Body Horror

Body Horror is a horror film genre in which the main feature is the graphically depicted destruction or degeneration of a human body or bodies

History of Body Horror:

David Cronenberg, Frank Henenlotter, Brian Yuzna, Stuart Gordon, Lloyd Kaufman, and Clive Barker are notable directors of this genre.

 

Cronenberg is one of the principal originators of the body horror genre. He directed well known body horror movies such as The Fly (1986), Videodrome (1983), Dead Ringers (1988) and Scanners (1981).

The term body horror was coined with the "Body Horror" theme issue of the University of Glasgow film journal Screen (vol. 27, no. 1, January–February 1986), containing several essays on the subject.

Another factor that may have influenced the gore within the body horror genre is the development of Special Effects makeup; vast improvements in “animatronics, and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be distorted to an entirely new dimension, onscreen, in realistic close up”.

In general, horror audiences became fascinated with the human body in the 80s.

 Short films may include:

·         The Herd

·         Renaissance

 Key body horror movies may include:

·         The Human Centipede series

·         The Fly

·         Society

·         The Thing

·         Dead Ringers

Conventions of body horror are difficult to pin down as the genre is so wide, but what all body horror movies tend to hinge upon is the Primal Fear of the Uncanny Valley, deformity, parasites, contamination, the ravages of disease, and the aftermath of bodily injury.

 

Common camera techniques used may include close ups, panning, tilting, zooming, and eye level angles.

Feature film – The Human Centipede

This tells the story of a deranged surgeon who plans to suture three tourists, that he has kidnapped, together through their gastric systems to form a real-life human centipede.

Inspiration for the film came from Nazi medical experiments carried out during World War II, such as the crimes of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz concentration camp. Mengele particularly liked to perform experiments on twins and on those who had eyes of two different colours. Experiments performed by the physician on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with a disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other.

Response

Rating of 49% from Rotten Tomatoes - "Grotesque, visceral and hard to (ahem) swallow, this surgical horror doesn't quite earn its stripes because the gross-outs overwhelm and devalue everything else."

Entertainment Weekly praised Tom Six’s direction; saying Six "has put together his nightmare yarn with Cronenbergian care and precision."