This week, Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell fall in love and eat people. In Bones and All, the romantic cannibalism movie has some grisly scenes that will make people’s stomachs churn. In a GQ interview with makeup specialist Fernanda Perez, she reveals what steps were taken to make the movie’s realistic take on eating people.
Often, filmmakers will take with experts to gain insight to stick the landing on what they tried to execute. Director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) wanted to make it work, so Perez and others contacted a pathologist to give an edge of realism to the cannibalism scenes in Bones and All.
“Since the beginning, he [Guadagnino] told us he didn’t want gore or fantasy. We contacted a pathologist because we wanted to know what it looks like to eat a person — and we discovered that it’s not so easy to eat a person.”
Bones and All aimed for realistic cannibalism scenes
The film is a romantic road trip between the two leads as they develop their relationship, meet other cannibals, and satisfy their hunger. When eating, a lot of consideration had to be taken into account regarding skin tissue, fat, and muscle. The textures of the human body would be difficult when using silicon and other materials to create Chalamet and Russell’s food/victims. The silicon itself was used from the same kind that dentists use, so it is safe to put in your mouth and easy for spit takes as you still won’t want to actually consume it.
Prosthetics lead Jason Hamer went into detail on how this could be achieved in a practical and safe way as the actors chewed on “flesh” for the cannibalism scenes in Bones and All to match the director’s vision. In one scene, Russell gnawed someone’s finger, so that actor had to wear a glove with a recreation of the pinky and ring fingers. Adding a “eurothane bone” that was “blood-tubed” for a juicy bite.
The film was directed by Guadagnino and written by David Kajganich (The Terror), which the screenplay is an adaption of the novel by Camille DeAngelis. It is now playing in theaters.