The prevalence of autophagia (also known as self-cannibalism, auto-cannibalism, or the act of eating oneself) is so common today that most people don’t even realize they take part. Autophagia applies to the self-consumption of any part of the body, including fingernails, dead skin, scabs, hair, blood, and, of course, meat. Give me a “Hello Clarice” if you just found out you’ve taken part in auto-cannibalism before.

Now, typically, the most devastating cases of self-cannibalism, where they go for the meat, are attributed to severe mental health crises.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health emergency, reach out for help. You can call 988 or talk to someone at the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988lifine.org.

Although autophagia is incredibly common in its lesser forms, it’s all around pretty terrible for us. Nail biting can lead to infection. Hair eating can lead to hairballs (or that unfortunate scene in Raw). Human blood consumption can lead to toxic iron levels. To top things off, human meat has little caloric value (especially compared to beefier counterparts).

Crossing the line into extreme self-cannibalism is an unfathomable boundary for many people for countless reasons – so naturally, the horror genre is here to explore it. Gore is the theme this month at Horror Press, and the following adheres to it. Let that be a warning as we delve into eight horror movie moments that explore how the line into self-cannibalism is crossed.

Autophagia in Horror Movies

Talk to Me

The introduction may have left you feeling unsettled, so let’s start things off small with some innocent self-blood consumption.

In what was arguably one of the most disturbing moments in 2023’s Talk to Me, a possessed teen recovering from numerous head lacerations begins slamming the back of his head into a wall until it cracks and bleeds, where he then starts frantically lapping his blood off the hospital floor.

Now, I may have misled you a bit about it only being innocent blood-drinking because there most certainly had to be bits of cranial matter mixed in there. This scene showcases one of the most unsettling aspects of the extreme forms of auto cannibalism: A person taking place in something that is not only so far outside of their character but also goes against every survival instinct that we have. The resulting physical pain of those actions is inconceivable, yet the person carries on, overriding every failsafe our body has to protect us. This next entry is another glorious example of that.

Splatter: Naked Blood

The 1996 Japanese horror film Splatter: Naked Blood works on the premise that a drug is being tested that turns pain into pleasure. You may recognize it from my list of best eyeball horror, and the same scene referenced places it here.

To get right to the point, a woman scoops out her eyeball with a fork and proceeds to eat it. But it’s the cheerful, orgasmic delivery that makes this scene the most unsettling. In most other examples of auto cannibalism in horror, there are malicious undertones or frenzied acts. In this scene, she dines on her eyeball like she’s having the best time of her life.

This moment captures a complete and total disconnect from reality. Being so immersed in the delusion that a person seems sane while doing something crazy gives me the heebie-jeebies, worse than this subject matter.

I should hold that thought.

In the Tall Grass

If you look up incidents of auto cannibalism today, the mass majority of notable incidents tend to happen against one’s will. If you’re not following, let’s look at In the Tall Grass.

In the movie, Becky DeMuth finds herself in a seemingly inescapable field of tall grass. Inside, she meets a man with heavy cult-like ideals. This spells incredibly terrible things for her pregnancy, which a half-conscious Lucy discovers after said cult man hand-feeds her the contents of her womb.

Speaking of being forced to dine on one’s progeny:

Spell (2020)

In a tale reminiscent of Misery, Spell features a man named Marquis T. Woods, who, after being injured in a plane crash, is taken in by a stranger.

The stranger (played by the amazing Loretta Devine) begins controlling Marquis with voodoo. Until he can fight back, he has no choice but to eat what she gives. But unbeknownst to him initially, she fed Marquis his son’s hand.

While I know this doesn’t directly fall under auto-cannibalism, a philosophy reminiscent of Ouroboros is happening here: the snake eating its tail symbolizes the everlasting cycle of destruction and creation, life and death. It’s meant to be a positive symbol, one of the snake’s few positive symbolic associations culturally.

Since this meal happens as a pretext for the final battle that our protagonist wins, he successfully subverts the enemy’s tactics against them. The destruction of his creation led to her creating this meal, leading to her destruction. Ouroboros.

If you feel like this has slid off track, let’s get back on it.

Anthropophagus (1980)

This 1980 Italian film by Joe D’Amato goes by many names: The Beast, The Savage Island, The Grim Reaper, or Anthropophagus.

Another name could be “the movie where the cannibal eats the baby out of a pregnant lady and ends with him eating his own intestines.”

That title may be lengthy, though.

Our anthropophagus became a cannibal first out of starving necessity. After having to eat his family to survive, he lost every ounce of humanity. It triggered an animalistic rampage culminating in the film’s impactful finale I referenced earlier.

Interestingly, the word anthropophagus means cannibal, especially in old myths and fables. But the aforementioned loss of humanity calls into question whether a person who’s become devoid of all humanity is a cannibal.

Sure, scientifically, they’re still human. But there’s a philosophical question of choice and at what point a person’s ‘self’ is no longer them. Should that be considered? To explore this further, let’s look at another moment of auto cannibalism in horror.

The Evil Dead (1981)

In Sam Raimi’s 1981 The Evil Dead, we see Shelly eat off her hand in Deadite form. Should this be considered auto cannibalism? The consensus is that when a Kandarian demon possesses a person, their soul goes to hell or limbo, making it fair to say that the Deadite version of them is no longer them, at least for the time being.

From Mia in 2013’s Evil Dead, we know someone can return from Deadite possession, proving they’re not entirely gone. But most people who change to Deadites do not come back. This transformation from human into Deadite encapsulates the absence of the Id and the ego, the conscious and unconscious mind.

It calls into question at what point is the person no longer the person who’s eating themself? And if the person is not present, should it be considered auto-cannibalism?

This subject got complicated; let’s finish with some less philosophically debatable cases.

Raw (2016)

Typically, cannibalism in films is used as a metaphor for love or exploring sexuality. The film Raw, where a vegetarian develops a hunger for human flesh, is an excellent example of the exploration into cannibalism serving as a fill-in for sexual exploration.

Yet, while cannibalism shows a closeness with others and the discovery of oneself, auto-cannibalism tends to show the opposite: a separation between mind and body or the chasm between force and free will. Rawdipped into auto-cannibalism with some hair-eating and wrist-biting, showcasing them as compulsory acts. Yet, self-cannibalism happening out of acts of compulsion is exemplified strongest in our final entry.

Eat (2014)

In the film Eat, struggling rising star Novella McClure’s autophagia begins in a way that’s familiar to many of us: she bites her cuticles when she experiences anxiety. As she can’t find work and can’t pay her bills, her anxiety grows, as does the compulsion to chew on herself. The incidents of autophagia continue until she’s bitten off and eaten whole body parts.

She attempts to hide her self-mutilations from those closest to her, even putting heels on over her freshly mangled foot. It speaks to the underlying mental health factors that contribute to auto-cannibalism, as well as a hefty metaphor for the feeling of being eaten alive by anxiety. This film gives us a vulgarly realistic depiction of anxiety personified; we tear ourselves apart. But most importantly, even in its radical displays, Eat humanizes the act of auto-cannibalism, showing us the boundary between it happening and not isn’t quite as large as we’d like to believe.

After all of this, I’d be remiss not to mention that some people take place in extreme auto-cannibalism willingly to see what it’s like. One Reddit user shared that after he had a foot amputated for medical reasons, he had it prepared into foot tacos for him and his closest friends because they all had said they’d be interested in trying human meat if they ever ethically had the chance.

Someone cue the “you can’t eat at everybody’s house” music.

By and large, the extreme forms of auto-cannibalism fit so well into horror because the notion of losing one’s grip on existence to the extent of extreme self-consumption is equal parts horrific and possible. Perhaps you didn’t realize how possible until now, so enjoy going through your day with this information. May you be slightly unsettled, from one horror fan to another.

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