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Body horror! It’s a segment of the horror genre that can be many things – funny, disturbing, thoughtful, and even profound. However, there is one key element in all body horror films, TV shows, comics, novels, and more, and that is that it needs to be cringe-inducingly, stomach-churningly gross.
Director David Cronenberg is often accredited with bringing body horror to the mainstream. His works are inarguably wildly influential and even truly great if we do say so ourselves, but there is plenty of body horror to go around in the world. For anyone who just had their minds blown by Crimes of the Future and the director’s prior works like The Fly, The Brood, Videodrome, and many others, here are some hidden gems to check out to expand your knowledge of the subgenre and all its icky parts.
‘Spring’ (2014)
After suffering the devastating loss of his mother as well as his job, Evan travels to Italy where he is blindsided by a strong attraction to a mysterious woman named Louise. It becomes obvious pretty quickly that something is amiss with Louise as we the audience see her transform into a monster and devour a stray cat after sleeping with Evan. Well, that’s probably all the set-up you’re going to need to know if you want to watch this film or not.
Spring is a beautifully shot flick that uses every bit of its location to its advantage to capture the dreaminess and terror of falling in love with someone you’re not sure if you can trust. Compelling performances from Nadia Hilker and Lou Taylor Pucci help ground this fantastical tale, and there is no shortage of tragedy and romance despite this falling emphatically in the horror category. Spring is available to watch on Tubi.
‘May’ (2002)
Our problematic fave May suffered a painful childhood due to a domineering mother and being bullied at school due to her amblyopia. She grows up to work as a vet assistant and falls in love with the highly shallow Adam, who likes horror films and is an edgelord. May is a genuinely disturbed person, however, and Adam ultimately finds it off-putting, breaking things off with her and helping kick off May’s spiral as she decides if she wants a true friend, she’s going to have to make one out of the parts of people that she likes.
May is a funny, strange, and upsetting film with an incredible soundtrack and some A+ performances from actors including Angela Bettis and Anna Faris. Despite her seriously violent actions, it’s hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for her as she is rejected repeatedly by people that can’t hope to understand her. May is available to watch on Roku.
‘Event Horizon’ (1997)
Few horror tropes are as unsettling as the appearance of a long-lost spaceship with a deceased or disappeared crew, and that’s where Event Horizon begins. A rescue crew is sent to investigate a once-missing ship only to discover the entire crew dead. As they attempt to understand what happened, the rescue crew experiences hallucinations and rapidly descends into madness.
Event Horizon was panned by critics and bombed at the box office, as well as having a significant portion of the original runtime cut with the footage subsequently lost to time. What might have been certainly hangs heavy over this film, but what we’re left with is a disturbing horror film full of A-list actors including Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne as well as a number of unforgettable sequences. Event Horizon is available to watch on Paramount+.
‘Suspiria’ (2018)
Using the plot of the original Suspiria as a jumping-off point, we meet Susie, who travels to attend the Markos Dance Academy. Her arrival follows the disappearance (definitely murder) of fellow student Patricia, and Susie is immediately locked into the unenviable position of attempting to understand what happened to her while engaging in relentless training to become a great ballet dancer. That’s the set-up, but where this 2018 remake goes after is what makes it unique.
Suspiriais a divisive remake, but the truth is that it would hardly be a worthy spiritual successor to the original if it weren’t. Though it very much went its own way, the influence of the original film is all over it, and it explores a number of fascinating avenues that the original couldn’t. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s no denying that this is body horror at its very finest, and it features plenty of incredible performances and gorgeous set pieces to keep you in your seat. Suspiria is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
‘Audition’ (1999)
Widower Shigeharu stages a fake audition after his son urges him to find a new love interest after his wife’s death. What could be the start of a particularly unhinged rom-com rapidly escalates into one of the most brutal horror films ever made as he proposes to the highly unusual Asami only to have her disappear on him. He tries to track her down using her references only to discover a trail of dismemberment. That’s right around the time that Asami shows up again, and, well, you’ll have to watch the movie to find out what happens next (spoiler alert: it’s body horror).
Praised by filmmakers like Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino, Audition is the kind of movie that you will never forget after you watch it. Criticized for being misogynistic and praised for being feminist, this is a room divider if there ever was one. Yet, for body horror fans, it’s hard to deny the place this one holds in the zeitgeist, making it a must-watch even if only to see what all the fuss is about. For our money, this is a wildly successful gut-punch of a horror story, and any attempts at analyzing it occur alongside its devastating emotional effect. Audition is available to stream on Tubi.
‘The Howling’ (1981)
1981 saw the debut of three prominent werewolf films, including An American Werewolf in London, Wolfen, and The Howling. Following the story of a woman named Karen who is stalked and forced to take part in a police sting that goes horribly wrong, the movie then takes us to the resort that she is advised to stay at for rest. Naturally, this resort is plumb full of werewolves, so not quite as relaxing as she thought it would be.
Director Joe Dante is known for his meta masterpieces, and The Howling is an early example of this. Often dismissed as a cheesy werewolf film of the early 80s, there is a surprising level of depth to be found in its examination of toxic masculinity and the abuse many women suffer in a male-dominated workplace. Besides that, the werewolf transformations might be dated today, but there is still something viscerally disturbing in watching them, and the necessary reliance on practical effects will charm more than it alienates. The Howling is available streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
‘The Hands of Orlac’ (1924)
When a concert pianist loses his hands in horrible accident, his hands are replaced with those of a recently deceased murderer. Despite the surgery, he can no longer play the piano, and experiences poverty alongside a disturbing need to fulfill the violent acts the hands have become accustomed to.
The Hands of Orlac saw the reunion of German expressionist director Robert Weine and the late great actor Conrad Veidt, who previously teamed up for Weine’s massively influential The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. Veidt would go on to play the lead in the haunting The Man Who Laughs, which is often cited as the inspiration for The Joker. Orlac is also incredibly important, inspiring countless horror films down the line. The Hands of Orlac is available to watch on Tubi.
‘Starry Eyes’ (2014)
Sarah wants to be an actress but is stuck in food service with an insufferable friend group that constantly touts their achievements. The pressure to succeed leads Sarah down a slippery slope, and she finds herself acquiescing to disturbing things during auditions. This increases her star appeal but has a severe effect on her mental state.
Starry Eyes is a brutal look at the degradation Hollywood so often imposes on women, as well as the compromised moral choices that can lead to success but more often lead to spiritual death. Alex Essoe is one of horror’s underrated greats, and this sits high atop her many great performances. Starry Eyes is available to watch on Tubi and Pluto.
‘The Skin I Live In’ (2011)
A plastic surgeon creates synthetic skin but is banned from furthering his research when questions of ethics come into play after he admits to experimenting on human test subjects. He moves to an isolated island and continues his experiments on a woman held captive there. This set-up sounds like a lot already, but it gets much, much stranger before the credits roll.
Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas have teamed up for some of the great highlights of both of their careers, but The Skin I Live In may prove to be the best among them. Unsettling, lonely, bizarre, this is a movie that will prove shocking to even the most jaded horror fan. Taking the themes set forward in the horror classic Eyes Without a Face and running absolutely wild with them, this is easily one of Almodóvar’s most polarizing films. The Skin I Live In is available to rent through Amazon Prime Video.
‘Fiend Without A Face’ (1958)
An Air Force major is immediately in over his head when a number of bodies missing their brains and spinal cords go missing. When he discovers that they’ve grown sentience, the ability to levitate, and a taste for murder, it becomes clear that the creatures feed off of nuclear power.
No matter how many decades pass since the release of this film, it’s hard to deny the serious, unforgettable impact of the eye-stalked floating brains as some of the most unsettling movie monsters of all time. Fiend Without A Face is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
