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Body Horror and the Horror of Having a Body

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It seems like it’s never a good time to come to terms with our own existence. Any length of time spent pondering our inception and eventual death leads to existential crisis; there are too many questions left unanswered. How did we get here? What is our purpose? Our self-awareness is equally a blessing and a curse because it allows us to try to comprehend the incomprehensible.

One of the most incomprehensible mysteries is how we are, for lack of a better word, trapped inside of our own bodies.

If we are to follow the evolutionary line, we’ll come to an understanding that we’re just reductively “fancy apes in clothes” I use this term all the time to illustrate the humour and strangeness in our basic physical form. The body, deconstructed by the mind, quickly becomes a disgusting mess of strange parts that somehow work together. There is my heart, moving blood through my veins, these are my lungs that supply the oxygen that’s needed for my brain, a mass of cells we have barely even scratched the surface of understanding. And this flesh bag we live in is so out of our control. Yes, we might walk or talk at our own command but we breathe and blink without thinking; we are helpless against assaults of bodily cycles, desires, and disease.  What better genre to tackle the darkness and confusion of this than horror?

The body is the perfect setting for the most disturbing aspects of horror, and it’s what makes body horror one of the most powerful and affecting subgenres.

Body horror focuses on the damage and distortion of the corporeal form and can range from the squeamish to the fantastical. All of us have felt pain, and that’s what makes body horror so scary – we empathize most with it. David Cronenberg, the “king of venereal horror”, created a legacy of of films that tackled deep psychological issues while exploiting the flesh. His work, and the work of others in the genre, manages to say something important and meaningful while still grossing us out.

In Richard Bates Jr.’s Excision, two young women are trapped inside bodies that rebel against their normal functions and expectations. Pauline’s (AnnaLynne McCord) is greasy, acne-ridden, and awkward but her mind is what’s most out of her control. She experiences shocking sexual desires involving necrophilia, an abundance of blood, and dismemberment. Her mind crosses lines of its own accord and assaults her with graphic fantasies and distorted ideas of her own abilities and future. Her behaviour is a scream for help from deep inside of her body. In comparison, her sister Grace (Ariel Winter) is inside of a body riddled with cystic fibrosis, her lungs deteriorating at a rate that almost certainly won’t allow her to see her own graduation, nevermind her oft dreamed-about wedding day.

Though much of the conflict that occurs is outside of her – Pauline faces a cold, controlling mother, and cruel school bullies – the most powerful conflict is what’s inside her own body. Desire is a mighty force in life and sometimes even with careful training cannot be quashed. It can cause us significant pain, and as humans once one desire is fulfilled it’s not long before another takes over. It is what motivates us to move forward most effectively and Pauline is full of desires, both ones she can and can’t understand.

Excision is a very body-centric horror movie. Multiple snide comments are made about weight and body image, and Pauline’s fantasies are put on full, gory display. Her first sexual act while menstruating is a powerful transition in Pauline’s life that gives her a sense of control and the closest fulfillment of her hematomania without yet physically harming herself or another individual. It is only the beginning of her curiosity about bodies.

Pauline is fairly aware that something is wrong with her brain, and she all but shouts a request for a psychiatrist. Faced with pure helplessness about her own condition, she becomes obsessed with her sister’s illness and goes to insane lengths to save her and win the approval of her mother. Both she and her sister pay a price simply for existing in the bodies they were born into and the things that happen to their bodies. So do many others.

In 2002’s In My Skin, writer/director Marina de Van explores the concept of mutilating the body she inhabits. After suffering a fall and gashing open her leg, Esther (also Marina de Van) develops a strange fascination with her body. In House of Psychotic Women, Kier-La Janisse suggests that the wound that opens in Esther’s leg reveals who she really is, inside. This revelation sparks a stomach-turning journey of self-mutilation.

When those around her express concern for her behaviour, Esther expresses shame and anger about her actions, even though in private they give her immense pleasure. Her boyfriend Vincent (Laurent Lucas) asks her, “Don’t you like your body?” but he’s missing the point. Esther feels disconnected from her body and separate from it. This is best illustrated in a scene in which she goes on an important business dinner. Her body is beginning to revolt from the pain and stress she has been putting on it, and that morning she wakes with a sort of phantom limb phenomena, feeling like her arm is not her own. At dinner, the effect goes so far that she begins to view her arm as dismembered on the table, and begins to stab it with her knife and fork.

Giving herself over to her new habits, Esther eventually reaches an erotic state with her wounds that develop into a new form of connectedness and interaction with her body. At the height of her fascination, she even begins to collect and consume her own flesh. After a while, even with lying and staging accidents, she is unable to hide the self-inflicted injuries that cause her such pleasure and shame. She locks herself away, trapping herself even further inside. Excision and In My Skin show two disturbed women who react with their bodies and in their display of and interaction with them are seeking an escape.

On wanting to get out of bodies, perhaps the most well-known and widely-accepted real-life body horror is pregnancy and childbirth. One look at a live birth is enough to open the eyes to the inside of the body and the trauma that occurs when one is trying to grow inside of and escape another. Even though real birth is not as traumatic or extreme as body horror would present, the act itself is violent. A woman’s body is no longer her own when she carries a fetus who pulls the nutrients from her, places strain upon her shifting insides and eventually tears its way out her vaginal canal.

With all its miraculous beauty and joy set aside, childbirth is terrifying.

Besides Rosemary’s Baby, one of the most mentioned pregnancy horror flicks is Cronenberg’s The Brood, classic Canadian body horror at its finest. It tells the story of a man Frank (Art Hindel) whose wife Nola (a terrifying Samantha Eggar) is receiving intensive experimental care at the Somafree Institute. When he notices large bruises on their 5-year-old daughter Candy’s body following a visit, he becomes concerned and begins to find out what exactly is going on at the facility.

The Brood has as much to do with the mind as it does the body. Doctor Raglan (Oliver Reed) has developed an experimental treatment program called psychoplasmics that manifests mental and emotional trauma as sickening welts and growths on the body. Think of it like expelling emotional toxins from deep within. Nola is a special case kept in isolation from most visitors except her therapist who encourages her to regress to childhood and address him as abusers and participants in her life. In the end, it’s discovered that her pain is so deep and so powerful that her growths take on a life their own and mutant rage children who are awoken by her anger to do her bidding. Nola’s brood is a byproduct of her internalized rage and they match her rage in their ugliness. That is to say, tiny monsters go around murdering the people who hurt her the most.

Our mind and our bodies are deeply connected. Though none of us are growing hideous brood sacs full of rage mutants that we groom lovingly with our tongues, psychosomatic pain and illness is a very real symptom many people suffer from. Stress and anxiety cause a number of bodily disorders including ulcers, skin issues, and heart disease. How a woman feels and behaves during her pregnancy affects the body trapped inside of her. As Nola hysterically recounts, “Raglan encouraged my body to revolt against me – I have a small revolution on my hands!” but Nola doesn’t realize how much control she really has over it. Ther revolution is her own, and it will only die with her.

More recently (and more psychedelically) the brave Danny Perez feature this year, Antibirth, addresses the bodily experience of pregnancy in a new way. Natasha Lyonne plays Lou, a girl who loves to party but wakes up with more than just a hangover one morning. All signs point to pregnancy, but there’s no clear moment of conception so Lou lives in drunken denial of the state of her body.

The changes in Lou’s frame cause her a great deal of discomfort and exhaustion, no different from an average pregnancy. But something is off – Lou’s skin begins to peel from her neck, she develops enormous fluid-filled blisters, and her stomach grows gargantuan with a slithering skin. “I could really go for an out of body experience right now,” she quips, ready to burst from whatever is growing inside of her and she can’t be blamed for wanting to escape into a world of drugs and delirium. Even healthy women with traditional pregnancies seek an escape near the end from the extra weight and strain on their system. The Brood and Antibirth take creative license with the very real horror of pregnancy and bring them to a totally new level.

Lou is so adamant about not being pregnant that if we believe her, eventually we become desensitized to watching her guzzle vodka and do bong rips on her enormous baby bump. And when she finally gives birth, after her body has been battered by her drug habits and the origin of her “conception” what comes out is equal parts bizarre and scary, while still managing to draw empathy from the audience. In retrospect, her birthing scene doesn’t seem any more shocking than attending a real live one, except in what comes out of her.

Of course, not everyone faces pregnancy, but everyone faces aging and death. Most of the time it’s safe to assume we teeter from general acceptance of to abject terror about our mortality. We can’t live our lives if we’re obsessed with thinking about the end of them, but the truth is that we are all aging and part of that involves watching our bodies slow down and begin to fail.

One of the most inventive films about aging is Adam Robitel’s surprise found-footage hit The Taking of Deborah Logan. It begins as a PHD assignment documentary about Alzheimer’s, and ends up as a terrifying possession story. The first subject of this documentary is the eponymous Deborah Logan (played to great effect by Jill Larson) an aging woman descending into the depths of her disease. In order to receive some money to save their home, she and her daughter agree to be filmed by the documentary crew.

At first, The Taking is a moving depiction of the helplessness of the disease, and aims to reveal that not only does the body of the patient deteriorate, but so does the body of the patient’s primary caregiver. In this case, Sarah Logan (Anne Ramsay) exhibits the physiological symptoms of stress and a dependence on alcohol. It’s hard to watch the two of them come to terms with their situation, frequently arguing and crying between bouts of lucidity or somnombulance. At times, Deborah’s body is completely out of control because, as she puts it, her mind has decided to take a stroll. These moments are punctuated with violent outbursts; attacks on herself or others. Her horror and helplessness when discovering what her body has done without her consent is heartbreaking.

There is another in this story whose body has betrayed him. Strange circumstances bring Infamous local boogeyman Henry Desjardins into the picture. Desjardins was a pediatrician who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) a condition that weakens the muscles at a rapid pace and leads to total loss of control of the body. In order to escape his form and achieve immortality, Desjardins was completing a ritual that involved the sacrifice of five children. But he was interrupted before he could finish his last, and his spirit lives on looking for another flesh-and-bone host. When the two stories come together, Deborah’s body will be used in shocking, unforgettable ways.

People have been looking to cheat death since our comprehension of it, and it’s a recurring theme in horror cinema.

Last year, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski hit the existential body horror sweet spot with The Void. While on duty, Daniel (Aaron Poole) comes across an injured man and rushes him to the nearest hospital. The hospital is in the process of a move, so most of its supplies are packed in boxes and the limited staff are expecting a quiet night. By the time they realize they’re trapped inside by the presence of an insidious cult they have amassed a misfit crew of grief-stricken strangers who all ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They’re not safe inside, either. The hospital is crawling with gnarly, freakish monsters, mutations from the basement that holds the darkest secret. Dr. Powell has been hard at work down there, trying to beat death. “Losing [my daughter] compelled me to find a solution. You’ll be surprised at the things you’ll find if you go looking.” he muses, while quietly removing most of his facial skin.  Motivated by grief and anger towards death, he experiments on patients to beat “nature’s futility” the cycle of life and death. But our bodies were not meant for this, and the hideous creatures are his mistakes. They want to die, but he won’t let them. They’ve all been part of his plan to defeat death and bring back those who have succumbed to it.

Both of these films revolve in some way around people who could not accept the inevitable about life: the end of it. After we have come to terms with our existence and faced the horrors of creating life, that one great mystery still remains and it seems we’ll never get to learn what happens after we die. Maybe our mortality and our lack of understanding about it isn’t that bad. Maybe it’s what motivates us to be the best we can be and achieve everything we want in the time we’re able to.

As one can imagine, thoughtful discussion around these matters brought distaste to those who shared a different point of view. Of course, without life, we wouldn’t experience its beauty, and there are many aspects of having a body that are great. Some would argue we are lucky to experience the world with five senses (six, depending on who you ask) and few can argue against the very real body pleasures that exist like sex, eating, or going down a waterslide. We aren’t required to understand where we come from or where we’re going in order to make the best of the lives we’re living today. The truth remains that life is very good and worth continuing, and without its horrors, its goodness wouldn’t be as sweet. But if we are so inclined, we should still take a good hard look at its ugly parts. This is best done through horror because it is still the genre that – at its best – allows itself to ask the hardest questions and imagine the worst possibilities while remaining self-aware.

Editorials

The 10 Scariest Moments in the ‘Ghostbusters’ Movie Franchise

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WARNING: The following contains mild spoilers for the Ghostbusters franchise. 

Yes, Ghostbusters is a horror movie – gateway horror to be exact. Setting aside the fact that the title literally contains the word “ghost,” a foundational element of the scariest genre, the franchise follows a group of paranormal researchers who battle entities attacking from beyond the grave. After countless rewatches, the classic films and newer sequels may not scare us much anymore, but how many times have we as genre fans asserted that a film does not have to be “scary” to be considered horror?

Genre classification is nebulous and any film that centers on ghosts has a place in the sprawling house of horror. Yes, it’s true that most viewers over the age of thirteen will find more to laugh about than scream while watching a Ghostbusters film, but each entry contains a handful of terrifying moments. With Gil Kenan’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire uniting three generations of the parascientific warriors, perhaps it’s time to highlight the most frightening moments from each phase of this legendary franchise. 


Ghostbusters (1984)

A Haunted Library

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Ivan Reitman’s original film begins with a campfire tale come to life. We follow an unsuspecting librarian as she ventures deep into the stacks to reshelve a book. With her hair blowing from a spectral breeze, we watch a hardcover float across the aisle to the opposite shelf. A second book follows, but the librarian remains unaware. She finally notices the disturbance when card catalog drawers open on their own spewing cards into the air like literary geysers. She flees through the maze of narrow stacks only to come face to face with a mysterious force who blows her back with a powerful roar. We won’t see the Library Ghost (Ruth Oliver) until a later scene, but this introduction firmly positions the film that follows in the world of horror. On first watch, we can only speculate as to the ghost’s malevolence and whether or not the librarian has survived the encounter. It’s the perfect introduction to a world in which ghosts are not only real, they will pounce on unsuspecting humans at the drop of a … book. 

Shaky Ground

The original finale may not be the film’s most terrifying moment, but it has become the franchise’s most iconic image. When faced with choosing a form for Gozer (Slavitza Jovan), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) inadvertently conjures up an image from his childhood. Moments later, a set of once-cheery eyes peer through the skyscrapers. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man towers over the city, stomping and destroying everything in its path. While there’s definitely something terrifying about a jovial mascot turned deadly killer, what happens moments before is arguably scarier. 

The Ghostbusters arrive at the luxury apartment building to throngs of adoring fans. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) plays into this hero-worship and promises an easy solution to a supernatural problem. But before they can enter the building, lightning strikes the upper floors sending massive chunks of brick and cement raining down on the barricaded street. The ground begins to shake and a giant fissure swallows the entire team. It’s a destabilizing moment made all the more terrifying by its shocking reality. Speculation about the existence of ghosts may vary from person to person, but there’s no doubt that sinkholes are very real. It’s entirely possible that the ground we’re standing on right now could spontaneously begin to crumble, sucking us down into a seemingly bottomless void beneath the earth. 


Ghostbusters II (1989)

Runaway Baby

Ivan Reitman’s sequel begins with a sly update on the life of a beloved character as Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) pushes a baby carriage containing her infant son Oscar (Henry and William Deutschendorf). When last we saw the attractive cellist, she was kissing Venkman in the wreckage of Gozer’s demise and the thought of this loveable lady’s man becoming a father may be more nerve-wracking than anything contained in the first film. We never learn much about Oscar’s real father, but we do discover that fate has a sinister plan for the adorable child. While Dana chats with her landlord, Oscar’s carriage rolls a few feet away. Dana reaches for the handle, but the buggy begins speeding down the sidewalk careening through the busy crowds. As if guided by unseen hands, the carriage twists and turns, then abruptly swerves into oncoming traffic. Cars honk and veer out of the way, but the racing carriage marks a collision course with an approaching bus. The wheels screech to a halt moments before what would surely be a deadly crash and Dana rushes to embrace her vulnerable child. This harrowing scene is likely to terrorize any parent who’s experienced the fear of trying to protect a baby in an unpredictable world.  

Sewer Screams

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While investigating the second film’s primary villain, Vigo the Carpathian (Wilhelm von Homburg), three of the Ghostbusters venture into the sewers hoping to find a growing river of slime. Ray, Winston (Ernie Hudson), and Egon (Harold Ramis) trek down an abandoned subway line while speculating about the hordes of cockroaches and rats they hear scurrying behind the walls. These vermin may be scary, but there are more malevolent monsters lurking in the dark. Ray and Egon both amuse themselves with the tunnel’s echo but Winston’s “hello” goes unanswered. Moments later, a demonic voice bellows his name from the dark end of the corridor. Waiting behind him is a severed head floating in the empty tunnel. As he tries to retreat, the team finds themselves surrounded by dozens of ghoulish heads that disappear faster than they materialized. Moments later, a ghostly train hurtles towards them, swallowing Winston in its spectral glow. Egon theorizes that something is trying to keep them from reaching their destination with effective scares designed to frighten the Ghostbusters and audience alike.  


Ghostbusters (2016)

Haunted Basement

Like its predecessor, Paul Feig’s remake opens with a spooky vignette. Garrett (Zach Woods) gives a tour of the Aldridge Mansion, a 19th century manor preserved in the middle of the busy city, and walks visitors through a troubling history of excess and cruelty. Hoping to inject a bit of excitement, he pauses near the basement door and tells the horrifying story of Gertrude Aldridge (Bess Rous), a wealthy heiress who murdered the house’s many servants. Hoping to avoid a public scandal, her family locked her in the basement and her restless spirit can still be heard trying to escape. Garrett triggers a trick candlestick to fly off the shelf, hinting at the spirit’s presence, but a late night incident shows that the deceased murderess may actually be lurking in her ancestral home. While closing up for the night, Garrett hears ominous noises from behind the barricaded door and watches the knob rattle against the heavy locks. An unseen attacker hurls him through the house and eventually drives him down the basement stairs to a sea of green slime pooling on the floor. The stairs crumble leaving the tour guide hanging on to the door frame for dear life as a spectral figure glides toward him with menacing hands outstretched. Once again, we won’t see the fully revealed ghost of Gertrude Aldridge until later in the film, but this terrifying opening sets the stage for a dangerous showdown with an army of the dead.

Mannequin On the Move

The scariest moment of the 2016 remake is arguably the vicious online hatred sparked well before the film’s release. In response to brutal comments posted to the first official trailer, the cast returned to film an additional scene in which they react to dehumanizing negativity. But another sequence may cut closer to the heart of this upsetting experience. The Ghostbusters respond to a call at a concert venue and split up to cover more ground. Patty (Leslie Jones) enters what she calls a “room full of nightmares” and immediately reverses course to avoid a multitude of mannequins stacked haphazardly in the dark. As she walks out the door, one of the faceless creatures turns its head her way. Walking on its own, this sentient prop follows her down the hall, pausing the moment she turns around. Eventually breaking cover, the mannequin chases Patty down the hall to the rest of the team. They unleash their proton packs and make quick work of the gargoyle-like ghost. Though this connection is surely unintentional, it’s a terrifying parallel to a faceless monster sneaking up to attack a woman simply trying to do her job. 


Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Smoke and Monsters

While Ghostbusters: Afterlife is nowhere near as scary as the horror films playing in the local summer school science class, Jason Reitman’s legacyquel does contain its share of frights. The film opens with a harrowing scene as we join Egon (Oliver Cooper) in the last moments of his life. Racing away from a sinister mountain, Egon’s truck collides with an unseen force and flips upside down in a field of corn. The elderly scientist races back to his crumbling farmhouse with a trap in hand, intent on ensnaring this invisible being. Unfortunately, the power fails and Egon has no choice but to hide the trap under the floorboards and wait. He sits in a comfortable old chair as a horrifying cloud of smoke drifts in behind him, momentarily forming the shape of a fanged beast. Demonic hands grab him from within the chair, likely causing the heart attack that will be listed on his death certificate. But his abandoned PKE meter below the chair activates, reminding us that Egon may be deceased, but he is far from gone.  

The Terror Returns

scariest Ghostbusters moments

Ghostbusters: Afterlife turns out to be a touching tribute to Harold Ramis as his friends and family unite to complete the beloved scientist’s heroic mission. In addition to a tearjerker ending, Reitman also includes a bevy of callbacks to the original film. Not only do the Spenglers square off against the team’s first enemy, Gozer (Emma Portner), the nonbinary entity brings back the Terror Dogs that once possessed Dana Barret and Louis Tully (Rick Moranis). These demonic beasts first rear their ugly heads while Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) stops by Walmart to buy a midnight snack. While the horde of mini marshmallow men are eerie in their gleeful self-destruction, the ghostly canine that chases him through the store is the stuff of nightmares. Early iterations of this fearsome creature are hindered by ’80s-era special effects, but Reitman’s version feels frighteningly real. While Gary frantically tries to find his keys, this Terror Dog snarls at him from atop his car dashboard, leaving the endearing science teacher with no way to escape. 


Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Frozen Dinner 

After a film set in a small mountain town, the opening of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire takes us back to New York circa 1904. We see the fire station in its early years as a horse-drawn carriage responds to a call. Arriving at the scene, a fireman tests the door for heat and watches in horror as his hand instantly freezes. Inside, they find jagged shards of ice surrounding and piercing a frozen dinner party. Guests are posed in various states of ice-covered surprise while an eerie record skips in the corner. A figure covered in brass armor we will come to know as a Fire Master is crouched in the corner clutching a mysterious orb. When the fireman touches this rippling sphere, the frozen diners’ heads begin to explode, an ominous precursor to the chilling threat awaiting the newest Ghostbusting team. 

Lights Out

If Ghostbusters: Afterlife featured the lo-fi gear of the 80s, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire hurls us into the future. Wealthy financier Winston Zeddemore has been surreptitiously building a new containment unit to relieve pressure on the original model along with a secret lab designed to study ghosts and haunted objects. In addition to fancy new gadgets and gear, this facility contains several captured spirits like a fanged Wraith and a speedy Possessor. Lab techs assure the astonished Spengler team that they are perfectly safe, but it seems they’ve overestimated the facility’s security. Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) and Lars (James Acaster) are studying the aforementioned orb when the power goes out, leaving them stranded in the dark with a cache of haunted objects. Not only does the ancient sphere hold a deadly spirit, the proton fields containing the captured ghosts have just been disabled. These terrifying creatures begin to drift through the walls toward the defenseless lab techs, perhaps at the bidding of an evil commander. Thankfully the generator kicks on in the nick of time, drawing the ghosts back into their cells. It’s a tense moment reminding us that no matter how charming the Ghostbusters may be, they still spend their days with evil spirits just waiting for an opportunity to wreak havoc.  


The Ghostbusters franchise excels at mixing humor and fear, practically setting the blueprint for the modern horror comedy. Moments from the original two films terrified a generation of gen-xers and elder millennials and newer iterations are currently scaring their kids. The fifth franchise installment effectively passes the proton pack torch to a new generation of Ghostbusters and we can only hope additional films will continue to induct future generations of Ghostbusters fans into the horror family as well. 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is now playing in theaters. Read our review.

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