Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Bones and All (2022).
It is surprising to see how low the body count of Bones and All is considering the movie is about cannibalism, but it is easy to understand why this is the case when its main metaphor is taken into . Bones and All is not a straightforward movie. A lyrical road trip drama that also dips a toe into horror, romance, and even dark comedy, Bones and All’s story of two young star-crossed lovers who also happen to be cannibals defies genre and resists easy explanation.
Already, theories about Bones and All suggest the movie’s story isn’t as simple as it appears, and these are likely to become more numerous the longer viewers have to digest the drama. However, one thing about Bones and All that is relatively easy to explain is the absence of one horror movie trope, namely a high body count. If cannibalism is read as a stand-in for addiction, this explains why the lengthy Bones and All has a low body count. Since the troubled heroes of Bones and All hurt themselves and each other as much as their victims, this explains why they kill so few people during the movie.
Bones & All Has A Low Body Count
Considering it is a movie about cannibalism, Bones and All has a surprisingly restrained body count. Bones and All's ending doubled the movie’s total, bringing it up from three victims to six, but this is still an average of one death for every 22 minutes of screen time. Not only that, but one of these deaths takes place offscreen, further straying from horror movie tradition. If Bones and All is viewed as a conventional horror movie these are inarguably rookie numbers, but if Bones and All is instead read as a gory allegory for addiction, the approach makes a little more sense.
Maren And Lee Hurt Themselves As Much As They Hurt Others
Bones and All makes it clear that its conflicted heroes don’t want to be cannibals. Beneath Lee’s bravado, he struggles with the ethics of eating people, with Timothée Chalamet’s character even breaking down and crying when he confesses to killing his father. If Bones and All’s real meaning is an attempt to literalize the horrors of addiction by substituting the consumption of human flesh for alcohol or illegal drugs, this might explain why the characters feel this way. Like addicts, Lee and Maren don’t want to be cannibals, but can’t stop their impulses despite the damage they cause. Like addicts, Lee and Maren consider the possibility that they inherited this trait.
Both Lee and Maren rage against their nature and attempt to give up cannibalism since they know that they will never be a part of conventional society if they continue with their habits. Both Lee and Maren long for the day that they can live normal lives free from their desire, but also wonder whether this time will ever come. Unlike Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All isn’t optimistic about this prospect, with its ending implying that Lee and Maren were doomed to fall back into old patterns despite their best attempts. This tragedy would be a lot less impactful, however, if viewers spent the preceding 130 minutes watching them eat countless people.
How Bones & All Uses Cannibalism
In Bones and All, cannibalism leads Lee and Maren to hurt others, but it also leaves them ostracized from society. They try their best to each other and curb their hunger, but can’t live in the ordinary world as a result. This metaphor for addiction wouldn’t be as potent if Lee and Maren were seen killing more people more regularly, as this would make them less sympathetic. Much like The Menu subverted a classic horror trope to comment on workplace exploitation, Bones and All drops the high body count of earlier cannibal movies to force viewers to see its heroes as real, desperate people instead of one-dimensional monsters.
Most movies that depict cannibalism take one of two approaches to the taboo topic. Cannibalism is often depicted in older horror movies as an act committed by tribal people in a stereotype that is at best inaccurate and outdated, and at worst incredibly dehumanizing. In dark comedies like Delicatessen, Fresh, and Ravenous, however, cannibalism is instead used as a stand-in for the moral failings of the greedy, callous, or detached villains. In Bones and All, the horror movie trope is re-imagined. In Bones and All, cannibalism isn’t something the rich and powerful do to the poor and oppressed to exploit them, but another addiction that leaves people alienated from society and feared by their peers.
