Film Theory: Beware the Living Flesh! (Vita Carnis)

Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory,  the show that just found itself a new pet. Awww just look at this guy. He's adorable.  I just want to give his little fleshy head a pat and… Wait, what's that little guy?  What? You want everyone to subscribe? Oh, come on now, guys. How can you say  no to this little face? By the way, do you guys like protein? A nice steak that would  look great on a plate in a pie sewn into a dress. Well do I have a surprise for you friends.  It is Meat Weekend loyal the

orist. That's right. It's our very first four way crossover  for the theory channels. And we all thought, what is something that truly unites the worlds of  gaming, film, food and style? And then it hit us in the face like a wet, sloppy slab of beef. Meat!  and thus Mystery Meat Weekend was born, baby. Yep, over on Game Theory, you can see us cover the  latest round of Merge Mansion lore where Grandma Ursula's filling her pies with some unconventional  choices of meat. I just hope that Pedro Pas

cal makes it out alive. Meanwhile, over on Food  Theory, we're looking into the very real science behind mammoth meat balls. Yep, you heard that one  right. Scientists have cloned the meat of extinct Woolly mammoths, and the first thing that we humans  did, we decided to cook it up and put it in our mouths. Sounds pretty darn accurate. Speaking of  putting things in our mouth holes, over on Style Theory we're covering whether or not you could eat  Lady Gaga's infamous meat dress. Because if you

are what you eat, then why not eat what you wear? Yeah, making a dress out of meat, that was pretty darn weird, but not nearly as weird as what we're  about to cover here today on Film Theory. You see, today we're talking about the strange,  thick, meaty world of Vita Carnis. Yes, we here at Team Theorist are indeed a  bunch of mature adults. A ton of people were recommending that we check this series out over  on our subreddit and in the comments on GTLive. So if you ever have yourself a sugges

tion for  content like this that you want us to look at, those are two great places to go make those  recommendations. And I am really glad that you guys put this one on our radar. This is  an analog horror series that you can go watch right now for free on YouTube.com, created  by artist and filmmaker Darian Quilloy. But unlike pretty much all other analog horror  series Vita Carnis isn't leaning into uncanny liminal strangeness like The Backrooms or weird  twisted doppelgangers like Mandela Ca

talog or even nostalgic mascot horror like… pretty much  everything else. Instead, the creep factor here is coming from horrifying creature design.  Vita Carnis is the story of weird meat based creatures that have started appearing in nature. And let me just say this one up front. This is one of the most original analog horror series  that I've seen in a long time. The monsters are made of flesh and eat bones, but they also  grow like plants. It’s a very cool idea. In the series we learn most of

our information through  documentary tapes filled with strange glitches. But there's also archived home videos and  newspaper clippings thrown in for good measure. And where there's creepy, hidden details, you know  that there's plenty of lore to decode. In short, I devoured my time with Vita Carnis. And  let me tell you the deeper and deeper we get into this documentary, the more pieces  of the puzzle that start falling into place. Where is this mystery meat coming from? Why  is the government

trying to cover it all up? And is there anything that we can do to  stop what seems to be our inevitable trip to the meat grinder? Season your food  and ready your Meat Snakes friends, today we've got ourselves a lot to chew on. So to start things off, what exactly is going on? As I mentioned at the top of the theory,  the bulk of Vita Carnis’s story is told through a documentary put together by the National  Living Meat Research to educate the public, and by extension us, about the  creatures

in this new genus of skinless animals made out of muscle organs and bones. They're called Vita Carnis, Latin for living meat. And not only do they look like raw meat,  they also love to consume raw meat. Obviously not a concern for all us fleshy  meat snacks out there. As the story goes, these creatures basically appeared out of nowhere  starting in 1931, and their population quickly skyrocketed over the subsequent decades.  The documentary is quick to point out that… Seemingly ruling out that t

hey're aliens or  demons or any other classic analog horror fare. In fact, their taxonomy is really well laid out  across these videos. The Vita Carnis genus is split into several species: some cute,  some useful, and some literal nightmare fuel that will get you second guessing  your next hike out into nature. In fact, the more we hear about each of these types  of critters, the more the dark truth of this world starts coming into focus. The first few creatures are weird, but more or less benig

n. The most abundant of  these is known as The Crawl, which are these sort of vines that resemble intestines growing  across the entire world. This stuff is edible and apparently makes for a good meat substitute.  To the point that it's been domesticated and used in several popular in-universe meals. In fact, one of the videos on the channel is a tutorial on how to create a  cheesy pasta dish using the crawl. Watch out, boys. Looks like we have  ourselves another new entrant in the Babish Culina

ry Universe. The second type  of creature is known as Trimmings. These things grow from The Crawl, fall off, and  then start skittering around on their own. They're basically sad little flesh  turtles that run, hide and scream. Next up is my personal favorite  of the bunch, the Meat Snake. Yeah, what can I say? I just love myself some  Meat Snake. According to the lore these things are basically dead body garbage disposals,  crawling around and eating dead carcasses. Animal or otherwise. And in

what might be  one of the coolest bits of creature design that I've seen from an analog horror series in  a while, they take the skulls of the creatures they consume and then use them as their own. Normally, these things are only supposed to grow up to five meters or 16 feet, which is already  pretty darn long. But astute viewers can actually find a hidden newspaper clipping that confirms  that they can grow to be much larger. After World War II, a quote, “extremely engorged Meat  Snake of impec

cable size.” Their words, not mine. Was discovered in a tunnel underneath Germany,  which consumed so many dead bodies from the war that it grew to eight times the average length. The skin of this behemoth was also more powerful. It was darker and harder than a normal Meat Snake.  I don't know how much of this is actual lore and how much of this is just trolling. Anyway, the  scientists who found it had a lot of difficulty cutting through the Meat Snake. And with that it's  here that the creatur

es of Vita Carnis take a hard right turn away from weirdly cute with funny  names into pure, distilled nightmare fuel. Next up, we got ourselves the Mimic, which are  exactly what they sound like. Humanoid creatures with creepy smiles, bulging eyes, extended  limbs, and a diet composed of human flesh. These puppies are fast, too. The more  humans they eat, the more human they look, and the darker their skin becomes. That  last part sounds like a weird detail, but now that's the second time  that

we've heard it mentioned. So, feels like an important detail to keep in the  back of our minds. Mimics will pick out a target, use clothing to disguise themselves  or even go so far as to hide in the furniture in an attempt to capture their prey. Don't know how a tall, lanky flesh monster is going to be hiding in the family bean bag  chair. But sure, we'll just go for it. And yet, despite the massive threat that this thing  poses to humankind, it doesn't really seem that there's all that much b

eing done about  it. Sure. Apparently the world governments have offered advice to their citizens, but  it all really amounts to “don't die lol”. The horror only continues with the next creature  too called the Harvester. These are large masses of flesh that plant themselves in the earth  and then extend roots out in all directions. But unlike typical Crawl, these roots have  literal thorns in them that will stab into any large animal that walks on them. The  worst part of all this, the thorns a

re full of venom that disable the nervous system  and prevent a victim's blood from clotting, which means that they're going to kill them  from blood loss so the body can then be consumed. And if all of that wasn't bad enough,  there's apparently no way of surviving this. We later see and hear what a death by harvester  is like in the video Species Anomaly Report. And let me tell you, it is not pleasant.  Now, normally at this point in the script, I'd insert a little clip here to help illustrate

  my point. But let me tell you, it's rough, even for me. Just take my word for it, it is  scary stuff, as if we needed more reasons to not go and touch grass. And then we have what might  be the creepiest of these freak shows, the Host of Influence. Creatures with semi humanoid torsos  and masses of vines that burrow into the ground. Spines extend from their backs, releasing clouds  of orange spores that can infect other organisms. From there, the spores go directly into the brain  and temporar

ily alter the minds of the victims, compelling them to sacrifice  themselves to the host. Which, yes, I too, have seen The Last of Us. Thank  you very much. Someone called Pedro Pascal. Looks like we're going to need his help again.  Meat weekend? More like Pedro Pascal Weekend. I Wonder if I could figure out a way to  work him into the meat dress episode. If I did go down to the comments and say like,  “Hey, I understood that reference”. Just to show everyone that you were here, that you have 

officially completed the meat cycle. Anyway, in the most recent video on the channel:  Message, we see a newspaper clipping that says that the authorities are refusing to handle  any harvesters. Why? Are they scared? Is there nothing they can do? No, I don't think so.  Remember how I just talked about the Hosts releasing clouds of orange powder? Well, later  on on the channel there's that random cooking upload that I made a joke about earlier. The  Cheesy Crawl Casserole. Well, in that video, we

watch as they use a special seasoning  called the Nutrire Co Flavor Enhancer, a suspiciously orange powder. Not only that, but the company's logo is a black circle with a red triangle  in the middle. This exact series of shapes flashes across the screen during a similar part  of the documentary, talking about the hosts. See it right there for that single  frame? It’s the exact same logo. Clearly, these two things are connected.  And just like with the spores, the flavor enhancer is apparently s

omething  that people at Nutrire Co don't want to be inhaling for themselves. For a moment during  our cooking tutorial the faceless Babish cook leans down and we get the briefest glimpse of  a gas mask covering his face. Something else that lets you know that something's just  off about this powder. Notice what else happens to the soothing guitar background  music when the flavor enhancer gets added. The guitar gets crazy. It's  almost like the mind of the player has been altered in some way. A

nd did you hear what she just said? The enhancer doesn’t work if it's above 60 degrees  Celsius or 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Conveniently enough, that's the exact temperature at which most  fungus dies, like we talked about in our Last of Us video. Go figure. And as if you needed any more  proof, a newspaper clipping from Message reveals that Nutrire Co is facing charges from people  getting sick after consuming their products. So things are already looking pretty darn bad  for humanity. We've got

meat vines everywhere, humanoid mimics in our furniture, meat snakes in  our subways, poison in our powders, and even more reasons to fear going out on hikes. But it's  here that once again, we reach a significant change in tone, veering from analog horror spoops  to Lovecraftian SCP terror with the Monoliths. These things appeared in 1972. Standing in a  perfect circle in a redacted location surrounding something else that's been redacted.  Based on a map that we see in the video, we can figur

e out that the location is on  an island in Canada's Hudson Bay. And given that we see a map in another video named Message  saying that the Vita Carnis creatures all seem to be moving to this location, this seems  to be the point of origin for everything. So what exactly are these monoliths? Well,  they’re seven entities that are roughly the size of a 37 story skyscraper. Their legs are  firmly rooted into the ground with dozens of long, ropey tentacles that move about. Creepiest of  all, thoug

h, these things just kind of stand around. They don't really react to anything.  At one point several military vehicles attempted to bomb the monoliths, but they just  released an EMP pulse that disabled the attack. Even the bombs that managed to hit didn't  do that much because the monoliths just repaired themselves. However, did you notice  the important detail here? They released an electromagnetic pulse to defend themselves. That  right there, that's weird. Throughout the series, we see a lo

t of instances where the Vita  Carnis creatures seem to be taking control of or just outright destroying technology. During a glitch in the first documentary tape we briefly see a newspaper clipping reporting  that a radio tower has become overgrown by the Crawl. Other newspaper clippings report  Trimming infestations under satellite dishes and still other videos point out their  interest in tech like television and radio. It would appear as though the Carnis  are learning from this technology,

since we're told that these creatures are  closely connected to nature. It's likely that they're latching onto these unnatural human  creations to either spy on us, destroy them, or ultimately use them against us. Now, at first  glance, at the channel's uploads, that would seem like the end of the main series releases. Sure, there are some found footage videos in the mix, the cooking tutorial, a commercial  for the seasoning powder, stuff like that. But outside of a re-uploaded compilation of al

l the  previous videos, that seems to be the end of the documentary segments that formed the foundation  of this world. Except that would be missing a huge final reveal hiding in plain sight. You see what at first appears to be a rote re-upload of all the shorter documentary  segments put together actually contains a final, all new monster, a creature that seems to be the  one behind all of Vita Carnis’s chaos. This thing is known simply as The Singularity, and it's  completely unlike everything

we've talked about so far. It's a one meter in diameter dark  sphere that's floating off the ground. That’s it, it's a big ol’ ball. We're told  that several strange magnetic fields and energy signatures are coming out of  the singularity, but all the other information about it is kept classified and the  government wants to keep it that way. You see, according to a newspaper clipping that we see on  screen during the latest video Message, the people at National Living Meat Research were arrest

ed  for making this documentary because it included, quote, sensitive materials and defamation. But why? I mean, Mimics and Harvesters are killing people en masse. Hosts are spewing out  mind altering spores. And there's a corporation selling those spores as a spice to add to  our food. Something feels off here. I mean, what is the government hiding? Well, as the man  uncovering the conspiracy in the video puts it. And I suspect that the singularity is at the  center of it all, you see special r

eports and newspaper clippings aren't the only thing  that's hidden under the surface of the series, disguised in the glitches of these videos, we can  find pages from what appear to be a children's storybook telling the story of a long lost prince. Some parts of the pages are unreadable due to either glitches covering up the text video  artifacting that blurs the letters or just being cut off. But we can largely get the  gist of the story. So sit down and relax, as I tell you, a dark, twisted t

ale. Once  upon a time, the magical royal family of a distant kingdom wished to discover new lands. But as they were traveling by sea, their ship was struck by a giant storm. The prince fell  overboard, eventually washing up injured on an island. He stumbles into a nearby cave using what  magic he can to put himself into a healing sleep. He slumbered for a long time what seemed like  forever, long enough for the land around him to change and evolve into something unrecognizable. Outside of the c

ave, a group of small critters began living on the island, struggling in  times of hardship when there was too little food to go around. Eventually, the critters  found the sleeping prince awestruck by his magic. Some of them wondered if they'd be  able to use the prince's magic to grow food and heal sickness. But the majority agreed that  he was too dangerous and should be left alone. Despite this, some critters ignored the decision,  sneaking what food they had to feed the prince, hastening hi

s recovery. Thanks to them, the  prince awoke and now fully recovered. The prince befriended the critters. They formed  a bond with the critters leading the prince to their home inside the forest. They asked  the prince if he would be able to help them, since the forest was unable to provide  everything they needed to survive. The prince agreed, using his magic  to summon mystical lights, shapes, colors and figures. The critters were mesmerized  by the prince's brilliance, and they built the Pri

nce a raft so he could return to his home  kingdom. As he left, the Prince vowed that with his power and the aid of the kingdom, he  would someday return and heal the critters' home. While on the surface, this just seems to be like  an odd little side story, a series of Easter eggs hidden in an analog horror video to add to the  mystery. It is far from that. The way I see it, this is literally a metaphor for the entire  story that Vita Carnis is trying to tell us. The Prince. That's the singular

ity or whatever  is at the center of all this mess in Canada, controlling the rest of these  meek creatures around the world. I suspect it's from some super powerful alien  civilization. While traveling the cosmos with others of its kind, just like the prince on a  ship, it's hit by some sort of tragedy in space, either a supernova or some sort of big  bang, something that is so powerful that our pathetic little human meat brains  can't comprehend the scale. Either way, this alien creature is se

parated from all the  others, and then it crash lands here on Earth millions of years ago in what eventually becomes  modern day Hudson Bay. It's there in the Hudson Bay that this alien entity forms an island that  exists in the world of Vita Carnis, but not in our own world. Injured by the impact whatever this  creature is went into hibernation that has lasted itself hundreds of millions, maybe even billions  of years, at least long enough that it seems that… Tectonic activity and life on earth

reshaped  the planet above it, just like the world outside the Prince's cave changed while he was asleep. Eventually, intelligent life formed on the planet: us lowly humans. We're the critters from that  story, using up the resources of the world and struggling to survive, at least in the eyes  of this more highly evolved being. Some humans eventually find the entity in the 1930s, and  while most of the people in charge wanted to leave the creature, others didn't. They saw it as a way to progre

ss, to save themselves and the species from  dwindling resources on Earth as humanity wrings it dry. And why wouldn't they? It's  this incredible Lovecraftian being beyond anything we understand. And the organic material  he creates helps the natural life cycle of earth. A cult forms in the highest rankings of  humanity; in governments and corporations and militaries. All of them focused on somehow  resuscitating this mysterious being. See this symbol on the flag that was put on the princess  ra

ft that they rebuilt? It's the same symbol that we see on the flavor enhancer. It's the  same thing that gets called out in multiple other videos. It's the symbol that represents  whatever this cult worshiping the entity is. And how do they plan on bringing it back?  Well, just like the prince in the story, they start feeding the entity, they start  feeding it meat, specifically humans. That's why nothing is being done about the  Mimic or Harvester attacks. That's why the mind control spores are

being distributed as  condiments. That's why people are encouraged to eat the Crawl and pretend that everything  is okay and normal. That's why the elder Mimics and the giant meat snake that they found in  the tunnel are so much more powerful than the others. They've eaten more humans. They've  grown stronger and darker as a result. Not quite as dark as the prince or the singularity,  a giant floating black ball. But both the Mimic documentary and the Meat Snake archival video  make a specific

point to call out the color. And I've got to say, at this point, it  seems like the cult’s been successful, given the explosive growth of the Vita Carnis  over the past century. So is that it for humanity? Is the world doomed to fall to this Lovecraftian  alien being and the cult following it as it slowly awakens from its slumber? Thankfully, not yet. The  latest video gives us hope, since it appears that the people behind the Vita Carnis documentary  are connected to another organization that's

starting a resistance. Known as the Containment  and Research Consult Association Society or C.A.R.C.A.S. for short. It's an acronym. We love  ourselves a good acronym. They've started their own recruitment drive and are attempting to blow  this conspiracy wide open. Aaand that's about it, actually. That's about as far as the story's  gotten at this point, let me tell you. I, for one, cannot wait to see where this one goes  next. Like I said at the top of the episode, this has been one of the m

ost original analog  horror series I've watched in a while, and I hope that us covering it here gets more eyeballs  over to Darian's hard work and spine chilling art. But while this may be all that we have right  now for Vita Carnis, it is not all that we have for Mystery Meat Weekend my friends. Remember  to go check out all the other videos at our sister locations since we've been talking  about eating Vita Carnis in this episode, might I recommend checking out what  we have cooking over on Fo

od Theory? You ever wonder what a mammoth meatball  tastes like? Well, I'm about to tell ya. It is literally like we're living in Jurassic  Park. Let's just clone an extinct creature. But instead of creating an amusement park, let's just  create an equivalent of a restaurant. Good job, humans. That video is on screen right now, so  click it and enjoy all the savory goodness that is Meat Week. As always my friends, if you're hungry  for more juicy content, click that subscribe button across all o

ur channels. And remember, it's  all just a theory. A FILM THEORY! aaaaaaand cut.