillies who decide to use them as the main ingredient in a "chick" gumbo. Photo stills from this movie would occasionally appear in bondage and S&M magazines throughout the sixties and seventies.
S. Craig Zahler, Caliber Media
Company 2015
A cannibal western. Or, more accurately, a western about cannibals it starts out as a western and then transitions into a horror movie set in the western frontier. A tribe of troglodytes (cave dwelling cannibals) kidnap people from the town of Bright Hope, among them are the wife of a rancher and the town's doctor. The rancher, the sheriff, his deputy and a gun fighter form a posse to rescue their citizens. The cannibals are the typical horror film savages whose only motivation is to kill in the goriest way possible. Kurt Russell stars as the sheriff.
Luca Guadagnino, Frenesy Film
Company 2022
From the director of Call Me by your Name Luca Guadagnino and starring Timothy Chalamet from the same film, comes a film that could be about the missing third person from that film, Army Hammer, who in early 2021 became infamous as having cannibalistic proclivities. This film is about Maren, a young woman with a compulsion to eat human flesh. Having been abondoned by her father she meets other "eaters", including an older drifter and Lee (Chalamet), a young man whose family has also abandoned him. The "eaters" are presented as an almost vampire like subculture, born with a need to consume human flesh. Maren and Lee fall in love and travel together in search of their histories and how they are the way they are, all the while pursued by Sully (Mark Rylance), the older cannibal. They meet many other of their kind along the way.
John McNaughton, Cannon Pictures
1991
Rae Dawn Chong stars as a homicide detective investigating a series of murders seemingly committed by a serial killer called "the headhunter." Bodies are found partially eaten and missing their heads. Seems it's being caused by an extraterrestrial virus which turns people into cannibals and causes their heads to fall off. Rae Dawn figures it out, but the feds won't believe her. It's left open ended for a sequel, but there never was one. Also features Madchen Amick from "Twin Peaks."
Stephan Bradley, Element Films 2005 (Ireland)
An Irish horror/comedy with a plot very similar to My Boyfriend's Back. A boy dies tragically after declaring undying love for his girl. He is brought back to life as a zombie and attempts to resume his life, but the hunger for human flesh begins to overwhelm him. Soon the school is full of flesh-hungry zombies and the boy needs to save his love from the zombies while trying to avoid the temptation to eat her himself. Samantha Mumba (The Time Machine) stars as the zombie boy's love object and choice zombie feast. Samantha avoided being eaten by Morlock's in the 2002 remake of The Time Machine. Will she be so lucky this time?
Sarah Gurfield, Gurfilms 2019 (UK)
A romantic comedy short film about two zombies that fall in love while fighting over a woman's corpse.
Studley Lamont, Raw Silk 1996
Mid 90's porn video back in the days when porns still had a pretense of a plot. A voluptuous redheaded actress Emily Hill plays the "bush woman" who follows her anthropologist professor (who vanished mysteriously) into the bush to look for a native tribe he claimed to have found. Her male companion is captured by the cannibal women while she films the scene as they "eat" him. Getting turned on to the action, she is literally caught with her pants down by the male cannibals who capture her and carry her away hog-style on a pole. Unique in that this porn gives us a Femcan and a "WE" scene back to back. The "eating" is, of course, just oral, anal and vaginal sex.
Sidney Sheldon, Forum Productions
1957
Donald O'Connor stars as Buster Keaton in a movie based on the life story of the pioneer of silent movie comedy. In an early scene Buster is hanging out at a studio on the set of a two-reeler comedy in which an explorer has been captured by a tribe of cannibals. Buster claims he can play it better and shows 'em how. Then he's ridiculed and laughed off the set. Later, after becoming a star, he dates the jungle girl star of the movie he was laughed off of. I don't know if this was based on a real incident or if it was just something the screenwriter dreamed up. Much of this movie was fictionalized.