By Desmond Bellamy

Trick–or–treating is just so 2019 – in the “new normal”, people will stay home on Halloween and scare themselves silly with horror films. Here’s a list of scary movies that will make even the most zealous flesh-eaters question their next meal.

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

One of the first and probably the best-known slasher movie, this classic horror film inspired many others that followed. A group of youngsters from the city are travelling through Texas looking for a family gravesite when they run across a family of cannibals. The killers are unemployed former slaughterhouse workers who now ply the only trade they know on a new prey: clueless tourists. As with many animal abusers, the cannibals waste no part of their prey: the wielder of the infamous chainsaw is named Leatherface because he wears a mask made of human skin.

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Motel Hell (1980)

Farmer Vincent Smith is a true entrepreneur. He runs a pig farm and a motel called “Motel Hello”, but the final “o” has burned out on the sign. Motorists and others (like the local meat inspector) are knocked out and buried up to their necks in earth. Their vocal cords are cut to make them “voiceless”. Then, they’re fed until they’re fat enough to be “harvested”. The farmer’s family motto is “Meat’s meat, and a man’s gotta eat!” The film makes us wonder about the way meat is produced. When Vincent pulls out his scalpel, is he really behaving differently from a farmer who ties down a bull or hog to castrate him or to burn off his horns – or a sheep farmer who cuts hunks of skin off the backside of a lamb because it’s an easy and cheap way to avoid flystrike?

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Grimm Love (2006)

This film is based on the true story of Armin Meiwes, who in 2001 advertised on the dark web for “a well-built 18- to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed”. Most of those who replied didn’t take him seriously, but one respondent, Jürgen Brandes, was ready and willing to be slaughtered and eaten. When the cops caught up with Meiwes, they had a problem: cannibalism is not illegal in Germany (or most other jurisdictions). The implicit question in this filmis: why are we shocked when a human eats someone who wants to be eaten but totally unfazed when other animals are led, trembling and terrified, to a gruesome death for their flesh? Meiwes has since become a vegetarian, reportedly telling another inmate that factory farming is just as distasteful as what he did to Brandes.

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The Farm (2018)

The art of horror consists of showing humans being treated “like animals”, which in this case means as unthinking, unfeeling production units, valuable only for the ways they can be exploited. Many still turn a blind eye to the abuse that occurs routinely on farms and in slaughterhouses. What would it be like to be a farmed animal, helpless and subject to merciless industrialised farming and slaughter? This film depicts a farm on which unwary human travellers are kidnapped, caged, and slaughtered for meat or impregnated for milking. The workers on the farm wear animal masks and run a catering company, cooking and selling the meat for local events. How does it feel to be exploited for your flesh and secretions?

Want Something Stronger?

Of course, these films are entertainment (for some!) with fictional characters, even if sometimes based on real events. Why not use Halloween to trick any meat-eating friends into watching some of the real-life horror videos showing what animals endure in the meat and dairy industries on PETA’s YouTube channel. You may just turn a few of them vegan and give animals a real treat this year.