History Main / MummiesAtTheDinnerTable

* In the 2003 film ''Film/PerfectStrangers'', 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.

As you can probably see, the (living) people at the center of this are usually not "firing on all cylinders" -- assuming, of course, that they still have ''any'' cylinders left to fire. This is usually because they just can't accept the loss of someone who was close to them, and would rather live [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness in an alternate self-created reality where that person is still alive.]] This loss, of course, can be even ''more'' crushing if ''they themselves'' were responsible for their beloved's death in some way.

This trope also does not apply to a person who is fully aware that the loved one is dead and treats the corpse as simply a(n often disturbing) form of memento. Such behaviour usually indicates mental problems, but of entirely different sorts.

* Faust VIII of ''Manga/ShamanKing'' embodies this trope quite well. After his wife Eliza is shot and killed in a break-in, he spends all of his time trying to find a way to resurrect her but in the meantime, he still carries around her whole skeleton around with him. He refers to her as his 'Dear Eliza' and even holds hands with her reanimated skeleton on occasion...Suggesting to him that she's dead forever is...[[AxCrazy Not a good idea to say the least]]. After his HeelFaceTurn (or rather as part of the negotiations leading to it), Anna summons up Eliza's spirit and binds it to the skeleton; she becomes Faust's spirit ally, and he becomes marginally less insane.

* ''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 Snifff...]]

* The deeply disturbing made for TV movie ''Film/CabinByTheLake'' is a perfect example of this trope. The serial killer in the movie kidnaps teenage girls, puts them in a soundproof room, puts them in an elegant gown or dress, and THEN duct tapes their feet to a concrete block, afterwards he proceeds to take them out into the middle of the lake, and then drop them to the bottom to sink. He also likes to scuba dive out to his "garden" and clean away any detritus accumulating around them and makes sure to straighten up their clothes. The conditions of the bodies range from skeletal, to decomp, to recently dead.

* In the finale of ''Film/GraduationDay'', the FinalGirl finds her sister's remains in the killer's bedroom, and he acts if she was still alive. In fact, he plans to marry her.

* In Film/HellNight the bodies of the killers parents are in a living room hidden in the basement.

* Miriam Allen [=deFord=]'s "A Death in the Family" tells the tale of a lonely funeral home director who has taken opportunities to steal bodies and create a family for himself. One day, the corpse of a young kidnap victim is mistakenly delivered to his door, and even though he knows it's risky, a little girl is the last body he needs, and he adds her to his family. Sure enough, the police are suspicious and promise to come back with a warrant. After the police leave, he calmly opens his gas valves, goes back into his "family room," sits down with his family, tells them he loves them and lights a match.

* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/GloryRoad'', Star mentions that it is normal on her planet to use {{Magitek}} to preserve the dead and then later send them off to another dimension. She found the idea of burying someone as rather strange. She did complain about an Aunt who kept all of her dead husbands in her drawing-room, saying it was rather too much for guests and they needed dusting.

* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's short story "Meathouse Man" features a special kind of brothel designed for meat handlers (people who had been trained to manipulate braindead semi-corpses to do dangerous work) where the handler basically subconsciously controlled the body of the girl he was with. [[spoiler: The protagonist, after spending years looking for real love, finally settles on having his own personal mostly-dead-girl that he pretends is his true lady love, though given his disillusionment at the end, he doesn't actually think she has conscious thought. He just doesn't care.]]

* ''Series/BatesMotel'': After Norma dies by Norman's hand he digs up her body, glues her eyes open and talks to her.
* Played hilariously in ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' when Eric moves into a great apartment with a nice though eccentric guy who doesn't seem to care if Eric pays rent (there's also a hot girl next door who routinely locks herself out of her apartment while wearing a towel.) Eric is somewhat disturbed when he finds that the guy treats his (dead) stuffed parrot like a live pet; he finally bolts when the guy starts talking about bringing out his mom. We never see her, but it's heavily implied that she's dead, too.

* ''Series/{{Copper}}'': In "Home Sweet Home", Buzzy Burke eats a meal at the table of the couple he has just killed, with them still tied to their chairs. He even tries to get them to engage in a singalong.

** In the episode "The Documentary", a mortuary worker 'borrows' corpses, dresses them up and has dinner parties with them because he's so lonely. It's not made clear whether he has sex with them, however.

** At the end of an episode, [[spoiler:"The Seer of the Sands"]], it's discovered that the dead body which had disappeared had been stolen and taken home by a girl who was secretly in love with him. Surprisingly, it turns out she didn't murder him. [[spoiler: He had however gone to some trouble to conceal the fact that he was seeing someone else, which led Jonathan up a blind alley.]]

* In the {{Series/Monk}} episode "[[Recap/MonkS6E13MrMonkAndTheThreeJulies Mr. Monk and the Three Julies]]", the police enter the home of a man who is killing people named Julie Teeger around San Francisco, as his own mother's name is Julia and he has a record of violence defending her. When they arrive, they find Julia's corpse, having been taxidermied after dying of a heart aneurysm. The suspect, Matthew, refused to accept her death, and thus did this to always have her around. Even Monk finds this kind of grief creepy, as he admits to his psychiatrist that you wouldn't seem him having his wife Trudy's corpse around the house, and Trudy's death had broken Monk '''''bad''''' at first.

-->'''Rimmer''': Terrific! Our first contact with intelligent life in 3 million years, and it's the android equivalent of [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates]]!

** J.D. does-slash-subverts this with his dead, stuffed dog, Rowdy. The other characters just think J.D. has a hard time letting go of a beloved childhood pet -- until Turk reveals that they got him from a garage sale when they were roommates in college. After that, pretty much every character spends some time playing with Rowdy, with Carla both thanking him for "finding" Turk's bandana and informing him he'll leave after she and Turk move in, at different occasions.

* In the 3rd Season of ''Series/TrueBlood'', Russell Edgington's partner, Talbot, is staked by Eric. Russell then goes mad, stuffs his remains in a glass urn and starts taking it with him everywhere he goes. Until Sookie flushes its contents down the garbage disposal...

* There's a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds song called Dead Man In My Bed, where a woman is complaining to a singer about the titular dead man. (He's smelly, inconsiderate and doesn't want to ''do'' anything.)

* Possibly happens towards the end of "The Doctor's Wife'' by The Steampunk Quartet; by this point the narrator's patient is legally dead, her organs kept viable by a bunch of machines, the rest of her body "destroyed", and he still hears her pleading for him not to let her go.

--> ''HE GOT A BOOK ON EMBALMING. AND HE FOUND IT SIMPLY QUITE CHARMING. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. PRESERVED FOR ALL TIME FOR HIS ARDOUR. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER. SHE IS THERE SHE IS THERE IN THE LARDER.''

* A third party supplement book for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' third edition, ''The Slayer's Guide to Undead,'' had a short story of a queen looking for a cure for her (dead) husband, and executing every healer and cleric who tried to tell her the king was dead and could not be saved. A necromancer fulfilled her wishes by casting a simple animate dead to turn her husband into a mindless zombie that follows the queen's orders. She continues to insist that all messengers and petitioners to the throne address the maggot-infested animated corpse of the king, and even shares a bed with it.

* In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'', an inventor in the past reprograms one of the MechaMooks threatening the kingdom. In the present day, you find it in his home trying to take care of him (apparently unable to realize he's long-dead). It's played mostly for pity, though.

* In one of the endings of ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}'', Garry and Ib [[spoiler: are both driven insane by the gallery]], and Mary loves Ib too much to abandon her so she [[spoiler: gives up her dreams of going to the human world]] and stays with them. That's awful sweet of her...but in the next scene we realize that [[spoiler: while they were clearly alive in the previous scene and Mary's talking a lot about how they're all going to be best friends forever, now neither of them are talking...or moving...or reacting to anything at all]]...

* In ''VideoGame/InfiniteSpace'', if you don't recruit Katida (which results in her FaceHeelTurn), she will order her fleet to focus fire on Roth's ship, killing Nele, which turns Roth into this before he fires high-stream blaster, destroying the ship. It's one part this and one part TalkingToTheDead since it's implied that he knew that she was dead but needed to say what he was saying before his HeroicSacrifice.

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

* 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.]]

* In ''WebVideo/BenDrowned'', in a secret newspaper clipping which was sent out at some point, it's heavily implied that Duskworld23 had this done to him by his insane mother after his ascension.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'': Irwin's father does this. However, Irwin's mother is a literal mummy, with bandages, shuffling walk, pained groaning and all. And yes, she does occasionally sit at the dinner table.
* Mrs. Driscoll, the sience 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.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'': The Crypt-Keeper brings to life a lot of horrific tales about "Toons from the Crypt" and one of the them is naturally about Elmyra who has a dream about her deceased pets who rise from the grave as rotting corpses to exact their revenge on her. It turns out that it has been a pleasant dream, enough to make her want to see them again and proceed to then ''unbury'' them so that they can participate in her tea party.

* Perhaps the squickiest real-life example: Carl Tanzler, a radiologist in 1930s Key West, Florida, who developed a morbid obsession for one of his young female patients. After she died, he built a mausoleum for her, but apparently, that wasn't enough, so he carted away her body, hid it in his house, preserved it as best he could, and lived with her "as man and wife" for many years until her family discovered the body. Tanzler was arrested for graverobbing but was ultimately released, because the statute of limitations on the crime had expired. (Which shows you just how long the "relationship" went on...)

* The extremely macabre story of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Moskvin Anatoly Moskvin]]: as a deep believer in celtic druid practices of "talking to the dead", he would sometimes sleep on the grave of recently deceased children and whenever a spirit "mentioned it wants to live", he would dig the body out, dry it with salt and baking soda, then carry it home. There he would wrap them in cloth, put wax masks colored with nail polish on them and thus create "dolls" with which he would eat, sleep and play, celebrate their birthdays, read stories and sing songs as well as watch cartoons. He did this for about twenty years, finally getting caught with 26 "dolls".

* Brilliantly done in a short story accompanying the fat pack for ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'''s ''Coldsnap'' expansion. The story is presented as the set's villain speaking to his beloved [[spoiler: [[TomatoSurprise who he has just frozen to death and shattered]] because she didn't agree with his latest deluded scheme.]]

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' has [[spoiler:Orson, who [[LoveMakesYouEvil betrays his kingdom so he can be with his wife, Monica]]]]. She was a recently deceased IllGirl, and he took her death quite hard. So much so, that the BigBad got him to turn traitor in exchange for his wife back. Unfortunately, he could only reanimate her corpse as a zombie, but [[spoiler:Orson]] is so crazy that he simply doesn't notice. He talks to her frequently as if nothing was wrong, and even remarks on how he'd never forgotten her birthday, and promises a special surprise for her. You only ever see her map sprite, (A standard female civilian) and hear her speak, barely, ("Darling... Darling... Darling...") after killing Orson, but the shocked reactions of the main characters to her tell us that's probably for the best.

* 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.

* ''ComicBook/ContestOfChampions:'' An alternate version of Venom keeps the remains of his Spider-Man's uniform tied around his neck as a makeshift cape, and frequently has conversations with "Pete", regardless of other people trying to point out the obvious.

* Faust VIII of ''Manga/ShamanKing'' embodies this trope quite well. After his wife Eliza is shot and killed in a break-in, he spends all of his time trying to find a way to resurrect her but in the meantime, he still carries around her whole skeleton around with him. He refers to her as his 'Dear Eliza' and even holds hands with her reanimated skeleton on occasion...Suggesting to him that she's dead forever is...[[AxCrazy Not a good idea to say the least]].
** On the other hand, he ''is'' a [[ISeeDeadPeople shaman.]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]
* In ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'': [[spoiler:Elongated Man's brief infatuation with Straw Sue Dibny]].

* A rather {{Squick}}-filled scene in ''Franchise/{{Batman}}: War Games Act II''. [[spoiler: Aquista, holding and caressing his daughter's naked corpse, telling her how she won't be cut up or fed to worms.]]

* ''Good Girls,'' by Carol Lay, features a number of ongoing series. One of them involves a pair of twins who are two heads on one body. When one of the heads gets chopped off, the remaining twin can't handle it and tapes the dead head back on to the neck stump, then carries on with the explanation that his brother simply isn't feeling well at the moment.
* 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 [[ComicBook/BlackestNight Nekron]]. Post-Blackest Night, 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 "mortal foe" variation appears in "Just Desserts!" from ''[[Creator/ECComics Shock [=SuspenStories=]]].'' A man holds a dinner party and berates his silent guests one by one for having wronged him. He chides them all for not using their heads in doing so since he found them all out. The last panel [[TheReveal reveal]] shows he's been talking to their decapitated corpses.
--> People who don't use their heads... [[PayEvilUntoEvil don't need them]]...

* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': in issue #67, an alternate-universe Galvatron has conquered North America and keeps the corpse of Rodimus Prime chained up between the remains of the World Trade Center. He rants at it in frustration over the continued survival of [[LaResistance the Autobot/Human resistance]].
* In "One Good Turn..." in ''The Vault of Horror'' #31 the main character treated her once-bedridden husband just as if he were still alive, including [[{{Squick}} sleeping with him]]. As she put it to the horrified investigative officers, "I made him ''happy four months ago'' when I put ''cyanide'' in his ''hot chocolate''!"

* ''Series/JustShootMe'': when Nina's friend [[TheUnseen Binnie]] dies, she goes around carrying the urn with her ashes, talking to her and acting as if she were still alive, even accessorising it with a scarf.

* 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 - when she enters her (deceased) pet dog in a race, the king has to cancel the race so that the dog won't lose.

[[quoteright:340:[[Franchise/GreenLantern https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_hand_family_dinner.jpeg]]]]

** Someone dug out [[http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gnsBYieDL6mf_U5L8W7RFhNoo6BwD9FG8QL80 the grave]] of that unfortunate corpse

* In ''[[ComicBook/{{Batgirl 2009}} Batgirl]]'' #9, when the Calculator appears, [[spoiler:he's kept the body of his son Marvin, and tells it how he plans to reclaim Marvin's sister Wendy and murder Oracle.]]

* ''Comicbook/EmperorJoker'': The Joker is seen playing a game of poker with the corpses of the various Robins that he murdered.

* Another ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' example: in issue #67 of the [[ComicBook/TheTransformers original Marvel Comics series]], an alternate-universe Galvatron has conquered North America and keeps the corpse of Rodimus Prime chained up between the remains of the World Trade Center. He rants at it in frustration over the continued survival of [[LaResistance the Autobot/Human resistance]].

[[folder:Fan Fic]]
* ''FanFic/CaptainDragon'': [[spoiler:After Cinder died, Emerald stole her body from the grave. She dressed it up and talks to it like Cinder is still alive, having gone so crazy as to actually believe she is.]]
* ''FanFic/EquestriaDivided'': The [[CircusOfFear Cult of Laughter]] is ruled by a council, two of the members include [[SoulJar Pinkie Pies preserved corpse]] and her ghost, [[MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil The Laughing Mare]]. No one really knows how that affects the voting but apparently it works.
* ''FanFic/{{Hivefled}}'': in his youth, the Grand Highblood killed his flushcrush the Handmaid out of jealousy, then spent days in his room painting a portrait of her in her own blood.

* In "The Five Wise Words of the Guru", the protagonist encounters a giant who asks him what he thinks of his beautiful wife. The protagonist's life is spared, and he wins a favor from the giant because he is the first hapless traveler not to try to point out that the wife is a skeleton.

* 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.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': In the final episode of Season 3, Agent Poindexter (aka ComicBook/{{Bullseye}}) [[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.

[[quoteright:304:[[Franchise/GreenLantern https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blackhandfamilydinner.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:304:That awkward moment when dinner conversation goes [[IncrediblyLamePun dead]] quiet.]]

-->-- '''Music/TomLehrer''', "I Hold Your Hand In Mine", ''Music/SongsByTomLehrer''

So your precious child or Significant Other has tragically passed on to the next world. Well...so what? That doesn't mean you can't still enjoy their company in ''this'' one. Of course, people might think you're a bit ''strange'' if you dress your beloved's corpse in formal attire, tape a spaghetti fork to their hands and try to have a nice, one-sided conversation with them every evening over dinner, but they just wouldn't understand, not having suffered such a crushing loss themselves. Decomposition? What decomposition? Your loved one looks just as good as they did the day they... stopped moving for themselves and became less talkative. But they're still alive! Yes, they ''are.'' Anyone who tells you anything different is ''obviously'' confused, or jealous of your relationship. Yes...that's it...they're jealous, and they must be destroyed as soon as possible...before they're able to spread any...''nasty'' rumors about you...

* ''Film/{{Deranged}}'' has its serial killer protagonist Ezra Cobb (Creator/RobertsBlossom) kidnapping a barmaid and then introducing her to the various corpses (including his mother's) that he's unearthed and mutilated, so they can all have dinner together before he "marries" her.

* ''Good Girls,'' by Carol Lay, features a number of ongoing series. One of them involves a pair of twins who are two heads on one body. When one of the heads gets chopped off, killing it, the remaining twin can't handle it and tapes the dead head back on to the neck stump, then carries on with the explanation that his brother simply isn't feeling well at the moment.

* ''Webcomic/EverythingIsFine'': [[spoiler: Winston, Sam and Maggie's dog,]] has been dead for some time, but neither of them seems to notice. [[Spoiler:They still call for him, give him food and only occasionally remark on how quiet he's been lately. Sam even asks Maggie to bring him to the vet.]] Subverted, as there is a heavy implication that they actually know [[spoiler:Winston]] died, but for some reason have to pretend that he's still alive.

** In another episode, a man who knows he's dying is meeting his friends for one last party, but dies before he can make it there. His friends then steal his body from the morgue and throw the party anyway, with the body as the guest of honor. In the morning, they leave the body sitting outside on a park bench, with a party hat and a cigar. Interestingly, what they did is not implied to be sick or wrong, but instead touching, if perhaps a bit unwise, attempt at honoring the last wishes if their dead friend.