5. Dead Alive (1992)
Dead Alive, AKA Braindead, AKA the movie you know from how much its poster fucked you up, is not just a great zombie horror-comedy, it’s also home to one of the genre’s best dinner parties. After a rat-monkey hybrid creature bites his mother, Lionel learns that there are much worse things out there than rabies. With a zombie plague spreading and reanimated corpses popping up all over, there’s no setting better suited for a party, am I right folks? Naturally it doesn’t take long for things to get out of hand. And when they do, oh boy, you better hold on for dear life. (Anna Swanson)
4. The Loved Ones (2009)
There was some debate as to whether or not this film met the category’s requirement as this dinner table gathering isn’t quite a “party.” But just because our protagonist is there unwillingly, bound and gagged and tortured, doesn’t mean others aren’t having a good time. Brent simply said no to a prom invite, and the spurned girl – with the help of her doting father – has taken it upon herself to make the celebration happen anyway. The action and horror move well beyond the dinner table, but it’s here where we learn about her plan and see the nightmare unfold. Sean Byrne’s film remains far too underseen, so lest you think it’s mere torture porn, please know that it’s one of the most cheer-worthy horror films you’ll see. Brent’s struggle is fueled by past grief and current determination, and you root for him throughout. Just not during dinner when you might find yourself turning away… (Rob Hunter)
3. The Invitation (2015)
This party has everything: a loaded, grown-up game of truth or dare, a creepy cultish video, and a male protagonist (Logan Marshall-Green) suffering from the same “is this grief-induced paranoia or gaslighting?” dilemma that’s typically reserved just for horror heroines. Karyn Kusama’s fantastically directed 2015 film about a man attending his ex-wife’s increasingly bizarre dinner party is a descent into well-mannered madness as it crafts a nightmarish night around a question: how much would you tolerate just to seem like a good guest? When the film finally does reveal its party host’s secrets in full, it’s with one of the most indelible endings in recent horror movie memory and a final frame that will leave you gasping. (Valerie Ettenhofer)
2. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
There’s a point during many horror movies where a final girl, tasked with staying alive in an impossible situation, must play nice with her would-be killers in hopes of appealing to their better judgment. The climactic dinner sequence in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is so terrifying because it’s poor Sally’s (Marilyn Burns) final and resounding proof that her captors have no better judgment to appeal to. When the girl sits, bound and exhausted, around a dinner table full of cannibals – including a mostly dead grandpa and a man wearing a corpse’s flayed skin on his face (Gunnar Hansen) – all she can do is shriek at the top of her lungs. In a moment of pure horror that’s impossible to forget once you’ve seen it, the men simply screech back, matching her fear with inhuman howls of delight. (Valerie Ettenhofer)
1. Alien (1979)
There’s nothing like a chest-bursting alien baby to put a damper on a perfectly good meal. In Ridley Scott’s Alien, the crew of the spaceship Nostromo gets one of the most memorable surprises in horror movie history when their good-natured final meal before returning to stasis is interrupted by the bloody, frenzied demise of one of their crewmates. John Hurt’s Kane, who had an alien creature stuck to his face a few scenes earlier, suddenly interrupts a genial conversation with the start of what seems like a coughing fit.
Soon, he’s lying on the dinner table, convulsing while his colleagues attempt to hold him down and put a spoon in his mouth. After a spurt of blood and a cracking noise, it happens: the now-iconic chestburster ruptures through his ribcage, takes stock of its surroundings, and scurries away before it can be caught. In the context of horror movie history, this is a phenomenal scene. In the context of horror movie dinner parties, it’s a sad one because all the space food the crew was eating at their last supper before it got interrupted looked surprisingly delicious. (Valerie Ettenhofer)
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