Body Horror/Film: Difference between revisions

* ''[[The Human Centipede]]''. How else do you explain {{spoiler|A [[Mad Scientist]] mutilating you and sewing your mouth to someone else's asshole? And sewing someone else to ''your own'' anus?}}

** {{spoiler|[[Fridge Horror|And getting]] [[South Park|shit in your mouth.]]}}

** His directorial debut, ''Shivers'', is a cross between a [[Zombie Apocalypse]], [[Puppeteer Parasite]], and an STD pandemic. Cronenberg refers to this trope interchangeably as "Body Horror" and "Venereal Horror".

** ''The Brood'' has a woman whose negative emotions are being expressed by [[The Heartless|giving virgin birth to extremely violent mutant children]].

** ''eXistenZ.'' Imagine having gooey ports in your spine that tap into your nervous system to enable you to play virtual reality [[Video Games]]. Now imagine that the device you port into is ''a living thing'' with a pulse and vaguely resembles a brain. (It's also edible, but that's [[Let's Meet the Meat|another trope]]...)

*** And then imagine, on TOP of that, depending on which level of reality you're in at the moment ([[Mind Screw|which is NEVER completely clear]]) you may be forced to do [[Fetish Fuel|odd things to someone else's port]]. "[[Mind Manipulation|Free will isn't a huge factor in this little world of ours]]." ([[Mind Rape|"Game Urges"]] are the ''eXistenZ'' equivalent of cutscenes, because the character does stuff at certain parts of the story that don't require the player to do much, they simply move the story along. But instead of simply cutting to pre-recorded movies, [[Mind Probe|your free will is directly removed]] by something that's actually directly attached to your nervous system and already messing with your brain.)

* ''Naked Lunch'' - After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in an Islamic port town in Africa.

* ''May'' depicts a young socially isolated woman develop a morbid fascination with other people's body parts...

* ''[[An American Werewolf in London]]'' may be one of the finest of all scary [[Painful Transformation]] sequences.

** There's also poor Jack becoming more and more zombie-like in appearance each time he reappears.

** In the comic ''[[Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash]]'', Ash has a nightmare echoing the events from ''Evil Dead 2'' except his bad hand sprouts metal claws from the fingertips.

*** Not to mention his fingernails being forced out of the way by the claws being drawn with loving, gory detail.

* Also from the same director ''Brain Damage'' is full of body horor.

* ''Black Sheep'' (not to be confused with the Chris Farley movie of the same name) pays homage to ''[[An American Werewolf in London]]'' when the farmer turns into a weresheep. The company behind this movie is also in talks to do an ''American Werewolf'' remake.

* In ''Blessed'', Heather Graham is impregnated with twin [[The Antichrist|antichrists.]]

** Though she doesn't seem to mind that she's more flexible than before, so...

* ''Bug'' and the stage play of the same name it is based on could be seen as a [[Deconstruction]] of body horror. The two leads become convinced they are playing host to billions upon billions of genetically engineered carnivorous aphids, {{spoiler|but who knows if it's actually happening or it's just a shared delusion?}}

* A theme in ''[[Eraserhead]]''. It starts with Bill complaining about problems in his knees and wrists, and then moves up to the creepy "manmade" chickens, and we end up with The Lady in the Radiator's horrifically distended cheekbones, the burnt skin of The Man in the Planet, and of course, [[Creepy Child|The Baby]].

** About The Baby, there's also a certain [[Squick]] factor to realizing a human being was pregnant with that thing.

** And gives him superpowers.

** Kind of done with Ben Grimm becoming the Thing, too, as well as Johnny becoming the Human Torch while snowboarding. "Johnny! You're on fire! … No, you're ON FIRE!"

* Evil Ed's death in ''[[Fright Night]]''. After fleeing from a losing fight with vampire Jerry Dandridge, so-called "vampire-killer" Peter Vincent flees to main protagonist Charlie Brewster's house in hopes of finding a telephone, only to find that the phone line has been cut. He screams out for Mrs. Brewster to inform her of this fact, only to find a friend of Brewster's, "Evil" Ed Thompson, is in the house, and has turned into a vampire, complete with protruding fangs and a bloody Cross-mark in his forehead (received earlier when Vincent got a lucky hit in with a crucifix). Ed comes menacingly close to Vincent, who darts down the hallway. Ed turns into a wolf and pursues him but, luckily for Vincent, when Ed pounces he misses and crashes into the railings on the stairs, causing them to splinter and he falls from the banister to the floor, impaled on a railing-support. Still a wolf, Ed barely manages to crawl his way under the stairway, where he slowly turns from wolf into a half-wolf (in a scene that rivals the ''American Werewolf in London'' transformation sequence) to vampire, back to human. As he lies dying, the blistered cross-burn vanishes into nothing while Peter is forced to watch the gruesome process. There's also Jerry Dandridge's transformation into a bat.

** It's more!

* Played for (dark) laughs in ''How to Get Ahead in Advertising'' (1989), in which the titular Head grows out of a stress-related boil on the protagonist's shoulder.

* ''In My Skin'' (2002). It's about a woman who develops a fascination with self-mutilation after an accidental injury - which, ultimately, leads to self-cannibalism.

** There's an old folktale that has a similar premise. A starving woman burns herself on the kettle and sticks her finger in her mouth as a reflex. Turns out, [[I Taste Delicious|she tastes pretty good.]] Cue cannibalism.

* ''Mum & Dad''. Disturbing torture all over the place. To scratch the surface, {{spoiler|a girl is put in a suitcase which is then hit repeatedly with a hammer. There's also a crucified man hanging on the kitchen wall}}. [[The Other Wiki]] sums it up pretty well.

** The scene in the parlor. Where the mirror slithers out over Neo's hand covering him, then forcing its way down his throat?

* [[Michael Jackson]]'s transformation into Mecha-Michael in ''[[Moonwalker]]''.

* ''The New Adventures Of Pinocchio'' had [[Pinocchio]] (then a real boy) turn back into a puppet after signing a contract - and Gepetto became a puppet as well. The end of the movie has The Showmaster turning into a sea monster.

* In the original ''Pinocchio'' the scene where Pinocchio and Lampwick are transformed into donkeys is [http://www.kindertrauma.com/?p=2401 especially shocking for its day and age].

** At least one analysis of Disney films revealed that Disney was specifically going for a horror film approach along the lines of Jekyll and Hyde.

** All this is hardly surprising, considering that the movie is based on a book by ''[[Clive Barker]].''

* The '90s remake of ''[[The Nutty Professor]]'' has some surprisingly graphic transformation sequences.

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Dead Man's Chest'' and ''At World's End'' had the ''[[Flying Dutchman]]'' crew, who, after joining the crew started to turn into fish creatures and then actually become part of the ship.

** A dead sailor Will finds in ''DMC'' whose face [[The Blank|was literally sucked off]] by the Kraken's suction cups also counts.

** Parodied in ''[[Casper]]'', when Bill Pullman's character is possessed by Casper's three kooky uncles and turns into Clint Eastwood, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Gibson, and The Crypt Keeper.

** Also parodied in the ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "Petergeist", in which Peter peels off his face to become... {{spoiler|[[King of the Hill|Hank Hill]]}}.

** The guy just cannot catch a break: in the sequel, there's a scene in which he downs an entire bottle of tequila; upon swallowing the worm, he becomes a [[Meat Puppet]] for the [[Big Bad]]. After he's been forced to abuse his family for a while, he then proceeds to vomit a large, tumorous worm-like THING that morphs into said big bad. Yeesh.

* ''[[Slither]]'' loves this trope so much it wants to impregnate it with thousands of alien slugs causing it to swell up until it could fill a barn, and then instead of giving birth the traditional way, simply explode. The alien slug babies will then run off and crawl into the brains of anyone they can find to make them join the hive mind (probably a ''Shivers'' reference). The "queen" now resembles a cross between a squid, Michael Rooker, and a horrible skin disease, and is basically spread across an entire room. The alien slug baby people can then strip off and lie down on their ruler, and slowly get absorbed into him.

* ''[[Splinter]]'' (2008) has some good malformy body horror in it.

* in ''[[Star Wars]] [[Revenge of the Sith]]'' there's both {{spoiler|Ben ripping open Grievous' chestplate, exposing all his organs, then shooting them with a blaster and making his insides explode}} and also {{spoiler|Vader, after being burnt alive and losing most of his limbs, climbing up the embankment with his robot arm.}}

** The recent prequel had the creature behaving in a less cunning way, but took the [[Body Horror]] up to a comfortable 11 with computer graphics.

* ''[[Thinner]]'' involves a very fat man rapidly losing weight due to a curse.

* ''[[Tokyo Gore Police]]''. Imagine the two ''Tetsuo'' movies with pink flesh instead of metal, then add a ridiculous amount of [[Gorn]].

* The demise of Captain Amazing in ''[[Mystery Men]]'' as well as the demise of millionaire supervillain Casanova Frankenstein.

* In ''[[The Shining]]'', there is a scene where Jack Torrence walks into the bathroom of the hotel and finds {{spoiler|a rather attractive looking naked woman in the tub, the woman comes out of the tub and she and Jack embrace- but as he's kissing her, the woman slowly turns into the rotting corpse of the much older woman who died in the tub. And then she starts laughing, taking it to higher levels of creepiness.}}

* In ''[[Monkeybone]]'', before the end credits there's an animated segment where various characters from the film appear in toon form and take off their skins and bodysuits to reveal monkey-like characters underneath. Considering the director, Henry Selick, also made ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'', not that surprising.

** The way it occurs in the ''Wolverine'' film isn't very scary (except if needles frighten you. There are a ''lot'', injecting really deep). But {{spoiler|Weapon XI's [[Wipe That Smile Off Your Face|mouthless face]]}} compensates.

** {{spoiler|The death of Darwin.}}

* The ''[[Saw]]'' films not only expose the viewer to considerable machine-assisted Body Horror, but Jigsaw's captives are forced to overcome their own dread of bodily mutilation [[Life or Limb Decision|in order to survive]].

* The French-Japanese-Korean film ''Tokyo!'' features a young woman slowly turning into, of all things, a chair. It starts with a huge gaping hole in her abdomen, then later she is shown struggling to walk with her legs turned into wooden chair legs and her pelvis into a wooden seat. Finally, her hands also become chair legs and her head DISAPPEARS. The kicker? In the original comic book the movie is based on, the transformation is played for laughs.

* The live-action ''[[Guyver]]'' movie had a couple. The first transformation sequence for sure, but even worse was right before the [[Final Boss|big bad]] showed up when the guy they were trying to rescue... well, it didn't turn out so well for him. [[Painful Transformation]] doesn't even begin to describe it.

** What happened to one of the Zoanoids, who accidentally swallowed the Guyver after the heroes [[Disney Death]]. The other villains were planning to cut him open and get it back, before it went [[Chest Burster]] instead.

* ''[[Poultrygeist]]'' and its demon chicken egg breasts. There was a man with eggs where his nipples should be with demon chickens hatching from them. This is on top of normal zombie movie body horrors (only with chicken human zombie hybrids).

* Dr. Jekyll´s very painful transformation to Mr. Hyde in ''[[The Pagemaster]]'' traumatized many children who saw this film. If the creepy, dark visuals aren't enough to scare you out of your mind, we also hear Jekyll screaming in agony and gasping for breath during the change. And then there's his Mr. Hyde form, which is more scaring than those all put together!

** The part in the fourth one where Freddy slowly turns a tough girl who hates insects into a ''giant cockroach.''

* In ''[[Terminator]] Salvation'', Marcus Wright's discovery that he is a cyborg by looking down and finding his chest cavity ripped open and filled with metal bits is pretty disturbing.

* ''Curse II: The Bite'' (an in-name-only sequel to ''The Curse'', a movie ''loosely'' based on Lovecraft's ''The Colour out of Space'') features a man bitten on the left hand by a [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|snake]], one implied to have been [[I Love Nuclear Power|exposed to radioactive waste]]. At first, he just experiences some weakness and vomiting, but then his personality starts getting colder. When we see that his hand has mutated into a snake's head, and it kills two people (one by jamming itself down a police deputy's mouth & throat and tearing out his heart, the other by tearing a nurse's jaw off), he freaks out and chops it off. But it doesn't stop there -- another snake grows out of the stump and strangles a man with its super-long tongue (frog-snake?), then as he chases his girlfriend snakes begin ''bursting'' out of him. His left eye pops out, and snakes wriggle out of it as if it were some sort of egg. His tongue elongates and detaches, and wriggles after her. He vomits up three or four large snakes, before his mouth opens so wide his head splits in half and a giant snake (which appears to have his spinal column for a body) pops out and chases after the girl. Earlier, we see hints of the transformation trauma to come, in the form of a dog which had been bitten and mutated into a snake-dog hybrid.

* Italian horror is fond of this. A particularly notable instance from [[Lucio Fulci]]'s ''City of the Living Dead'' involves a girl who begins bleeding from the eyes. Followed by her intestines and stomach being ejected from her mouth. The effect is...disturbingly realistic.

** [[Justified Trope|Ballet is actually VERY physically demanding, and can take its toll on the body.]]

* ''Sssssss'' have a man slowly turning into a snake.

* [[Fan Nickname|Burning Godzilla]] in the film ''[[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah]]''. His body is overheating from going into a meltdown from nuclear overload to the point where his flesh is now melting off of his body.

** The Heisei incarnation of King Ghidorah falls under this. Imagine being three cute little pets created to be friendly companions being mutated and fused-together into a single three-headed dragon.

** Godzilla himself. Sure, we don't actually see the mutation happen itself. But, compare what [http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f38/moonunitzappa/godzillasaurus.gif he used to look like] to [http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k109/devastatingcharmer/godzilla.jpg what he mutates into], and it's evident it was not a pleasant experience for him.

* [[Played for Laughs]] in [[Persepolis]]. Marjane's description of the changes her body went through during puberty, and the associated images, have a a very [[Body Horror]] feel to them.

* What happens to two Senators Mc Comb's from different time periods in ''[[Time Cop|Timecop]]'', {{spoiler|[[Time Paradox|when they're in the same place in the same time]]. They're merging into one creature before turning into [[Special Effects Failure|living liquid]] which disappears out of space}}.

* ''[[Death Becomes Her]]''. If it wasn't so funny it could be [[Un Example]]. Just imagine that you can {{spoiler|live forever, but you're not breathing, your heart's not beating and all of your traumas remain until you fix them artificially. As well as skin color and eyes.}}

* ''[[The Last Circus]]'' has one character mutilate his face with caustic soda and an iron to mimic a clown's makeup.

* The film ''[[Freaks]]'', especially the [[Karmic Transformation|ending.]]

 

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[[Category:Body Horror]]