Cannibal disaster thriller based on true story is one of Netflix's most harrowing films yet

If last month t'was the season to be jolly then maybe January is the time to indulge in a bit of doom and gloom.

Gone are the twee and saccharine offerings of Christmas movies, now's the time to watch a thriller based on the true story of plane crash survivors who had to resort to cannibalism to survive.

Netflix

Netflix recently added a movie that scored a 91 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though you'll have to be in the right frame of mind to watch it given the subject matter.

Society of the Snow is a movie which released in cinemas late last year and has now debuted on Netflix for everyone else to traumatise themselves with.

Viewers have said it's 'one of the most harrowing and incredible' things they've ever seen, so buckle up for an excellent film that's possibly going to give you nightmares for a while.

Society of the Snow just arrived on Netflix today so now's the time to add it to your 'to watch' list right behind the glut of horror movies and dramatic shows that have arrived.

You'll never keep up with it all so whether you watch it now or later you'll be in for a critically acclaimed adaptation of a harrowing true story.

If you want to know what really happened in the events that inspired Society of the Snow, on 13 October 1972 a plane with 45 people on board crashed in the Andes Mountains.

The flight had been heading for Santiago, Chile, but suffered from poor weather conditions and crashed.

12 people died in the crash and a number of others were severely injured, with 29 of the 45 on board surviving into the second day.

Netflix

Search and rescue teams were sent out to look for the plane wreckage but gave up after failing to find them and the survivors were presumed dead.

The survivors learned after 10 days that the search for them was over, meaning they'd have to find their own way off the mountain.

An avalanche later killed others in the group and in the end it took 72 days in total for the survivors to reach safety, with the group sending people on a trek to find help.

By the end of the ordeal there were only 16 people left alive, and the survivors admitted they turned to cannibalism to avoid starvation.

Food supplies on board the plane had not been enough to sustain the group, with survivor Ramon Sabella saying they felt 'terrible' and 'repugnant' for eating human flesh but 'got used to it' as their only options were to eat or die.

Another survivor Roberto Canessa said he would have considered it an 'honour' if he'd died and his friends had eaten him.