History Main / MummiesAtTheDinnerTable

* In ''Diamond is Unbreakable'', the fourth arc of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', the BigBad, Yoshikage Kira, is obsessed with women's hands, so he usually murders some hapless victim, cuts off her hand and gets rid of the rest of the body. While the hand stays fresh, he takes it around with him, calling it his "girlfriend" and using it to touch things, pick up stuff and even [[{{Squick}} wipe himself]]. When the hand starts decaying he starts looking for a new "girlfriend".

* ''Literature/RequiemFromTheDarkness'' has an example with guilt and denial.

* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho''. [[spoiler: Itsuki and Sensui's last scene ever has both of them inside an alternate dimension, with the still-living Itsuki gently speaking to Sensui's dead body as if he still was alive.]] [[TearJerker Sniff...]]

* The page image is Black Hand, a rather ''unstable'' ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'' villain who killed his family and then himself before becoming, essentially, the avatar of Nekron. Post-''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', he spends most of his time hanging around chatting with his dead family (the fact that he can animate and control the dead is rather convenient for this). He's also prone to raising a cemetery full of completely unrelated people to hang out with- including, at one point, Hal Jordan's father.

* The Jim Henson homage ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38yBYqEDOpE Overtime]]'' is probably as endearing as this trope can be.

* In the 2003 film ''[[Film/PerfectStrangers2003 Perfect Strangers]]'', Rachel Blake's character keeps her kidnapper's corpse and talks to it in a freezer after having accidentally killed and fallen in love with him.

* ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre''

* This was the TwistEnding to "Death in the Family", an episode of ''Series/NightGallery''.

* In ''Videogame/ImmortalDefense'', [[spoiler:the player character continues to defend his homeworld long after it was reduced to a barren rock, refusing to acknowledge that everything and everyone he knew and loved is gone.]]

* In the final episode of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' Season 1 you get into a discussion with [[spoiler: the owner of a station wagon that your group stole goods out of at the end of Episode 2.]] For most of the conversation, he seems normal if a little odd. However, once he [[spoiler: starts talking to his wife you realize it's her severed head in a bowling ball bag that he's been carrying around since she was turned into a Walker.]]

* The first killer in ''VisualNovel/KaraNoShoujo'' is collecting body parts and putting them together to make a new body for [[spoiler:his sister]] and is absolutely convinced that she's not dead. [[spoiler:[[{{Squick}} He also has sex with the composite corpse when it's fully assembled]].]]

* Ed Gein, the inspiration behind [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates]], [[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre Leatherface]], and [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb]].

* Animals occasionally do this with their dead infants. It's slightly less [[{{Squick}} squicky]] than when humans do it, for some reason.
** Maybe because the other animals' reaction is much more [[{{Squick}} squicky]] as they eat the corpses of their infants.

* One of the murders in ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' has her beloved brother's mummified body upstairs in the house. Early on another character mentions the woman keeps the house unusually cold and won't host community events even though she has a large house.

* ''Film/{{Pearl}}'' has during its ending the title character seating her parents’ corpses at the dinner table.

* James has a creepy conversation with the corpse of his wife ([[spoiler: whom he is intending to resurrect]]) in the "Rebirth" ending of ''VideoGame/SilentHill2''.

* In ''Film/MarsAttacks'', the senile old Granny never seemed to realize that her cat Muffy was no longer alive.

* In ''Manhwa/{{Priest}}'', Ivan's girlfriend is killed in a [[ReligiousHorror bizarre ritual]] GoneHorriblyRight. He is so traumatized by the event that he brings her corpse back to his old house and dresses it up nicely, acting as though she was still alive for a brief period. [[HilarityEnsues Then zombies attack and she reanimates and he has to kill her again.]]

* The music group Mili's song "RTRT" has the narrator doing this in the song's final verse, heartbroken by the murder of her demon friend. She rebuilds him bit by bit, but even with her skills as a scientist is unable to revive him, so she pretends that maybe with the food and love that they shared he'll eventually come back. The song's image even shows her eating dinner with what's heavily implied to be his ''stuffed corpse.''

* Mrs. Driscoll, the science teacher in ''Westernanimation/{{Randy Cunningham Ninth Grade Ninja}}'', carries around her dead husband's skeleton wherever she goes, [[ILoveTheDead and is still very... affectionate with him.]]
* A sketch on ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' that combined ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' with the movie ''Film/{{Se7en}}'' ends with Papa Smurf waltzing with Smurfette's beheaded corpse. Yeah, it's a weird show.

* Played with in Season 4 of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', when Number 21 is shown to have one-sided conversations with the skull of the deceased Number 24. We later see it from Number 21's perspective, and he is apparently talking to a ghost only he can see. In a subversion, 21 TookALevelInBadass, and we're shown that 24's ghost has been feeding 21 information (i.e. warning him if people nearby are carrying concealed weapons) to improve his reputation. This leads to a bit of a MindScrew when 24's ghost suggests he himself may be an imaginary MagicFeather, and that 21 really is awesome but hallucinates 24 due to an inferiority complex.
** The season finale seems to confirm that he's just a delusion of 21's. Not only did one of the fellow "ghosts" 24 introduced him to never exist, but Dr. Orpheus (a professional necromancer) couldn't see 24, and he communicates with the dead all the time.

* In an R.L. Stine novel, ''Halloween Night 2'', the heroine is afraid that her (previously psychotic) friend is still assaulting her. Meanwhile, her new friend on the block is getting REALLY into Halloween, including these two really realistic-looking skeletons for decoration. Needless to say, it turns out that the previously psychotic friend is harmless, her NEW friend is psychotic, and the skeletons are her dead parents. The girl alters between sly lies ("They're just Halloween decorations my parents put up") and complete obliviousness as to her parent's real state of physical health (not to mention decomposition).
* The humorous short story ''Happy Valley'' by Creator/JohnCleese and Connie Booth centres around an incredibly naive princess, who understands nothing of the world. This includes death - [[InanimateCompetitor when she enters her (deceased) pet dog in a race]], the king has to cancel the race so that the dog won't lose.

[[caption-width-right:340:That awkward moment when dinner conversation goes [[IncrediblyLamePun dead]] quiet.]]

* ''Series/Yellowjackets'': Shauna spends a lot of time with [[spoiler:Jackie's]] dead body, both talking to her and imagining that she is talking back.

* When the crew of the ''Series/RedDwarf'' first meet the android Kryten, he's still caring for and conversing with his own ship's long-dead crew. Played for comedy, helped along by the fact that they're all rotted away to skeletons instead of still corpsified and gross. (Did I mention skeletons with ''wigs on''?)... It's a whole hell of a lot more disturbing in the book version, where the android is directly responsible for the crew's death through obsessive cleanliness (he gave a thorough washing to all the computer systems), and they're cold-mummified corpses, not skeletons... plus, the android doesn't seem to be entirely aware they're dead. When he's directly informed of this, his reaction is "My God! I was only away for two minutes!"
** It's made more clear in the book, but Kryten is basically in denial that they are dead so that he can continue to perform his programming and serve them, as he has no idea what to do once he can't do that anymore. In fact, he shuts himself off, disassembling his brain in the process when he's forced to realize they're dead in that version (Lister puts him back together.)
--->'''Rimmer''': Terrific! Our first contact with intelligent life in 3 million years, and it's the android equivalent of [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates]]!

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': In the final episode of Season 3, Agent Poindexter (aka ComicBook/{{Bullseye|MarvelComics}}) [[GoMadFromTheRevelation completely snaps]] when he discovers [[spoiler: his crush Julie was killed by [[ComicBook/TheKingpin Wilson Fisk]]]]. When he drives to the hotel to get his revenge, he has [[spoiler: Julie]]'s body in the passenger seat and talks to it with [[PsychoticSmirk an unnerving grin]] on his face the whole time.

* In season 3 of ''Series/DoomPatrol'', after the team (minus Larry) are [[DeathIsCheap (temporarily)]] assassinated by Samuelson, he ships their bodies back to the manor in a box. Larry does not handle it well-- he dresses his teammates' corpses up in bandages and arranges them around the dinner table. They call him out on "being weird" when they come back to life.

* In a shopkeeper sketch on ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme'', a woman wants her budgie (killed by the cat) and the cat (killed by choking on the budgie) taxidermied into a tableau of the cat on trial with a jury of mice. When the taxidermist suggests this might unsettle visitors, she says probably not once they've been through the Hall of Ex-Husbands...

* Instead of a love interest or stalkee, in the first ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'' book, it's the beloved daughter of an early villain, whom he thinks is still clinging to life.
* ''Manga/SevenSeeds''
** During the Team Winter arc, Fubuki dies and Mitsuru commits suicide [[SnowMeansDeath by snow]] shortly after him, leading Aramaki to delude himself into thinking that a dog that had been following him was actually Fubuki. He realizes it after finding one of the Fuji shelters.
** Ango was too distraught over Shingo's death, leading to him sleepwalking and looking for him, due to SurvivorsGuilt. He gets better when he meets [[ShrinkingViolet Natsu]], who is similar to Shigeru in many traits, and sees her as a replacement for Shigeru. [[spoiler: After Ango comes to terms with Shigeru's death not being his fault, he gets better and sees Natsu for herself.]]

* The ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "Family" has a variation of this trope, whereby George Wendt's character kills random people, melts off their flesh, and uses their skeletons as mannequins to create his vision of the perfect family. This counts as an example due to the repeated conversations and arguments he holds with them, including when he "murders" his "wife".

* On ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', [[spoiler:Gul Dukat]] [[SanitySlippage goes just a little bit off the deep end]] after his daughter is killed in the episode "Sacrifice of Angels", and is seen cradling her dead body and talking to it. He seems to have been persuaded to bury her decently at some point, but if anything he's gone even ''more'' bugfuck nuts by his next appearance.
* When he was alive, the MonsterOfTheWeek from the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "Ghostfacers" brought home corpses as guests for his birthday party. Then the guy died and his ghost kept up the tradition.

* ''Series/{{Voice 2}}'': Episode 4 reveals that the ArcVillain is keeping his mother's desiccated corpse in the apartment, and chatting with her, ''Film/{{Psycho}}''-style.

* In ''Film/{{Perfume}}'', olfactory genius Grenouille accidentally kills the Plum Girl while trying to enjoy her scent. He strips her corpse naked and frantically smells her until her scent fades. He then becomes obsessed with trying to preserve scents forever, a process that ultimately requires murder.

* OlderThanDirt: In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', the titular hero refuses to allow his beloved friend Enkidu to be buried, embracing his corpse, weeping over him, having one-sided conversations with him, [[PleaseWakeUp pleading with him to wake up]], "veiling his face [[HoYay like a bride's."]] He finally allows Enkidu to be buried after seven days when a maggot falls out of Enkidu's nose. Eww... But at least he acknowledges the decomposition.

* In the 2003 film ''Film/PerfectStrangers2003'', Rachel Blake's character keeps her kidnapper's corpse and talks to it in a freezer after having accidentally killed and fallen in love with him.