This is a Weird one so Bare with me.

I’m about to start the weirdest digression/ blog post ever, but it DOES eventually come around to be about Storytelling and Writing.

Pet Peeves and Rants

So, all of us have things that we want to talk… or rant, about. Sometimes though we don’t have people to share with. Now, technically I DO have many friends that might be willing to sit through the talk I’m about to write. But those writing friends I only see for a few days out of every year when I go on my vacation to NECON. At Necon I spend 4 days surrounded by horror writers/ readers/ lovers so they would be the best people to share this rant with, but you know how it is when you only see people once a year, you spend a lot of time catching up and everyone is trying to see everyone, so there is a lot of vying for time with people.

So now that I have still skated around the topic, let me try to get back on track… You ever watch a movie with someone who totally hates the movie because its “wrong?” Let me clarify a bit, say for example you watch a movie with a cop or military person and they JUST have to tell you about how the cops or the military are completely portrayed wrong and thus it ruins the move for them. We’ve all seen people like this right?

So what pisses me off in movies when they get it so wrong? Cannibalism.

Wait! Don’t run away!

Seriously, give me a chance to explain. I know it’s weird but I just get triggered by movies that portray it wrong… ok this isn’t sounding as good as it did in my head when I first thought up this blog.

Perhaps if I rush into the movies and talking about how/ why they annoy the hell out of me I won’t sound so crazy. First off, I know it sounds very weird. Secondly, I do NOT know why it bothers me so. Though I have been known to scream at the TV at the lack of professionalism in these damn cannibals.

I’m going to point out three issues and three different movies, the first disappointing, the second is an egregious waste of time and just WRONG, and the third will be they almost had it right and then screwed the landing.

First Movie, first complaints:

This is really not a complaint and I love this movie so it doesn’t actually make me mad… but I placed it here as a catchall for things that are done in LOT of movies and also so that this blog wouldn’t just be three pages of me ranting and pissing on a single movie. Personally, I hate “reviews”, criticisms that only bash the hell out of a movie. I’d much rather spend my time telling you about something I love rather than spending my time knocking something down.

So, the quintessential cannibal move should be Texas Chainsaw Massacre (some of my friends are shaking their heads and yelling at the screen about other films right now).

What bothers me about the film is actually the grime. I mean I love the general dirtiness of the house and the bones used as furniture and such, all of that is great. But the thing is the family were a bunch of butchers and worked in the slaughter houses. Imagine how much better it would be if all of the knives and hooks and such in the house were absolutely clean and perfectly sharp. The level of professionalism and the fact that this is just task the Sawyers daily partake in would carry more weight for me.

It would also go back to character and how their environment and upbringing should be part of their portrayal. I wrote a whole blog on this HERE. A butcher is going to keep his tools in working order, and sharp as hell. Rusty knives covered in blood (which is highly acidic and will etch the blade and eventually break it, no Bueno.)

The Worse Movie Cannibalism EVER:

Let me start this by saying I actually like most of the movie. It is crazy and over the top and has some interesting ideas involved in it. But Doomsday has the worse scene of cannibalism ever and has NUMEROUS flaws that make it worse and worse.

If you haven’t seen the movie then I guess I need a little background: Basically, plague starts wiping people out in England and in a bid to save as many people as possible the English government rebuild Hadrian’s Wall as a higher tech barrier that actually cuts across the whole island. All of the sick people are then trucked into Scotland to live or die, the wall is closed and all the people in the rest of England pretend that nothing exists in the north.

Lo and behold, a few years go by and the plague starts to show up in London again. Pretty much everyone north of the wall has died, except for a few thousand people who have either genetic immunity, gained immunity, or might have been cured by a doctor left behind the wall. So, the plot then revolves around a team of soldiers sent into the north to find the doctor or a cure for the plague.

Get to the Point:

Ok, with that bit of background our heroes go north of the wall and into the city closest to the wall (I think it might be Edinburgh, but I haven’t watched the movie in a very long time). All the people living into the have become tattooed, Mad Max rejects. They are all punk weirdos living in absolute filth and garbage. Skipping a bit, the team gets ambushed and a bunch of our soldiers get taken prisoner and the king of these people drags the soldiers before his follows and we get to the cannibalism.

These Punk-Rockers have built this massive BBQ pit running off a bunch of propane bottles and they strap one of the soldiers to this large pole, full clothed, and then slowly tilt the pole forward until his body is on the flames. They flambeau the man for about five minutes and then start carving him up.

BY this point I am enraged beyond all belief.

So many problems with this scene, shall we count them? (Doesn’t matter how you answer I’m counting them):

Everything Wrong with Doomsday Cannibalism Scene:

1. The captive is fully clothed. (ok I am not asking for nudity in the film, but the guy is wearing poly-blend clothing and combat armor and hard plastic elbow and shin guards. They light these on fire… meaning the clothes and armor melt to the body, ruining the meat. Releasing a toxic cloud that has obviously already contributed to mass brain damage! It’s so dumb it hurts.
2. They cook him alive… ok there is a reason why animals are skinned and gutted before being cooked/ eaten. Once again even if the guy was naked and cooked alive, the meat would be poisoned by the offal in the body.
3. Five minutes of burning the skin on a person does not cook them…
4. But you want the biggest damn problem with the scene… there is NO REASON for the people to be cannibals. They are not starving, far from it as many of the extras in the scene are pretty hefty… but no. In the scene before the ambush that captures the soldier in the first place, the army gets stopped coming into the city by a MASSIVE herd of cattle.

Louder for the people in the back:

A MASSIVE HERD OF CATTLE.

Literally thousands of cows just wandering in the country. Thousands! And speaking of the country… why the hell are all these punks living in burned out concrete warehouses with fire cans burning and no privacy when they have an entire city at their disposal… and MORE… the entire country side of Scottland!!

I’m pretty sure there is more than ONE city in all of Scotland, also pretty sure there are suburbs away from the urban center of the city. Houses full of beds and furniture, and a BETTER damn life…

SIGH.

You realize I haven’t watched this movie in probably a decade and yet I’m still worked up about this scene. Also, you would have thought I would have found SOMEONE to talk to about this by now.

Third Movie, they almost get it right.

This movie was a big surprise for me, but if you haven’t watched Bone Tomahawk you need to fix that. This Western quickly becomes a gory as hell Horror movie. Which is both awesome and part of the problem at the same time.

I am totally down with the horror and gore… but there is a point where it becomes torture porn or ridiculous. In case you haven’t seen the movie, it is a western film with Kurt Russell (that alone should make you go watch it) where a bunch of townsfolk go missing and are believed taken hostage by either bandits or natives. Both are kind of true. The local natives have a legend of a primitive people that live underground and are to be avoided at all costs. These cave dwellers have taken the bandit and the townsfolk.

Kurt Russell and a posse form up to go find the lost people. They find them and the cave-dwellers and everything goes full horror from that point forward.

Cannibalism Scene:

They get it so close to right… so close… We have a bunch of people in cages and the cave-dwellers come and grab one of the men out of the cage. They immediately strip him of his clothes, slashing them from his body, and then they scalp him and start cutting.

It falls apart at the end there… They crack the men on the head, but only to keep him semi- stunned and proceed to cut on him willy nilly. It is purely just torture porn and gore at that moment. Instead of serving the story and the character, it’s pandering to making the audience squirm in their seats.

Let’s go back to character, and TRUTH, these cave-dwellers eat people and animals, it’s all the same to them. They don’t care, it isn’t even personal. When you slaughter an animal, it is usually done quickly and often painlessly. They could have quickly popped the man in the head with the axe or if you still want the gore, they could have stripped the man, slit his throat, rolled him over and scalped him quickly. Instead we get a drawn-out scene of a man squirming and screaming and flopping around in the dirt.

Now, some of you might simply say; “the cave-dwellers are extremely primitive and don’t care and have zero humanity.” But point-blank meat is ruined by stress and fear and the job is harder when the “animal” is kicking and screaming all over the floor.

The movie is awesome and gritty and dark as hell but it doesn’t convey truth. As writers we should always strive for truth in all that we work on.

Forgiveness:

So, this was the weirdest blog I’ve ever written and I’ve been writing about my gaming sessions that are full of 80’s cartoons, dinosaurs eating people, rampant decapitations, and all sorts of whacky mayhem. But this post I think will garner me the most weird looks.

Dammit just get cannibalism right in a most so I don’t have to get upset. Show some bloody professionalism.