Billy: Its What's For Dinner!

Billy, don’t be a hero. Especially if that means also being the main course. Dinner a la Donner Party is not something that most of us will probably ever experience, but that doesn’t mean films don’t like serving us up a big plate of cannibalism on the big screen. Heres a list I’ve compiled of movies with cannibalism and rated them on just how meaty they are. Zombie movies don’t count, because the zombies can’t help it that they need to feast on the flesh of the living. It’s their addiction.

Sweeney Todd

This is light-weight, starters of cinema cannibalism. A few very obviously crazy Brits decide to throw some human tissue into the meat pies as a way of cleverly getting rid of the bodies that are staking up anyways. Times are tough and you do what you have to, which seems to be a theme of these movies. Cannibalism is only condoned in times of extreme economic hardship (we better hope that stimulus package passes).

Verdict: No one knows that they are eating their cousins, so altogether its not that bad. These chefs get their cake and to eat it too when it all comes to light. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Rating: Biting your tongue

Solyent Green

The granddaddy of all mommy-munching movies. Again, it’s a limited number of people who decide to feed everyone else, well, everyone else, and heck, its only on Tuesdays. Albeit, it is the government who makes the decisions, so it’s a little worse. The most affecting moment in the film is when the elderly man is eating a piece of lettuce and watching the way he savors it, and doesn’t even involve eating humans at all.

Verdict: Big brother is watching you eat that cake, and thinking about making you into bacon, but only if you are old anyways. SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

Rating: Putting your foot in your mouth

Delicatessen

I would say that this is the worse of all cannibalism on the silver screen. The fundamental difference is that everyone chooses to eat their (literally) neighbors. Its premeditated murder. The butcher who lives in apartment finds new tenants who he then kills and sells to all of the others in the building. When pickings get lean he offs the mother-in-law of someone already in the building. The residents all might be a little crazy, they all clearly have their quirks, but not to the degree of Todd or Hannibal Lector which is what makes it so terrifying.

Verdict: When times are lean don’t go through with that ad for an apartment, looking for a plump and juicy tenant. Gorgeous and gruesome, this movie is a real treat.

Rating: Taking a bite out of your arm

The Road

So, this movie isn’t out yet but if they follow the book there will be enough dead baby eating that even I won’t want to make dead baby jokes (How do you get a dead baby in a shoebox? Blender. How do you get a dead baby out of a shoebox? Nacho chips.). The most horrifying part of the book was when the man and boy find that cellar full of people that are being stored for eating. This is premeditated man munching to the extreme.

Verdict: Twins due next week? You better get some charcoal for the bbq.

Rating: BRAINS!!! And dead babies galore.

Honorable Mention: Cannibal: The Musical, if only for the cowbell and the singing