The human body is a marvel of a machine. Complex and delicate, layers of finely tuned systems work tirelessly to maintain, sustain and create life. Though no two bodies are exactly alike, all require some level of maintenance and, whether we like it or not, all possess an expiration date. It is here in the cold, sterile glow of these facts that the sub-genre of medical horror operates, preying on our deepest fears around organic decay and malevolent medical professionals.

These fears are placed front and center in James Villeneuve‘s debut film, Pins and Needles. In the movie, Chelsea Clark (Ginny & Georgia) stars as Max, a biology grad student and diabetic. On her drive back to campus from a field research site, Max becomes trapped at the home of two murderous biohackers where her safety and insulin supplies quickly begin to run dry. Movies like Pins and Needles weaponize our bodies, reminding us that in the wrong hands or wrong situations, the delicate machinery of our anatomy can become a living nightmare.

Due to its very nature and subject matter, the subgenre of medical horror is a broad and varied one. Sometimes the horror presents as an operating theater turned chamber of terror, or as the deranged ramblings of a tech bro biohacker, or the stony detachment of a rogue doctor with a god complex. If you find yourself craving even more medical horror after watching Pins and Needles (now available on VOD), here are five more similarly themed movies that pair well with its particular brand of medical mayhem.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

Horror loves a final girl, and Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) from the Hellraiser franchise is one of the best there is. In this direct sequel to Clive Barker’s original classic, Hellbound: Hellraiser II descends into the shadows of medical horror, highlighting the immense power that medical professionals wield and the horrific ways that power can be used for personal gain. After being admitted to a psychiatric facility, Kirsty confides in Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham) and begs him to tie up the final loose end that connects this world to Pinhead’s. Rather than assist Kirsty, Dr. Channard revives Julia and becomes understandably obsessed with her. Stopping at nothing to satisfy her while simultaneously furthering his dark ambitions, Dr. Channard wields scalpels and sadism with equal precision.

Once Channard himself succumbs to the Lament Configuration’s lure, he steps into a hell of his own making as Julia’s betrayal results in a new Cenobite life for the grotesque doctor. Back in the hospital’s hallways, Kirsty must navigate contorted corridors and puzzle-box traps to rescue fellow patient Tiffany and outwit their former psychiatrist. This perversion of what it means to be a doctor serves as a reminder of why medical horror taps such primal dread. Because when science sheds its ethics, the suffering is often, indeed, legendary.

12 Hour Shift (2020)

For anyone who ever thought a night shift at a small-town hospital seemed like a tedious gig, 12 Hour Shift proves the opposite. The movie starts with Nurse Mandy (Angela Bettis) clocking in for her usual all-nighter, except that sometimes her all-nighter includes a moonlighting gig involving the procurement of organs for a shady black-market trafficker. In this hospital, the unassuming stretchers and dimly lit supply closets become stages for clandestine harvests where dead bodies become spare part machines for the highest bidder.

Written and directed by Brea Grant, 12 Hour Shift is a savagely humorous dismantling of the medical industrial complex’s shiny veneer, beautifully balancing pitch-black comedy with guts and gore. When Mandy’s sneaky routine fractures under the weight of misplaced organ coolers, organ confusion, murder, and her drug addiction, all illusions of normalcy and social acceptability get stripped away. Even more unsettling, 12 Hour Shift reveals that, more often than not, events such as these are born not from grandiose scientific delusion but from greed, opportunism, and sheer overworked desperation.

Re-Animator (1985)

There is perhaps no story more influential and iconic in the medical horror subgenre than Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Reinvented, rearranged, and retold countless times since its original publication, Dr. Frankenstein’s madness and maniacal laughter will undoubtedly echo through horror’s hallowed halls for all eternity. However, it is this Stuart Gordon-directed Frankenstein-tinged screen adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s story “Herbert West-Reanimator” that will forever be one of my personal faves.

Dr. Herbert West’s gleefully gruesome exploits in Re-Animator epitomize medical horror at its most unhinged. Nestled within Miskatonic University, West’s obsessive quest to conquer death with his glowing green serum turns cadavers into twitching puppets of chaos. Every drip of his fluorescent elixir is a dark promise of life after death. As limbs defy gravity and reanimated heads babble maniacally, the film reminds us that beneath lab coats and lecture notes lies the terrifying potential for science to cut away at the soul itself.

What makes Re-Animator a seminal entry in the subgenre is its perfect blend of mad-scientist comedy and visceral body horror. Unlike the cold cleanliness of a modern operating theater, West’s workspace is a cluttered basement where there is little room for ethics, let alone notes explaining what happened to the poor cat. It’s a cautionary tale wrapped in wry one-liners and rubber-gloved mayhem, proving that when the hippocratic oath gets swapped for hubris, the human body truly becomes the ultimate lab experiment.

Eyes Without a Face (1960)

It’s time to class up the list a little bit and discuss one of the most moving, chilling, and beautiful medical horror movies ever: Georges Franju’s film Eyes Without a Face (aka Les Yeux sans visage). In the movie, Dr. Génessier’s sprawling mansion appears to be a beautiful, picturesque resort on the outside. Yet inside, it quickly reveals itself as a macabre lab where flesh is a prized commodity. When Dr. G’s beloved daughter Christiane emerges from a car crash with a face so ravaged he can’t bear to look at it, Dr. G trades in his professional bedside manner for a butcher’s precision. To “fix” his daughter’s injuries, Dr. G begins abducting young women, removing their facial skin and attempts to graft it onto his daughter’s face.

It’s this callous calculus of “one life to save another” that cements Eyes Without a Face in medical horror’s hall of fame. Although the horrifying surgeries and rows of caged dogs howling in the night are indeed awful, the most nightmarish quality of the film is the perversion of care itself. Here, a father’s love mutates into something obsessive, clinical and monstrous, where Christiane and her actual feelings become a non-issue, a secondary thought at best. While Dr. G’s scalpel is undoubtedly sharp, it is perhaps this dismissal of Christiane’s humanity and individuality that ultimately cuts the deepest and inflicts the most pain.

Crimes of the Future (2022)

As the undisputed champion of body horror, pretty much any David Cronenberg film could be placed on this list. Scanners, Dead Ringers, The Fly, Videodrome, and Crash all explore themes of obsession, the body, and science in ways that boggle the mind and make the stomach churn. However, it is Crimes of the Future that best aligns with the biohacking, boundary-pushing science elements present in Pins and Needles that earns it its place on this specific list.

In Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg pushes medical horror into the realm of performance art, transforming bodily decay into the ultimate avant-garde spectacle. In a near-future where biotechnology and evolution begin to alter the human body in unprecedented ways, celebrity surgeon-artist Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) publicly extracts his newly sprouted organs on stage, aided by his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux). The operating theater becomes a gallery, gleaming under spotlights rather than fluorescent tubes, with every incision choreographed.

What makes Crimes of the Future stand out even more is its subversion of the healer’s role and its thought-provoking, interconnected explorations of art, sexuality, and medical taboos. In this world, surgical tools masquerade as instruments of creative expression, internal organs and wounds as vessels for sexual pleasure. Cronenberg’s trademark detachment gleams in every pooled serum and staged extraction, reminding us that when medicine courts spectacle, the line between salvation and desecration dissolves, leaving the body itself the final, unsolvable installation.

Honorable Mentions:

— The Human Centipede (2009)
— A Cure for Wellness (2016)
— Flatliners (1990)
— Coma (1978)
— Brain Dead (1990)

Pins and Needles is now available on digital. Watch it tonight!