This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Thrilling Cannibals, and the latest sequel to the series, Thrilling Cannibals: Reborn, is also expected to be released this fall.
Victor Salva copied the setting of the wolves in Stephen King's novel The Wolf of Carla in Thrilling Cannibals every 20 years to avoid making a sequel. But as the monster movie, starring Gina Phillips and Justin Lang, became the highest-grossing film on Labor Day weekend in 2001, producer Francis Ford Coppola quickly persuaded Salva to set aside his artistic integrity and keep making money while it was hot.
Since then, Thrilling Cannibals has become an unbearablely inferior trilogy. But while the series has degenerated from an unconventional minimalist horror film to a boring one, fans of the first part are still stubbornly watching it because they still want to know the origins of the ogre.
Of course, fans of popular episodes such as Lost or Game of Thrones should all know that the long-awaited answers are rarely satisfactory, and after nearly two decades of waiting for "Thrilling Cannibals 3" without any new explanations, everyone can only continue to speculate.
What is the origin of the ogre in "Thrilling Cannibal", from the city legend Mothman to the Pazuzu in the "Exorcist" series, there are many opinions, but the true nature of the ogre may be very different from everyone's conjecture, perhaps more evil...
4. Everything we know at the moment
Also known as "bat monsters" or "hell bats," ogres wake up every 23 years in the spring to hunt for frightened idiots. It has hands and feet and a car, looks like a person from a distance, and in the deleted clips of the first part, it even speaks, and has a Western accent.
The ogre is far superior to the average serial killer in that he has bat-like wings, two rows of chilling yellow fangs, and a hard rubber shell with a zipper. It is a monster that can fly fast, likes to drive on barren roads, and is good at making daggers as a hunting tool.
The Ogre replaces his missing body parts by eating people, such as broken heads, crushed feet, and broken eyes, and the Ogre's arsenal includes Kratos's axe, a shuriken made of bones, skin, and teeth, and a weaponized truck big enough to make Batman jealous. A hidden third nostril on the bridge of its nose can sniff out people's fears, thus helping it choose who to eat, and from this point of view, the ogre created by Salva is more like a replica of Stephen King's Pennywise.
In the trilogy, the Ogre's personality is constantly changing, from the original direct, unstoppable bloodthirsty beast to a cheap version of Freddie Kruger. In addition, the sequel also introduces the setting that the victim's undead will warn of the arrival of ogres, which is quite unacceptable, because Daly and Tracy in the first part are warned by a crazy woman, not a ghost.
3. What the deleted scene tells us
Thrilling Cannibal 2 is a typical B-movie horror movie that abandons all the unsettling success elements of the previous film. Worse still, the only useful and valuable scene was inexplicably cut.
In the released version, the blonde cheerleader, an essential in every bad horror movie, suddenly awakens her psychic abilities and trances to see the ogre disguised as a scarecrow or crucified with the illusion of Jesus Christ. Then, Justin Long made a cameo appearance, explaining to her the routine of the ogre's 23-day dormant 23-year hibernation, which did not offer anything new, compared to the deleted replacement scene, which was more interesting.
In the deleted fragment, the skulls of soldiers dressed in armor and armed with swords and shields appear, telling us that the ogre was an ancient creature that ran rampant even in the Middle Ages. Although it is uncertain whether the ogre was born before the Middle Ages, or whether it was born in the Middle Ages, these images at least provide some background information on the ogre's long history.
This information and the shield with the ogre's ugly grimace support a point that many fans agree with...
2. Victor Salva himself did not know...
Although the infamous director Victor Salva insisted that he knew what the Ogre really was, all sequels since 2001 showed that his confidence was just bluffing.
Ever since the first film succeeded in making people terrified of Paul Whiteman's song Jeepers Creepers and feared driving on remote, empty roads, the image of the ogre has changed dramatically, becoming less and less frightening. It went from being a booted truck driver who was passionate about sucking and licking dead people's heads with hot French kisses, tyrannical and cruel, and had an immortal body, to a replica of Freddie Kruger, who can now be defeated, has a pair of eagle claw-like feet, and no longer likes to drive, but prefers to run. Paul Whiteman's iconic songs, as well as other people's covers, are no longer the key to attracting the monster to its appearance.
Thrilling Cannibals 3 also failed to provide the long-awaited answer, and Salva still didn't give a clear setting and origin, just added something that looked "cool". Although the reappearance of Gina Phillips' character Tracy at the end of the third part seems to indicate that Salva will return to his roots in the fourth part and give a satisfactory answer, due to the influence of his early pedophile scandal, "Thrilling Cannibal 3" was boycotted, the box office fiasco failed, and Salva's original plan for the fourth part was completely ruined.
Although Victor Salva is cold, the IP of "Thrilling Cannibal" is still good, and the fourth "Thrilling Cannibal: Rebirth" directed by "Iron Sky" director Timo Warrensola has been completed and is scheduled to be released as early as October. In order to completely draw a line with Salva, the original production team of the trilogy was abandoned, and the new team's "Thrilling Cannibals: Rebirth" may be more difficult to agree with the messy first three on the issue of ogre setting.
1. The ogre is most likely a person
The producers of the fourth part emphasized that Thrilling Cannibal: Rebirth is both a continuation of Thrilling Cannibal 2 and a soft reboot of the series, ignoring Thrilling Cannibal 3. But that doesn't mean fans will stop spreading crazy conjectures about the origin of the ogre. After all, this compelling, protracted mystery is something fans are happy to discuss.
While the explanation that the ogre was a mothman, a pazuzu, or a drip-mouthed beast is interesting, the claim that the ogre was once a human is undoubtedly more plausible.
This claim is that he was an evil man in the Middle Ages who was deceived by the devil after making an agreement with the devil. There is another theory that he was cursed for getting involved with a witch, and in the scene where Thrilling Cannibal 2 was deleted, there is a shield with the face of an ogre half-demon on it, which strongly supports both claims.
This explains why the ogre looks like a human and replaces its damaged body parts with humans, and salva and his production team believe that the ogre is a man who has suffered from an indescribable tragedy. Salva didn't say where his inspiration came from, but the ogre's handling of corpses and driving trucks bears many similarities to that of real-life killer Dennis DePue.
There is also a theory that ogres are a parasite that can turn people into demons like crabs, and the scene in the second part where the ogre forcibly removes the damaged head from the alien tentacles seems to echo this statement, but the ogre is the product of a taboo ritual or trade with the devil is obviously easier to understand and accept.