Troma Meets True Crime in ‘Cannibal! The Musical’ from the Creators of ‘South Park’

Cannibal films can be many things. Some are grim depictions of survival at any cost while others are gut-churning stories of shocking depravity. We expect to be disturbed when we watch a movie about the consumption of human flesh. What we don’t expect is singing and dancing. But Matt Stone and Trey Parker give us just that in the bizarre cult classic Cannibal! The Musical.

Based on the true story of Alfred Packer, the 1993 film is a strange blend of Troma Entertainment and old-fashioned true crime. Released just before writer Stone and writer/director Parker became household names with “South Park,” this quirky horror comedy features their signature brand of deft irreverence and intentional offensiveness. While some elements of this B-movie marvel have not aged particularly well, that’s all part of the stoner charm of this offbeat retelling of an equally odd chapter in American life.  

Cannibal! The Musical earns its Troma cred just moments after the curtain lifts. Title cards situate us in the late 19th century then we’re thrust into the action as a maniacal man chomps through humans in a snowy forest. With garish blood and shoddy effects, we watch as he beats a man with a severed arm before viciously ripping out another man’s tongue. Just as this depraved adventurer tilts the dripping organ into his upturned mouth, we cut to a lawyer hilariously reenacting this outlandish attack to a courtroom packed with rapt observers. On trial is Alfred Packer (Parker), a naive and confused prospector charged with the murder and cannibalism of his travelling party. This campy opener sets the perfect tone for a film that will be wholly over the top. 

With ridiculous violence and cheap set design, on the nose songs, and D-list acting, the film perfectly encapsulates the essence of Troma. The longest-running independent film studio in the world is known for preposterous horror comedies and delightfully simplistic B-movie fare—the more gory and implausible, the better. Intrigued by the state’s curious folk figure, Colorado natives Stone and Parker first shot a 3-minute trailer for film class, then eventually raised $125,000 to expand the concept to a full-length feature.

Shot mostly on weekends and during spring break, co-star Ian Hardin would later note that most of the cast and crew failed the film class due to the time commitment. Sensing kinship, Troma would pick up the completed movie in 1996, finally allowing it to be seen outside of Colorado. Like other films from the notorious studio, Parker and Stone gleefully lean into the miniscule budget and DIY vibe, spinning gold from what other filmmakers would view as insurmountable limitations.

Despite its freakishly oddball tone, Cannibal! The Musical is surprisingly accurate, at least as far as the records show. Born in 1842, Alfred Packer—a.k.a. the Colorado Cannibal—was a real prospector who convinced a group of adventurous men to let him lead them through the San Juan Mountains only to become hopelessly lost. Purporting to be a wilderness guide, Packer quickly revealed himself to be a petty thief and compulsive liar, but only after it was too late to turn back. The inexperienced outdoorsman managed to find refuge at a welcoming Ute encampment, but ignored Chief Ouray’s sage advice to wait out the winter in relative safety. The five ill-equipped men who followed Packer back into the wilderness of Colorado Territory were never seen alive again. Packer himself emerged from the snowy woods two months later, alone and surprisingly well-fed. Claiming to have survived on “rabbits and rosebuds,” the shifty man would provide a variety of explanations before eventually confessing to cannibalism. 

By centering this famously unreliable witness, Stone and Parker add unexpected empathy to a grisly tale. Their Packer is not a conniving thief and murderer but an endearing idealist hoping for a better life. He kindly leads this group of young men into the Colorado wilderness driven mostly by desire to find his beloved horse. Stone and Parker present Packer’s contested version of events, positioning the true murderer as Shannon Bell (Hardin), a combative member of the doomed party. Though Packer admitted to consuming fallen members of the group, he would ultimately claim to have stumbled upon Bell feasting on the bodies of their fellow travelers, having murdered them while Packer was out gathering firewood. The frightened guide had no choice but to kill the aggressor then finish off their bodies to save his own life. We’ll never know what actually happened in the snowy Colorado woods, but most scholars discount Packer’s admittedly self-serving claims, bolstered by a slew of butchered skeletons discovered several months later. 

While Stone and Parker take an alternative view of this nebulous story, many narrative elements are pulled from fact. The doomed party really did eat their shoes after quickly running out of their scant supplies and Parker filmed in the actual courtroom where Packer was originally tried. The real “Colorado Cannibal” did receive a last minute reprieve, but it was issued nearly a decade after his initial arrest. In a bizarre twist, the self-professed victim escaped custody while awaiting trial in what is widely believed to be police intervention. Nine years later, Packer was discovered in Wyoming, living under the name John Schwartze—cheekily referenced with Parker’s credited name, Juan Schwartz. 

Packer was once again arrested and hauled back to Colorado where he received the abnormally worded death sentence recreated in the film. The full text reads, “There were seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, but you, you voracious, man-eating son-of-a-bitch, you ate five of them. I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you’re dead, dead, dead, as a warning against reducing the Democratic population of the state.” As seen in the film’s shocking conclusion, Packer really did receive a last-minute stay of execution and wound up serving eighteen years, before he was paroled for good behavior in 1901. The inmate’s cause was exalted by Polly Pry (Toddy Walters), a reporter for the Denver Post who is largely responsible for the sympathetic reframing of this perplexing story. Though Stone and Parker imply that the beautiful, young reporter is smitten with a wrongly accused hunk, it’s more likely that the savvy writer seized an opportunity to tell a compelling survival story.

Though strangely sensitive to Packer himself, Cannibal! The Musical showcases the duo’s trademark impertinence. Not only are the Ute tribe members played in stereotypical fashion by Asian actors, there’s a distinct rejection of basic authenticity. Though Pry makes repeated passes at the naive cannibal, Packer only has eyes for his horse. A running joke implies bestiality brought to life by the touching ballad, “When I Was on Top of You.” It’s the type of humor Stone and Parker would go on to perfect with their genre-busting satire South Park which premiered on Comedy Central just four years later. The low-fi cartoon made waves in 1997 with blatantly offensive social commentary. Now in its twenty-seventh season, the duo are still dismantling political systems with deft recreations of cultural events. With its loose, yet biting historical disdain, Cannibal! The Musical can be seen as a prototype of sorts to the unique brand of humor that would make Stone and Parker not only famous, but leading voices in political satire. We even get a tease of the now-iconic Cartman voice as the doomed travelers shop for supplies. 

Foretelling the Oscar-nominated South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Cannibal! The Musical is filled with surprisingly good songs. Though some are annoying earworms, all are well-constructed musical numbers that display Parker’s talent for composition. The song “Shpadoinkle” is a clear nod to the rousing yet nonsensical “Shipoopi” from The Music Man as well as “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin” from Oklahoma! A playful song about drowning your sorrows by making a snowman is an eerie precursor to Disney’s Frozen and an extended conversation about the exact tonality of a musical duel between Packer’s party and a gang of miscreant fur trappers is a classical music nerd’s dream come true. The care taken with these peculiar, yet undeniably catchy songs indicates Parker’s understanding that while a film full of campy and cheap special effects can be delightful and even endearing, a series of shoddily-written musical numbers would replicate the feeling of being eaten alive. 

On paper, Cannibal! The Musical sounds impossibly ridiculous—a true crime horror comedy centered on a sympathetic cannibal. In addition to the outsized humor, horror elements are simultaneously absurd and grotesque. An oozing bear trap wound develops comically inaccurate gangrene and a disgusting cyclopean figure can’t stop squirting puss from his ruined eye. And that’s not to mention the titular flesh-eating sequences that fall in the midst of rousing song and dance. But Parker and Stone commit to the bit and capture the spirit of Troma excess. Your mileage may vary for this campy satire, but those with a taste for tongue-in-cheek offensiveness will devour this startlingly charming true crime adaptation. 

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