“We’re given one body and one chance, and we’re all potentially a single split-second bad decision from our own body horror nightmare.”
I’ve been describing my new novel Kemberton as body horror. It’s a description that absolutely fits, though I’m not going to tell you how or why because I want you to read the book. One thing I know for sure, no matter where you think Kemberton’s story might be going, you’re almost certainly wrong!
The term ‘body horror’ is, I think, broad and surprisingly hard to define. I guess you could say it’s simply a story where the horror derives from one or more characters undergoing a physical transformation that, typically, is beyond control, but I don’t think that does it justice. There’s a temptation to focus on gore and special effects—and to be fair, there’s usually a lot of gore in a body horror story—but I think there’s more to it. I think a good body horror story is one where the protagonists are forced to consider aspects of their own physicality and mortality as a result of the sticky, slimy, painful transformations they (or the people around them) have to endure.
There’s a lot more to Kemberton than gore, but the body horror—when it arrives—is critical to the book. It changes the direction of the story, changes the character dynamics, and massively raises the already considerable stakes for everyone concerned. To coincide with its release, Michael and the This is Horror team have been kind enough to let me share with you ten of my favourite body horror movies. Some of these are regulars on body horror top 10 lists, others less so.
Tusk
A brash and arrogant podcaster gets more than he bargained for when he travels to Canada to interview a mysterious recluse … who has a rather disturbing fondness for walruses.
A weird one to start with (hey, show me a body horror movie that’s not weird!). Kevin Smith’s Tusk is light on plot and character, but heavy on the grossness. Why does it make the list? Because I think it’s horribly fascinating. Justin Long’s obnoxious podcaster is imprisoned, drugged, and horrifically mutilated. The premise is nonsensical, but there’s no denying the impact of witnessing Long being turned into a grotesque human/walrus hybrid. As with most body horror transformations, there’s no way back for the main character, and though freakishly disfigured, the man trapped inside the monster remains fully compos mentis. That’s terrifying, don’t you think?
Never Let Me Go
The lives of three friends, from their early school days into young adulthood, when the reality of the world they live in comes knocking.
So this one, adapted by Alex Garland from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, probably doesn’t feature on many people’s lists of body horror movies, but it absolutely should. Major spoiler ahead—the main characters in the story discover that they are clones, produced specifically to donate body parts to ‘real’ people. They grow up sheltered from the truth, encouraged to stay healthy and make art, before being cut up for the benefit of others. This is a real heartbreaker (no pun intended). The oblivious clones lead artificial, sheltered lives, completely unaware of the fate that awaits them. Perhaps most awful of all, each one of them is used to make multiple donations, their bodies being picked apart chunk by chunk over time, with some surviving until their fourth major organ is removed.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
A businessman accidentally kills The Metal Fetishist, who gets his revenge by slowly turning the man into a grotesque hybrid of flesh and rusty metal.
This low-fi, black-and-white Japanese masterpiece is rightly held in high regard. As a piece of DIY filmmaking, it’s intense and kinetic, grabbing you by the balls from the opening scene and not letting go. But apart from the sheer energy and creativeness on display, the reason this makes my body horror highlights list is because this is a film where the mutation is embraced and encouraged. Our salaryman protagonist’s constant physical upgrades are a sight to behold.
The Thing
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
John Carpenter’s classic appears on just about every ‘best of body horror’ list, and rightly so. A superb concept, isolated location, brilliant performances, and utterly astonishing special effects combine to devastating effect. But I’m not listing it here just because of the ground-breaking transformation scenes. No, it’s far more subtle than that. For me, The Thing is body horror at its finest because of the impact it has on the dynamics of the story. The alien invader perfectly mimics its human hosts, meaning the cast of characters can’t trust anyone else. They’re not even sure if they can trust themselves. Simply magnificent.
Eraserhead
Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newborn mutant child.
Watching the late, great David Lynch’s debut movie was once described to me as an experience like lying face down on a dirty pillow for an hour and a half, and I think that’s pretty accurate. But if you do look up and look at the screen, you’ll witness plenty of bodily horrors. From Henry’s mutant child to the tiny chickens served to him for dinner by his girlfriend’s parents, everything here borders on the grotesque. And the perma-grinning lady in the radiator remains utterly terrifying after 40 years! The themes of any Lynch movie are rarely easy to discern, but I’ve always felt that Eraserhead is about the whirlwind of nervous emotion and the huge weight of responsibility that comes with being a new parent.
Day of the Dead
As the world is overrun by zombies, a group of scientists and military personnel sheltering in an underground bunker in Florida must decide on how they should deal with the undead horde.
I couldn’t not mention zombies in this list. I’ve written about the undead at length before now, and I think you can argue that death is the ultimate body modification. It completely changes the rules. For zombies, self-preservation is no longer their prime concern: the living are focused on staying in one piece and not getting bitten while the dead just don’t care. After everything I said at the beginning about there being more to the body horror genre than gore, I’ve cited Romero’s last good zombie movie here purely because it set a high mark in terms of blood and guts. Whether it’s the rotting remains of the dead or the freshly spilled entrails of the increasingly outnumbered survivors, Day of the Dead set new standards in decay and disembowelments.
Martyrs
A young woman’s quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.
This is one of those films I think you should definitely see, but probably only once. It’s not an easy watch, but it’s a rewarding one, and at its heart are deep questions about the human spirit and transcendence, about life after death. In order to be in a position to attempt to answer those questions, its young characters are subjected to the most awful and prolonged physical torture. But this is far more than ‘torture porn’ (as Martyrs and various other movies were lazily labelled on release). The film’s relentless and extreme body horror pushes both the characters’ and the audience’s endurance to the brink in order to ask if there is anything after death and if so, what impact having knowledge of what comes next would have on our will to live.
Society
An ordinary teenage boy discovers his family is part of a gruesome orgy cult for the social elite.
Produced in the late eighties during that brief period of time when special effects artists were worshipped like rock stars, the ending of Society has to be seen to be believed. And even after you’ve seen it, I’m not sure you’ll believe it. It’s a bit of a slog to get to the flesh-filled denouement, but it more than delivers. In the same way Romero uses body horror to differentiate between the living and the living dead, in Society director Brian Yuzna cranks up the slimy grossness to separate the haves from the have nots.
The Substance
A fading celebrity takes a black-market drug: a cell-replicating substance that helps her create a younger, better version of herself.
The most recent film on this list by some margin and apart from the fact it’s a superb movie, it deserves a mention for bringing body horror out of the shadows and into the mainstream, garnering both critical and box office success along the way. The horror here is rooted in society’s expectations of beauty and the pressure put on women to adhere to expected standards and remain youthful. It’s wildly graphic, completely over the top visually, and absolutely superb.
The Fly
A botched experiment transmutes a man into a monstrous insect.
The above synopsis, cribbed from IMDB, wildly undersells this David Cronenberg classic. Cronenberg is the undisputed king of the genre—he’s made enough body horror movies to fill a top 10 list on his own—and in my opinion this is his masterwork. A small cast, stellar performances, top-notch special effects and, most importantly, a powerful story combine brilliantly. It’s a fascinating study of the dangers of science without guardrails (pretty relevant in our increasingly AI-fuelled world, I think), that also happens to be a tragic love story. Here, in all its gory, slime-spewing glory, the body horror graphically illustrates the potential cost of unrestrained ambition. That Cronenberg can make you feel sympathy for a creature you’re simultaneously repelled by is testament to a filmmaker at the height of their powers.
So, there you go. As I said at the outset, this wasn’t intended to be one of those clickbait top ten articles you find all over the internet these days, rather it’s a list of the body horror movies that have had the biggest impact on me and my writing. As fantastic and far-fetched as all of these stories are, they remind us that none of us are physically indestructible. We’re given one body and one chance, and we’re all potentially a single split-second bad decision from our own body horror nightmare. In Kemberton, our young and very troubled main character is a victim of bad luck and unfortunate circumstances, and when the body horror hits, it hits hard. I guarantee you won’t be expecting what happens, but if you do read the book, please come back afterwards and re-read this list. I’m confident you’ll pick up on traces of Eraserhead, The Substance, Cronenberg’s and Romero’s movies, and more of the influences I’ve mentioned above. I hope you enjoy Kemberton’s story (though I’m not entirely sure enjoy is ever the right word where body horror is concerned!).
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