Worst Ending Ever

"Yes, eating the leading lady is always the logical way to resolve any situation."

No, no it isn't. Good thing I didn't say that, huh? I said its the only logical conclusion, obviously meaning in the context of this film.

The boy wanders around in a harsh, "dog-eat-dog" world with his best (and only) friend, his dog. The dog sniffs out women for him to rape -- yes rape -- and in reward he keeps the dog fed. He isn't exactly your enlightened 20th Century man when it comes to women. He then meets a seemingly innocent "girl-next-door" type, who inexplicably takes an immediate liking to him, despite the fact that he initially attempts to rape her at gun-point (or maybe he actually does rape her, I don't remember). The dog warns him from the beginning that she's bad news, but he isn't exactly thinking with his brain, so he ignores the friend that has saved his life so many times before and follows her to a "perfect" civilization, obviously a parody of traditional small-town America. It turns out the girl is only manipulating him for her own advancement, but once the town turns against her and she has no where else to go, she once again magically loves the boy. Once he escapes back to the lawless bad lands, he find that his dog has loyally waited for him to return, neglecting his own health by not eating. So the boy has a choice -- kill and eat his only true friend, the dog, who has saved him on many occasions and remained loyal to him even at his own risk, to feed himself and his manipulative and untrustworthy girlfriend, who has been trying to change him from the moment she met him (which would be the typical and expected ending), or he can kill the girl, whom he's only known for a few days, who manipulated him, risked his life for her own advancement, and is clearly only with him because it is momentarily advantageous to her, and feed himself and the dog. So, given the earlier characterization of the boy as a rapist who sees women as objects used for sexual gratification, given his obvious preference for lawlessness and anarchy, and given his obvious love for his dog, I say again -- the ending is the only logical conclusion, considering the characters' motivations and personalities. Anything else would be totally out of character and unbelievable. That doesn't make eating people right, and it doesn't make the conclusion any less misogynistic. But at least it stays true to the characters.

By the way, Ellison hates the fact that they ended the film on a cheesy joke like "she had great taste," not the fact that they eat the girl in the end. Probably for the same reason I just detailed -- it wasn't meant to be a joke, and adding the stupid one-liner takes away from the ending.

As far as the ending to "Undead or Alive," maybe the director/ writer was trying to make a commentary on American History -- the two white men can only survive the problems they caused (in that the "white man's" massacre of Indians led to Geronimo cursing them with Geroni-monsters *giggle snort snort*) by literally eating the Indian girl. I can't think of a more potent metaphor for the destruction of an entire culture by another than to have the white characters eat the Indian character. Considering the Indian girl's "Gun, Germs, and Steel" rant, I'd say the film-makers were pretty sympathetic to the Indians, so this interpretation doesn't seem to hard to swallow.

Get it? Swallow? Giggle.

Personally, I thought it was hilarious.