Ultimate Body Horror

FormaldehideNSeek

Been debating on making this thread for a little while because it has never bothered me in the past but lately it has mainly in my nightmares and recently its been a subject that has bothered me more and more in my adulthood although ive seen many movies on the subject in the past. Lets just treat this as a splatter board of the subgenre, reviews and picture posts allowed. and I include movies such as Saw and Hostel count but are not the focus.

Oxley

I made a thread like this on the old board. I find it a genre that's rather lacking in quality, but when it is done right it's the most effective for me.

Willowfang

Well, lets see, from WITHIN the genre, there's many mainstream ones anyone should know, so maybe a few obscure ones within the genre, tho maybe more known then I would think.

Akira (1988) (the Japanese Anime)
Matango (1963) Shipwrecked survivors slowly transform into mushrooms.
The Manitou (1977) A psychic's girlfriend finds out that a lump on her back is a growing reincarnation of a 400 year-old demonic Native American spirit.
Hisss (2010) Based on the Far Eastern myth of the snake woman who is able to take on human form.

I wonder if Crash (1996) could be called Body Horror? The psychological delving in to potential/probable body damage is just a roll of the dice away throughout the movie

"After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife."

Glass Eater

Akira was mentioned

I can't recommend Akira enough, what a animated masterpiece that is.

Post Ghost

The oil-slick monster from Creepshow 2 when it grabbed hold of a swimmer, kind of melted them into gooey skeletons. Most early Cronenberg work. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 when the souls escape Freddy's body. One I think is underrated is the claymation disintegration sequence from The Evil Dead. The transformation scenes in The Howling. Evil Ed shape-shifting from wolf to human in Fright Night (the original - I hate that I have to say that). American Werewolf In London maybe the most famous.

The main monster in From Beyond, which continued the trend of making Lovecraft X-rated (following the necro-cunningulous from Reanimator) with body-horror and BDSM. The original story From Beyond is very poetic, available online to read for free. Excerpt: "I seemed for an instant to behold a patch of strange night sky filled with shining, revolving spheres, and as it receded I saw that the glowing suns formed a constellation or galaxy of settled shape."

Se7en

Crash is absolutely body horror. Where sex and violence become so intertwined the only way to satisfy both urges is to combine them and destroy yourself. It's so Cronenberg.

nance

i've always been a big fan of cronenberg's fly for body horror. as a teenager, i merely found it delightfully gross, but as i've gotten older, it really hits home. the scene where he's pulling off his fingernails and his teeth fall out, this is something that i can relate to as a 47 year-old. not that extreme, of course, but looking in the mirror and seeing how my body is revolting on me ("aging") is a sobering and unsettling experience. i often intone jeff goldblum's "am i dying?" question, usually tongue in cheek, while observing how age is happening to me.

cronenberg has really made this his raison d'etre. he's explored the revolt of the body in the face of disease, parasitism, science, technology, drugs, media, even emotions. he's basically dug into every way your body can fall apart on you.

FormaldehideNSeek

Everyone talks about how good Raw was and quite frankly i was bored by it, from all the hype the film got before and after it's release it just didnt have much punch but one film which made me queese was this little Gem.



Hangnail....thats all im going to add about this one.

RowdyRoddyCrackpiper

The Stuff.
Street Trash.
Society. If Re-Animator and From Beyond is right up your alley, then you need to check this out. Everything is kind of hinted at for most of the movie and it's kind of goofy but the grand finale is weird, gross, and slimy in equal measure.
The Beast Within plays like a standard werewolf movie for most of its runtime. The afflicted even looks like some half-assed I Was A Teenage Werewolf on steroids. That isn't the actual transformation though.
I need to get around to finishing The Manitou someday. Every time I tried to watch it was a little too goofy for me. I think it's the crazy psychedelic battle between the Medicine Man and Tony Curtis accompanied by dated freak-out effects that always does me in.

FormaldehideNSeek

The stuff is one of my all time favourites and could use a remake that could maybe take away the goofiness of it, not sure if this would be a good or bad idea or how it could be written with a darker tone.

Street trash ive not scene but heard about.

Society is the movie that brought me to make this tread, watched it many many years ago and enjoyed it for just being a silly movie but i recently had a dream which played out as a darker version of this movie in which a woman unravelled the skin on her head like it was bandages. really freaked me out especially watching it with that Class mindset, feed the rich and fuck the poor.

RowdyRoddyCrackpiper

There's an early eighties French movie called Night Of Death, that while it doesn't have squat to do with body horror, definitely plays on the same thematic level of the rich feeding on lower classes.

ADingoAteMyBaby

Can't forget Return of the Living Dead III. Melinda Clarke is so hot.

RowdyRoddyCrackpiper

If we're counting body mods, might as well throw in Hellraiser and Strangeland.

Post Ghost

@FormaldehideNSeek Yeah, Raw was bad, especially after it was hyped up as a masterpiece of modern horror. The film just didn't make sense. All the parents had to do is tell their daughter the truth in the beginning, but instead they allow both daughters to fall into tragedy.

Gee, you must not care much about your daughters, is the thought I had when the movie was over. Even though you spent the whole movie seeming to care and worry about them. Guess this movie doesn't make a lick of sense, and there goes two hours of my life. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

RowdyRoddyCrackpiper

For something that was supposed to have caused fainting at film festivals far and wide, nothing from Raw even managed to stick to my gray matter.

FormaldehideNSeek

@RowdyRoddyCrackpiper Indeed Hellraiser is included in the genre I think that was the first film that introduced me to Body Horror although i wouldn't really know what it was until much later

Se7en

@Post Ghost hate to be that guy but movies with Universal acclaim that "don't make sense" actually do make sense and are great if you're seeing them with a different perspective

I gave it four stars so I don't care that much there's a lot there to pick at

Post Ghost

@Se7en It's cool, we all like/dislike different things. Glad you enjoyed it - seems a lot of other people did as well. Maybe I will watch it again someday.

AFletcherHarper

There are a couple of good body horror short stories in Stephen King's original short story collection. "I am the Doorway" and "Gray Matter" are freaky transformation stories. "I am the Doorway" is the inspiration for the original cover art.

BlackDragonShogun

Here are a couple personal favorites. In My Skin in particular is quite unnerving, especially to anybody who has ever picked at a scab.

Glass Eater

Body Melt is worth the watch if you fast forward to the gross parts.

Everything in between is nonsense.