Cannibal Girls

Cannibal Girls

Year: 1973

Runtime: 84 mins

Language: English

Director: Ivan Reitman

ComedyHorrorHorror

A young couple decides to spend the night in a restaurant, only to discover it is haunted by three vengeful female spirits. These ghostly women, once victims themselves, now crave human flesh, turning the couple's night into a terrifying struggle for survival as they confront the past of the place and fight for their lives before dawn.

Warning: spoilers below!

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Timeline – Cannibal Girls (1973)

Trace every key event in Cannibal Girls (1973) with our detailed, chronological timeline. Perfect for unpacking nonlinear stories, spotting hidden connections, and understanding how each scene builds toward the film’s climax. Whether you're revisiting or decoding for the first time, this timeline gives you the full picture.

1

Opening kill in a snowy forest

An axe-wielding female assailant attacks a couple in a snowy forest near Farnhamville. The boyfriend is killed and the girlfriend is left wounded, with blood smeared on her chest as the attacker departs. The scene establishes the Cannibal Girls as a horrific, blood-drenched threat.

Snowy forest near Farnhamville
2

Car trouble and arrival in Farnhamville

Clifford and Gloria's car breaks down upon reaching the small town of Farnhamville. They meet another traveler searching for his missing sister and decide to check into a nearby motel. The town's isolation foreshadows the danger ahead.

Farnhamville
3

Mrs. Wainwright and the Cannibal Girls legend

Mrs. Wainwright recounts the urban legend of the Cannibal Girls to the couple, describing Anthea, Clarissa, Leona, and their servant Bunker. The legend explains how the women lure men, feast on them alive, and drink their blood to stay young and immortal. The Reverend Alex St. John is hinted as the town's charismatic organizer.

Bed and breakfast / Mrs. Wainwright's home
4

First victim killed by Clarissa

Clarissa kills the first victim in a secluded room, stabbing him in the gut with scissors while they are naked. The act is intimate and brutal, signaling the ritualistic brutality of the Cannibal Girls. This marks the first of several ritualistic killings.

Secluded room
5

Second murder by Leona and Anthea

Leona stalks a second victim with a knife, providing a diversion for Anthea to hack him with an axe. The coordinated attack underscores the group’s predatory alliance. The victim is dispatched in a cold, ritualistic fashion.

Unspecified location
6

Third victim's fate

The third victim awakens the next day, has a moment of intimacy with Anthea, and is later tied to a bed and eaten alive by all three Cannibal Girls. They begin by licking his belly before consuming him, completing the trio's gruesome ritual.

Unknown location
7

Traveler murdered by police

The traveler searching for his missing sister is murdered by the local police at the Reverend's request. This demonstrates the Reverend's control over the town and his willingness to silence outsiders. The incident underscores the grim authority structure surrounding the Cannibal Girls.

Farnhamville
8

Dinner at the bed and breakfast

Clifford and Gloria are taken to a bed and breakfast where the Cannibal Girls supposedly lived years before. They meet the host, Reverend Alex St. John, who exerts a charismatic hold on the town. The meal scene hints at the town's dark underbelly.

Bed and breakfast
9

The town gathering and the ritual

The town holds a gathering dedicated to Reverend St. John. Anthea, Clarissa, and Leona stand naked around a small table, offering their blood in a chalice while chanting about life through blood. The ritual underscores the church-like power structure that sustains the cannibal cult.

Town gathering
10

Stormy night and Gloria's nightmare

A thunderstorm traps the couple as the Reverend's influence tightens. Gloria experiences a nightmare in which Clifford is sacrificed, reinforcing the danger while revealing it as a dream. The dream foreshadows the peril still to come.

Bed and breakfast / town
11

Clifford's growing craving

Clifford develops a craving for the town's diners' food, which is revealed to be human meat. Gloria cannot place a call due to broken lines and the buses won't depart until morning, trapping them further in Farnhamville's web. The couple's dynamics begin to fracture under the cult's influence.

Town diners / Farnhamville
12

The sheriff encounters the couple

The sheriff returns with the couple to the Cannibal Girls' bed and breakfast. Clifford intends to sacrifice Gloria to the Reverend in exchange for his life, but the Reverend unexpectedly changes course and offers Gloria a mace. The power shift moment reframes the impending danger.

Bed and breakfast
13

Gloria's act of self-preservation

Fueled by the betrayal, Gloria kills Clifford with a mace, ending their relationship and removing him as the dinner table's centerpiece. The act marks Gloria's complete surrender to the Cannibal Girls' world. The dynamics within the group intensify as power shifts occur.

Bed and breakfast
14

The final cannibal feast

In the final scene, the Reverend, Anthea, Clarissa, Leona, Bunker, and Gloria sit at the table as Clifford is served as the meal. Gloria hesitates at first but, encouraged by the Reverend, she joins in and consumes him. The ritual concludes with the cannibals united in their grim sustenance.

Bed and breakfast dining table
15

Epilogue twist

In the epilogue, Mrs. Wainwright reveals that she is telling the tale to another couple, casting the Cannibal Girls as a continuing Farnhamville legend. The legend hints there are more cannibals than previously suggested and frames the story as folklore rather than a closed-off incident. The film ends on a note that the horror persists beyond the immediate events.

Mrs. Wainwright's narration

Last Updated: October 05, 2025 at 12:39

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Discover curated groups of movies connected by mood, themes, and story style. Browse collections built around emotion, atmosphere, and narrative focus to easily find films that match what you feel like watching right now.

Folk horror movies with sinister towns like Cannibal Girls

Ordinary travelers uncover a town's dark, ritualistic secret that consumes them.If you liked the eerie discovery of a town's dark secret in Cannibal Girls, you'll find more movies like it here. These stories feature outsiders stumbling upon isolated communities hiding terrifying cults or ritualistic practices, leading to a bleak fight for survival against a pervasive local madness.

folk horroreerieritualisticclaustrophobicparanoidunsettlinggrotesquesinister

Narrative Summary

The narrative follows a linear path of discovery, where the protagonists' initial curiosity or misfortune leads them to uncover layers of a horrifying local truth. Their journey is one of escalating dread, moving from suspicion to confirmed terror as they realize the entire community is against them, often culminating in a ritualistic confrontation where they become part of the cycle they sought to escape.

Why These Movies?

These films are grouped by their shared setting of a isolated, corrupted community and the theme of an inescapable folkloric threat. They create a specific mood of paranoia and claustrophobia, where the horror comes not from a single monster but from the collective madness of a place, leading to bleak endings that reinforce the power of the local curse or cult.

Claustrophobic siege horror movies like Cannibal Girls

Characters are trapped in a confined space, hunted by a visceral, monstrous threat.For viewers who enjoyed the trapped-in-a-haunted-restaurant premise of Cannibal Girls, this thread collects similar movies about confinement and visceral horror. These films feature characters trapped in a single location, facing a grotesque and cannibalistic or similarly monstrous threat, with high intensity and a focus on survival against overwhelming odds.

claustrophobicgorysuspensefulnightmarishgrotesquevisceralhopelesstrapped

Narrative Summary

The plot is straightforward: a group is isolated in a limited space (a house, a restaurant, a bunker) and systematically hunted by a terrifying entity. The narrative beats involve failed escape attempts, rising paranoia within the group, and gruesome discoveries about the nature of their attackers, building steadily towards a final, often devastating, confrontation.

Why These Movies?

This thread groups films based on the potent combination of a claustrophobic setting and a physically grotesque antagonist. The shared experience is one of high-tension survival horror, where the setting itself becomes a character, and the threat is immediate, visceral, and inescapable, leading to a heavy emotional weight and typically a bleak outcome.

Unlock the Full Story of Cannibal Girls

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Cannibal Girls Summary

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Cannibal Girls Summary

Characters, Settings & Themes in Cannibal Girls

Discover the characters, locations, and core themes that shape Cannibal Girls. Get insights into symbolic elements, setting significance, and deeper narrative meaning — ideal for thematic analysis and movie breakdowns.

Characters, Settings & Themes in Cannibal Girls

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Cannibal Girls Spoiler-Free Summary

More About Cannibal Girls

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