The 25 Worst Meals in Movie History

Film: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

This is the final nail in the coffin for the theory that gum is a great health-conscious alternative to snacking. Same goes for the theory that chewing gum doesn't turn you blue. Of course, not being a spoiled brat is another good strategy to employ if you don't want to end up an engorged blueberry being groped by a group of orange-skinned, green-haired midgets. That said, if Wonka is out to get you, ain't nowhere you can hide.

Film: Stand By Me (1986)

This might be the only instance in film history where there are kids around a campfire and no one gets killed or laid. Instead, a bunch of dudes tell gross stories to each other, recounting the time when "the Ladies Auxiliary barfed all over the Benevolent Order of Antelopes." In our experience, this is far more like real-life as a teenager, no real danger and no real sex. Just real talk. Real talk.

Film: Old Boy (2003)

The crazy thing about eating a live octopus is, uh, everything. Besides the fact that this is one of the chewiest foods even when cooked, there's the fact that octopus tentacles can move for 10 minutes after the rest of the animal has died, sometimes even after being cooked. But man does it make for a blood-curdlingly good scene.

Film: Matilda (1996)

In all of children's literature, few figures make such a dreadful impression as the Trunchbull, the imposing headmistress of Crunchem Hall Primary School. In the film adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, the Trunchbull makes an example out of the portly and hapless Bruce by forcing him to eat an entire chocolate cake (shades of Seven, no?). And when it seems like Bruce is finished, that the Trunchbull has crushed his spirit just as fast as the Chokey would, Matilda stands up and offers an encouraging word. A chorus of voices joins her, an "I am Spartacus" moment, and Bruce rallies. He doesn't want to—because his guts are bursting at the seams with cake—but he does, dealing the Trunchbull a vicious blow. No one does it like Dahl when it comes to making adults look like the worst monsters.

Film: Bridesmaids (2011)

Since George Costanza, no one has attempted to bring a sandwich into the bedroom with such exuberance and erotic rendering as Megan and Air Marshall John. Captured with all the grain of a cheap surveillance camera, the food-foreplay is awful to watch. Might've been fun for them, but the viewer will be forever scarred. It's hard to even think of the phrase "party sub" in the same way.

Film: Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Pan's Labyrinth is a children's story for adults. And every children's story has a moral. And we suppose the moral here is that you should never eat grapes if fairies tell you not to, especially if it's understood that eating those grapes will make a monster put eyes in his hands and eat you. And, as adults, we've all been there.

Film: The Breakfast Club (1985)

This film taught us a valuable lesson: Weird girls aren't necessarily weird; possibly they are behaving that way because of personal trauma or a need for acceptance. It also gave weird girls more weird shit to do to make us feel weird, like throwing pimento loaf on an abstract sculpture. Thanks, John Hughes! All of our dates have been refracted through the prism you created in all those '80s flicks.

Film: Elf (2003)

Upon rewatching Elf for the two hundredth time last Christmas, we realized that Buddy is basically our drunk uncle—just replace sugar with booze. Nowhere is this more obvious than in this scene, wherein he spins outrageous yarns before pulling a mini-party of maple syrup from his sleeve. When Mary Steenbergen's character asks, "How long will you be staying with us?," we always get flashbacks to Uncle Rick's sweaty, tear-filled embrace as he asks us for a few dollars of our birthday money.

Film: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

The scene has all of the classic trappings of an awful meal: poor table manners, a Hobbit singing, and a montage of your army being routed. Take it easy on Denethor, no matter how bad this may look. His wife, Finduilas, passed away; he gained true knowledge of Sauron's overwhelming powers; and his favored son, Boromir, died. You can't expect perfect etiquette from dude. Still, it's really fucking gross. No more mouth close-ups, please.

Film: A Clockwork Orange (1971)

This brilliant scene involves antihero Alex DeLarge being fed a steak by a bureaucratic so-and-so, who explains halfheartedly why they've been torturing and experimenting on him. Each bite of steaky-wakey fed to the eager Alex contrasts with the hard-to-swallow platitudes of the Big Brother-type organization that's reconfigured his personality bit by bit. Though funny at first, his eyes slowly reveal a madness just under the surface that makes the scene intense as hell.

Film: The Matrix (1999)

While this movie boasts one of the most pornographic steak scenes ever, that's not what people eat in "the real world." What people eat on the Nebuchadnezzar comes out of a spigot and tastes like snot. The conversation philosophizes on what taste really is, until Dozer in his big Dozery voice says, "It's a single-celled protein combined with synthetic aminos." Something so practical and scientific sounding, you almost want to try it. At least until that steak scene.

Film: Nothing But Trouble (1991)

This '80s oddity, a horror comedy that doesn't know what the fuck it's doing, is best remembered by rap fans as being the first onscreen appearance of Tupac Shakur. For food fans, it's best remembered for the stomach-turning scene where a monstrous Dan Akroyd consumes a hot dog slathered in wet toppings, a bit of the casing dangling from the meat-tube's tip like a nasty snot dripping. Nothing But Trouble is awful, and whether you're a 'Pac enthusiast, or a hot dog connoisseur, you should avoid it.

Film: The War of the Roses (1989)

A tale as old as time: The halves of a married couple have come to hate each other, and to show their hate and ingenuity, they take to making each other's lives living hells. In one of the more blackly hilarious scenes, Kathleen Turner's character, Barbara Rose, serves a pate to her husband, Oliver Rose (played by Michael Douglas). It's a great pate, full of delicious flavor. Then, the film twists the knife, as Barbara reveals to Oliver that she made the pate from his dog, the only thing he consistently shows affection to. Woof.

Film: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)

In their illustrious careers in comedy, the Pythons seldom attempted gross-out humor. But when they went for it, the went hard. Terry Jones's Mr. Creosote is gluttony personified in The Meaning of Life; after his five-minute projectile-vomit session and subsequent explosion, we can't help but think twice every time we've been offered an after-dinner mint. It could spell the end.

Film: Citizen Kane (1941)

Damn, this is one long-ass breakfast. We get brunch-side seats to the deterioration of Kane's marriage as the citizen morphs from debonair Lothario to obstinate dick. This is evidenced by his decision to change out of his dope smoking jacket...always the first mistake in a downward spiral. Learn from Charles Foster Kane's mistakes. Stay fly. And let go of your fucking sled.

Film: The Gold Rush (1925)

Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character is not having a good gold rush. Though others might be raking in the dough, he's near-starving, forced to consume a boiled shoe to survive. Because it's Chaplin, the consumption of the shoe is genius, full of perfectly comic body language, the total control over his hands and face that made him the key comedian of the silent era. Still, he's eating a shoe. We'd take dog food over shoe leather any day. It's delicious.

Film: Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Rarely do eating contests represent triumphs of the human condition—certainly not any we've participated in, though chugging milk made us kind of sick once. This egg martyrdom is just the beginning for the self-destructive convict Luke (played by Paul Newman); he is also forced to dig a ditch with the dimensions of a grave, fill it in, and then repeat the process until he collapses. All of this for knocking over a row of parking meters. So, next time you and your boys are looking for some mischief, take heed, because if your ass goes to the pen, you're less likely to be viewed as a Christ symbol than you are an erotic symbol.

Film: Titus (1999)

Nearly as awful as Hannibal in terms of disturbing meals (both films star Anthony Hopkins, oddly enough), this spicy adaptation of Shakespeare's sauciest play involves another culinary nightmare. Tamara's dinner is none other than her very sons cooked into a pie. Prepared by the chef's hat-wearing Titus, looking less trustworthy and more bat-shit insane, the pie slices jiggle when placed on the plate. She doesn't have to live with the indigestion loved ones can cause for very long, as Titus swiftly kills her. Stunting.

Film: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

The feast at the Temple of Doom seems like something you'd imagine to gross out your little sister. When you were 7. Only Steven Spielberg got a hold of your childhood home movies and made that meal come true. Monkey brains, eyeball soup, beetle butts, and the infamous Snake Surprise (it's full of snakes) are a recipe for the most childish dinner possible. Spielberg's is a cinema of children.

Film: National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002)

Perhaps even more disturbing than the donuts themselves is the act of masturbating a dog in order to fill those donuts, which is exactly what happens in this scatological entry in the burning building that is the National Lampoon film franchise. But to the determined degenerates go the...spoils? Perhaps it's all a complex nod to Limp Bizkit's origins.

Film: Hannibal (2001)

In one of the more unsettling scenes to appear on a major motion picture screen, Hannibal decides to cook table-side for his lovely date, Agent Starling. In Food Network-style, he describes the pieces of the brain and what they are for, before throwing them in a pan full of what looks like olive oil, whole capers, and three or four pieces of onion (he's a better psychopath than cook). The aromas of lightly seared brain are enough to send Paul Krendler's mouth watering, but it's certainly not for everyone. Starling can barely keep down her lunch. Most hilarious bit? Paul is salivating over the smells of his own smarts. And then he's fed them by Hannibal. Clever.

Film: Alive (1993)

There's not too much to say about cannibalism that you haven't already drunkenly debated among friends. Problem is, with those conversations, the outcome is never a new-found understanding of what your friends taste like. Or worse, your family. That's what Uruguayan rugby teams are for, to show the world what it's like to eat those closest to you. In 1972, a plane carrying the rugby team of Uruguay crashed in the Andes. People were eaten. See the movie, where Ethan Hawke plays Nando Parrado, somehow more disconcerting than folks eating other folks.

Film: Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Let's cut to the chase: Salò, Pasolini's notorious attack on fascism, features a scene where the four libertines at the allegory's center serve a giant feast of human feces to the 18 kidnapped young men and women they play with for the 120 days mentioned in the title. The film is divided up into sections; the feast occurs during the "Circle of Shit" portion. Anything else you need to know? Didn't think so.

Film: Seven (1995)

This scene provides more motivation to eat healthy than all the Pinterest photos in the world. Or to straight-up never eat again. There's not a David Mills wise-crack that could cut the horror of this scene. The very first sin that the detective team at the heart of Seven experiences, the Gluttony murder is easily the most memorable. The slow reveal and the disquieting details, like the bucket of vomit under the table, submerge the viewer into the awfulness of the film's world. The fat man died, chocking to death on crap spaghetti in jarred sauce. Heaven forbid.