Editorials
Happy Thanksgiving! It’s the 12 Best Horror Dinner Scenes…
Article by Trace Thurman
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! The holidays are usually pretty barren for us horror fans, so I thought I would honor this holiday by taking you through a tour of some of the best dinner scenes in horror film history. I fully realize that I probably skipped some of your favorites, so this is by no means the definitive list on this subject (if there ever could be one). I also probably picked some that were a bit obvious, so I tried to also include two or three lesser-known films. If you think I missed one (which I most certainly did) feel free to discuss in the comments! Otherwise, let’s take a look at some of the ways our beloved genre has utilized dinner gatherings to horrify and entertain audiences over the years. Just a heads up: I’ve included spoilers for the films in this list so watch out.
Oldboy
While not technically a dinner scene in the traditional sense, I think Oldboy definitely qualifies for a place on this list. Granted, it is probably not very intense for Korean viewers , because although this film is crazy (and amazing), the act of eating a live octopus is considered a delicacy in Korea and also something I would love to try one day if I wasn’t so afraid of the tentacles grabbing hold of my throat as it went down (which is why typically it is served sliced, though the pieces are still moving). Nevertheless, this is a pretty gross scene to watch, and a perfect symbol of Oh Dae-Su’s desire for life (or rather, to ingest another creature’s life force) after being holed up in a room for 15 years. I felt like it would be a good moment to kickstart this list.
Dumplings
I had to watch this movie (part of the anthology Three…Extremes) in an Asian Horror film class I took in college and man, it’s pretty gross. Basically, a woman eats dumplings filled with crushed human baby fetuses so that she can have eternal life. What makes the film so effective is the sound design. You hear the slimy, squirmy dumplings (and the bones of the fetuses) as the characters chew them. It’s probably my favorite use of sound in any horror movie I’ve seen recently. There’s also a pretty awesome(?) abortion scene in the film as well (if you watch the extended version that acts as a standalone film). All of this being said, I still think I would rather eat abortion fetus dumplings than balut (fertilized duck egg), which is also on display in this film.
Cheap Thrills
I did enjoy this movie a lot, but it was definitely a victim of hype for me. I heard about how good it was so often that by the time I actually got around to watching it I thought it was just alright. Don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s a good film. I just don’t think it’s amazing. I do love the “dinner” scene where they have to eat the dog though. “Love” may be the wrong choice of words but it’s just so bizarre and absolutely ridiculous. It used to really bother me when dogs died in movies but I think I’ve been desensitized so much that it just doesn’t affect me as much anymore. Like Dumplings, this is another movie where the sound really amplifies the grotesqueness of the scene. The lead characters are told they will win money if they eat the dog that has been killed and boy do they go for it. It’s hilarious and disgusting at the same time and while my feelings about the movie may be mixed, I can’t deny the effectiveness of this scene.
Tore tanzt (Nothing Bad Can Happen)
This one took the place of Poltergeist on my list (sorry!) since they both involve maggot-infested meats. I’m still a little conflicted about how I feel about this film, but that’s kind of what the director was going for. While not really a horror movie, it is definitely horrifying. Nothing Bad Can Happen follows self-proclaimed “Jesus Freak” Tore as he befriends a family and ends up living with them after the patriarch invites him into their home. It isn’t long before things take a turn for the worse (to put it mildly) as the family starts to torture poor Tore to test his religious strength. The scene in questions is probably the scene that will stick with you the longest once the movie is over and involves the parents of the family force-feeding Tore chicken that was thrown out in the garbage days before and has now become maggot-infested. I watched this movie at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin, which meant I was eating while I watched it. It wasn’t the best plan. You’ve been warned.
Beetlejuice
Yes I know, this isn’t technically a horror movie, but it’s one of the most memorable and entertaining dinner scenes in film history. I wasn’t allowed to watch Beetlejuice growing up because I had a lot of nightmares as a small child after finding a doll of the titular character that had a string on its back that caused its head to spin around when you pulled it. I finally got to see it when I was about 9 after I tricked my grandmother into letting me watch it. I would constantly rewind and watch this scene over and over again while singing and dancing to it in the living room. This scene combines my two favorite genres (horror and musical) and goes balls to the wall with it. In my opinion, this is the quality all horror comedies should strive to achieve.
Alien
I confess, I almost forgot to put this one on the list. I’m not sure what I was thinking, as this is one of the most iconic dinners in cinema, but I digress. I don’t really think I need to go into what makes this scene so amazing but I only wish I could have been alive in 1979 in a theater watching this for the first time. I think the impact this scene had on me was definitely softened after hearing so much about it but I can’t deny that it is a fantastic feat of technology and filmmaking. I may still prefer Aliens as a film, but damn if this scene isn’t an example of how to really knock the audience off of its feet.
Hannibal
I really like Hannibal. I still prefer that batshit insane ending of the novel (if I lost any of you with that statement I completely understand) but I think this is a great film. It’s just overshadowed by the amazing Silence of the Lambs so it never really stood a chance. Well, that and the fact that it’s a 131-minute film and it takes Hannibal nearly 6o of them to show up. That being said, the dinner scene where Ray Liotta’s Agent Krendler gets the top part of his skull removed as Hannibal slices pieces of it off to cook and feed to him is absolutely horrifying. I didn’t get to see Hannibal until years after it was released (I wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies until I was about 16) but I had always heard about this scene (and even read it before I saw the movie). It’s so brilliantly disturbing and definitely earns its place on this list.
Killer Joe
While the clip above actually happens before the dinner scene in the film, it’s still pretty horrifying nonetheless. I love Gina Gershon. Ever since I saw her in Bound I’ve had a thing for her. I feel the exact opposite about Matthew McConaughey. I have never liked him and he has always annoyed me in most of his films (even Frailty, which I love). But I adore him in this movie. I was looking forward to it because I really enjoyed Tracy Letts’ other plays, Bug and August: Osage County, but I didn’t know anything about it. I randomly Redboxed it one night and it was a very pleasant surprise (well, pleasant in a very weird way). Seeing Gershon blow a fried chicken leg was not exactly what I expected, but it was traumatic, to say the least. I still can’t believe that scene got this film an NC-17 rating, but I’m glad director William Friedkin didn’t trim it down to get an R. The fact that after all of this Joe tried to get everyone to sit down for a nice family dinner is all the more hilarious/horrifying. I love this movie, and the final scene is my favorite part.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
I think this one haunts me so much because I remember seeing Greta’s stuffed face on the back of every VHS box for Nightmare 5 in any video store I walked into when I was a kid. Seeing the image of Greta’s body hanging out of the refrigerator door, with her mouth stuffed full of food is a pretty disturbing image for a 5-year-old. The fact that this is one of the most memorable deaths in the franchise (for me, at least) is kind of sad considering that it’s one of the worst films in the franchise (whether Freddy’s Revenge or Freddy’s Dead or both are worse is up for debate). Even still, seeing poor Greta get fed her own innards by Freddy is a twisted idea and I’m glad they writer had the balls to do it, despite the censoring the scene had.
You’re Next
You’re Next was one of my favorite movies from last year, and this scene is one of the main reasons why. Yes, the film has some pretty good kills in it and, while the ending is a little predictable (I admit I was expecting a little bit more to the twist, but I appreciated the simplicity of it more on a second viewing), it’s dialogue like this that really make the movie stick out for me. This movie actually takes time to establish its characters and Simon Barrett did a really good job with the dialogue in this scene. Obviously, if you’ve seen the movie, you know that things escalate rather quickly after this but I wanted to acknowledge a scene where nothing really happens to highlight the brilliance of the film. This is one of the few moments the audience gets to relax and really get to know these characters. This could easily be your family. They have real arguments and behave like real people. Then shit goes down.
Dead Alive
I hate pus. I can handle all of the blood and gore you throw at me, but the second pus gets involved I start to gag a little bit. Nothing has made me want to leave the room more than the dinner scene in Dead Alive (except possibly the eyeball-severing bit in Hostel). I admit I’m not as big on this movie as many of you are, but I can certainly appreciate all of the talent behind the film. My feelings for the film aside, I don’t think any scene has embedded itself in my memory the way this one has. You can’t tell me that this scene does not gross you out, no matter how funny it may be.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
No list of horror movie dinners can be complete without this masterpiece. This is the dinner scene to end all dinner scenes. I admit that when I first saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I was bored to tears. I saw it very late in my horror viewing and I just didn’t see what all the fuss was about. After many more years filled with several re-watchings of it, I have definitely come around, and I think I can finally see what makes this movie so special in many people’s eyes. I can’t say anything about the film that hasn’t been said already but the first time I saw it, it didn’t really affect me. Somewhere down the line, though, this movie really started disturbing me. I’m not sure what happened, but this scene is so freaky to me now. No film has really been able to match this dinner scene (though the 2006 Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning would try) and I believe that’s a testament to how amazing this scene (well, the whole film really) is. Nothing else can really compare to it.
ABOUT TRACE: Trace is a graduate of the Radio/TV/Film program University of Texas at Austin and still lives in Austin. An avid fan of the horror genre, he spends most of his free time reading about/watching movies and TV shows and endlessly harassing his friends to watch underrated gems. He has a strong dislike for the lack of tact/respect present on Internet message boards and is on a mission to promote thoughtful, polite discussions between people who disagree about things online.
Editorials
Larry Cohen’s ‘It’s Alive’ Still Towers Over a 2009 Remake That Maybe Should’ve Stayed Unborn
When I write about remakes, I often bring up the word “justification.” What’s the impetus for the remake’s existence? Reinventing icons for a new generation, or benefiting from a few decades’ worth of special effects advancements? Often, there’s a reason that you can acknowledge and say, “Alright, I see what you’re going for.” That holds in Josef Rusnak’s It’s Alive, which tries to reinvent Larry Cohen’s mutant baby B-movie of the same name in what I consider the worst possible way.
I didn’t say it had to be a GOOD reason.
I’ll start with Cohen’s own reaction to Rusnak’s 2009 update: “It’s a terrible picture. It’s just beyond awful … I would advise anybody who likes my film to cross the street and avoid seeing the new enchilada.” A blunt take, but I agree. Rusnak justifies his remake by diverting drastically from Cohen’s exploitation-y flick about a newborn monster killinPreview (opens in a new tab)g Los Angeles residents, but it’s such a bafflingly weak reimagining. Cohen remains faithful to tenets of creature features while tugging at our hearts with commentaries about parents caught between morality and adoration, whereas Rusnak asks, “What if we punished a mother for trying to have an abortion?”
As Cohen says, cross the damn street.
The Approach
It’s Alive (2009) is one of those women-focused horror projects that make you scoff, derogatorily, “This was written and directed by dudes, wasn’t it?” Cohen’s original screenplay isn’t airtight, yet it does well to respect Sharon Farrell‘s “shaken mother of a monster,” Lenore Davis. Paul Sopocy and James Portolese, on the other hand, pen a screenplay that reductively focuses on Lenore protecting her bitey offspring, with a bent-out-of-shape abortion subplot thrown in. That’s not to say Cohen’s Lenore doesn’t display the same protective maternal instincts, but Rusnak plays in a sandbox of lame-duck tropes, dooming Lenore for the supposed sin of a mother’s love.
Teenage party-girl turned actress Bijou Phillips stars as Lenore Harker, a New Mexico college student who quits to live with her architect boyfriend, Frank (James Murray), and raise their incoming baby. She’s ditching pizza nights and girl talk with bestie Marnie (Ty Glaser), moving into the Albuquerque woods, where Frank has a secluded homestead with brother Chris (Raphaël Coleman), who is wheelchair dependent. Lenore goes in for a pregnancy checkup, where she learns her unborn child has doubled in size, requiring a cesarean section birth. So the surgical team opens her up and extracts “Daniel,” only to be murdered by the newborn, found resting on Lenore’s stomach, taking a post-slaughter rest.
The immediate deviation is how Daniel is found nuzzling Lenore in the hospital, and doesn’t look “freakish” at first glance. Daniel comes home with Lenore and Frank, setting up the happy lil’ family dynamic. It’s no longer a conspiratorial hunt-and-hide scenario; the “home sweet hell” take on Cohen’s original. Which, frustratingly, dissolves the core suspense that Cohen achieves. For Daniel to kill, victims have to come knocking on Lenore’s door, which becomes a repetitive cycle of visitors and hidden bodies that remove any excitement and surprises.
Does It Work?
Rusnak earns points for trying something new. Remakes have historically been less willing to put unique spins on existing stories (see: Cabin Fever). But there’s also a question of retaining the essence of the source material. Why remake a movie if you’re going to spin so far from the original that you don’t even need to use the title? It’s the Child’s Play of it all. If you wanted to make a killer AI toy movie, why use the Child’s Play legacy to do so (outside of market familiarity)?
It’s Alive doesn’t fully abandon Cohen’s ideas, but it does feel thinner than expected. There have been plenty of killer baby movies since It’s Alive—Cohen hardly has the concept trademarked. What’s fun about Cohen’s It’s Alive is how Frank chases his mutant kin around Los Angeles, eventually into the sewer system, culminating in the Los Angeles (drained) river. Rusnak directs what’s essentially a one-location thriller that minimizes the scope to meet not only its lower budget, but lesser ambitions. Where Cohen pushes farther, Rusnak pulls back, losing the idiosyncratic quirks of Cohen’s superior It’s Alive.
There’s nothing wrong with a good chamber piece, but the psychological torments Sopocy and Portolese opt for are soft as fresh-out-the-bag marshmallows. So much of the film hinges on Lenore’s cover-up tactics when she realizes her wee one is a maneater, which becomes one-note in the process. Frank wanders around, ignoring red flags, and Chris is removed from the picture for a small bit to keep the massacre going. In both films, Lenore has trouble turning against her child—but Cohen is much more thoughtful about Lenore’s state through it all. Rusnak’s direction is short-sighted, rudimentary, and flat, as it has nothing interesting to say about the fears of parenthood that drive Phillips’ Lenore to nurture the vengeful child she once wanted to terminate.
The Result
In It’s Alive (1974), Cohen makes a point of referencing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, as John P. Ryan’s Frank recalls having the epiphany that Dr. Frankenstein is the villain, not his creation. It’s what drives Cohen’s screenplay, as we learn how the doctors tried to kill the original baby, since its deformities made it look like a melon-headed, fang-toothed freakshow. There’s none of that in Rusnak’s remake, which diminishes the creature’s origins and motives to anger. It’s an uninteresting modification because the point of Cohen’s picture is to question what makes a monster, and how its creators process their hand in the chaos. Rusnak’s not interested in such explorations, except when the screenplay shoehorns what foolishly appears as an anti-abortion undertone when we learn about Lenore’s sketchy internet baby-be-gone pills.
Even worse, the technical merits of Rusnak’s It’s Alive are unfortunate. Credit to the original’s cast, because Ryan and Farrell bring dramatic acting chops that accentuate their film’s tragedy; a legitimate heartbreaker. None of Rusnak’s cast are hitting on such a high caliber of talent, especially since there’s nothing meaty about Sopocy and Portolese’s character designs. It’s very Horror 101: ignore the obvious, act gobsmacked when the obvious happens, and bring it home. Phillips has been better in films like Bully and Hostel: Part II (maybe even The Wizard of Gore), while Murray is your average 2000s straight-to-video throwaway boyfriend. The rest of the supporting cast, sadly, barely even register.
There’s a charm to Cohen’s monster SFX, whipped up by Rick Baker—but also an opportunity. Cohen decided to use this three-mirror-blur vision, seeing through the baby’s eyes to show the beast as little as possible. If Rusnak wanted to make a stronger impact, he could have gone all-in on Daniel’s appearance to say, “Hey, at least we developed a rad creature!” But, alas, Rusnak might show even less of Daniel. When he does appear in the basement, or leap out of a trash can in the film’s climactic finale, it’s CG augmentation that distorts a puppet reportedly crafted by SFX superstar Tony Gardner. Cohen accomplishes infinitely more by putting his then-girlfriend Elaine Parkyn in a full-head monster mask, a pair of pointed gloves, and a partial body suit that benefit from optical tricks—because practical always wins.
The Lesson
It’s not hard to wonder why Millennium Films lost faith in Rusnak’s It’s Alive and opted for no theatrical release. In a time when horror remakes were all the rage, Millennium buried It’s Alive so deep that it’s not even watchable or rentable on streaming (ain’t even worth Tubi). No hyperbole, this remake stinks with the stinkiest of ’em. It’s slight on innovation, filled with awful genre generics, and is a slap in the face to what Cohen accomplished. There’s something so fresh about a killer baby flick that focuses on the suit-and-tie-wearing father, who is forced to challenge the stern, macho gender roles of the 70s, and something so disappointing about a 2000s horror movie that falls right back into outdated mindsets.
So what did we learn?
- Yes, for the hundredth time, some of those 2000s horror remakes are as bad as the haters made them all out to be.
- Ex-David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, and Alice Cooper bassist Todd Jensen plays Lenore’s doctor for some reason (which I wouldn’t have known without the internet).
- You can appreciate a remake for trying something different, but you can also detest a remake for how poorly it does something different.
- Why does Daniel look like a baby shark (doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo)?
Watching both It’s Alive flicks back-to-back gave me whiplash. When John P. Ryan (as Frank) confronts his cowering, terrified child-monster in the bowels of Los Angeles, I nearly shed a tear. That whole scene really, as Ryan realizes he’s become the Dr. Frankenstein of sorts, and his miserable, deformed boy craves his father’s affection in a time of need. Then you have Rusnak’s film, which brutally kills the pro-abortion character, insinuates Lenore is being punished for trying to abort Daniel early in the pregnancy, and deserves to die with her demon spawn engulfed by the worst CG flames this side of Birdemic: Shock and Terror. I just … kudos to Cohen for richly developing a sci-fi curio with a tremendous sense of emotional understanding, and nothing but thumbs down for Rusnak’s remake, which comes off as plenty boneheaded and hella halfhearted in the process.
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