Cinema Not So Paradiso

Food has a fairly big place in Hallowe'een, the whole tradition of this most Americanised of holidays: pumpkins, apple bobbing, tonnes of candy. Food associated with Hallowe’en is, however, a well-worn trope, one that comes around every year with the same degree of certainty as Michael Myers will grace the late-night BBC broadcasts on 31 October. But it feels remiss of us not to include it in some way.

So how do we get a food and Hallowe'en mash-up going on without resorting to cliché? Well, what do many of us do on Hallowe'en? Watch scary movies. So how about food AND scary movies? Genius, right? Here are our favourite moments:

Eraserhead: Seen that YouTube video of a girl trying to eat/catch a live octopus at the Noryangjin  fish market in Seoul? If not, it’s suggested viewing for anyone who wants to know what cephalopod  molluscs look like when they’re shit-scared. Animate food brings to mind the dinner scene from Lynch’s much-lauded film: a tiny chicken squirting and jerking robotically as it is about to be carved. Just plain off-putting. In retrospect: not as creepy as the mother’s strange tableside moans. 

Dumplings: If the idea of eating aborted foetuses sounds appetising then we suggest you get some help. If it doesn’t (well done, you’re normal) then Dumplings will almost literally turn your stomach. In this Hong Kong horror, a certain Mrs Li seeks a more youthful appearance after her husband has an affair with a younger masseuse. The solution is Aunt Mei’s dumplings, the contents of which come from the local abortion clinic. Like 2010’s Somos lo que hay, the cannibalism has allegorical weight, in this case lampooning the cult of youth.

Seven: If you really think about it, any food can kill you. I mean, the fugu fish is more of a risk  than nutmeg, say, but they can both be lethal. Just think: munching on a PB&J could have dire  consequences for someone with a nut allergy. David Fincher’s Seven (or Se7en for those who need reminding what the number seven looks like) takes a different tack in the opening 'gluttony' crime scene: innocuous jarred sauce and pasta plus a serial killer who’s got too much time on his hands, and, hey presto, you’ve got homicide by over-eating.

Frenzy: By his penultimate feature film, Hitchcock’s appetite was uncontrollably spilling over into  his medium: the film’s villain, Robert Rusk, otherwise known as the 'Necktie Killer', is a fruit and veg merchant by trade (interestingly, Hitchcock’s father was a greengrocer and poulterer); the two onscreen murders are framed by Bob taking a bite of an apple and tucking into a slice of pork pie; and  there’s a subplot where the case detective has to endure his wife’s cack-handed cooking. 

At the very least, that should give you some fodder for a Hallowe’en movie-marathon. And to those who stumbled across this while grabbing a bite to eat, we're sorry if the contents of your stomach are now conspicuously no longer there.