I noticed a trend with our latest movie/TV show watching choices. Many of the programs we’ve watched are about cannibalism. What is it with us? Is it our new diet making us crave for food so much we’re willing to live vicariously through those who eat the flesh of their own kind? Or is this merely coincidence?

I’m going to go with the latter to save a police investigation.

Our cannibal binge started when we watched a movie called The Bad Batch on Netflix. We saw it on a YouTube video of “underrated movies on Netflix you should watch.” The film stars some woman, Jason Mamoa, Keanu Reeves, and includes one of the strangest performances by Jim Carrey you’ll ever see. Chances are, you won’t even know it’s Carrey until you check out the Wikipedia Page in a frenzy after the movie ends.

The plot of this movie deals with cannibalism in some sort of strange desert setting which we never really learn much about. I wish they explained it further. There was some great potential. It starts off pretty gruesome and involves people chopping off limbs of others and eating them. I suppose this is better than chopping them off and using them in other ways like to hold up a nightstand.

As the movie moves along, it does slow down. There wasn’t quite enough action for me to really love it. The Bad Batch is still strange and will surely make you want to at least try eating a neighbor’s finger in a totally unfriendly way.

Following this, we started watching the second season of Santa Clarita Diet. This is Drew Barrymore’s comeback attempt from gaining lots of weight. We binge-watched the first season in one day over the summer, letting the second season stretch out over a few more days.

This show also involves plenty of cannibalism. Barrymore is undead and must eat flesh to survive. The jokes are very hit-and-miss. I’d say about 70% of them miss for everyone at varying degrees. However, the premise has kept me interested through the first 20 episodes. Sometimes a bit unapologetic with its jokes, I think Santa Clarita Diet is worth watching even if you’ve never accidentally licked a stranger on the bus and kinda liked it.

Finally, our cannibalism phase finished off with watching Ravenous. Oddly enough, there are two movies with this title about eating people. There’s the 1999 film starring Guy Pearce and this 2017 French-Canadian dealing with zombie-like creatures. We watched the later together.

There’s nothing spectacular about this movie. I like the depressing Korean drama Train to Busan far better. Ravenous is strange and less about the flesh-eating and more about the symbolism. It’s not hard to figure out either.

Overall though, it’s not a bad movie and there are a few early scares. Unfortunately, none of the characters are worth caring about which makes it hard to root against the zombies.

I’m not exactly sure when we’ll kick the cannibalism addiction. We could always go back to watching Jeopardy. Although, the way Alex Trebek insults some of the contestants, he could eat one soon.