David Cronenberg is the king of body horror. Since the 1970s, the Canadian filmmaker has ruled over a subset of horror films that focus on the human body and all the nightmarish ways it can transform. Cronenberg’s approach to the body is transgressive, and frequently erotic; he imagines possibilities that are equally intriguing and repellent, from the sexually transmitted parasites of Shivers to the revolutionary plastic-eaters in Crimes of the Future. But while Cronenberg might have perfected body horror, he didn’t invent it. Body horror is embedded into the sci-fi genre, which was launched by the reanimation of a stitched-together collection of dead body parts in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There are also whispers of the concept in H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. But body horror really came into its own in the ’50s, when a wave of sci-fi/horror hybrids like The Fly and The Blob converted atomic anxieties into grotesque monsters. Another peak arrived with the gross-out ’80s, when artists like Stan Winston, Rob Bottin, Greg Nicotero and the delightfully named Screaming Mad George elevated the art of practical effects to gloriously disgusting heights. For the purposes of this starter pack, we’ll concentrate on the drippy, goopy, outrageous and edgy as we go elbow-deep into the squishy world of body horror beyond Cronenberg. Read the full breakdown of titles from Katie Rife over on Journal. Island of Lost Souls The Fly Eyes Without a Face Matango The Incredible Melting Man Invasion of the Body Snatchers Possession The Thing Re-Animator The Blob ...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
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