Idk, body horror scares tf out of me. Or at least parasites. Just the thought of tapeworms or bugs or something inside of you, living off of you. The xenomorph rping you and setting a time bomb in your chest, the thing changing your biology without you knowing, hell just real life nature is terrifying. Rats and maggots eating and crawling in and out of you, chewing on an infected wound while you’re still alive. It can also lead to psychological horror through tension and panic. How much time do you have? How painful is it during that time? What does it feel like to have something inside you killing you?
I still won't watch tetsuo because that tye of body horror has always scared me. Bring aliens, organic mutations and shit but cybernetics, metal parts and all; Nah, hard fucking pass.
I think what really gets me in body horror (and horror in general) is hoping the main character will find a cure or escape, have a happy ending, but eventually realizing that even on the best case scenario, their life is already ruined. It's crossing that point of no return, feeling hope die as the movie progress.
This. I am easily disturbed by the concept of someone or -thing being ruined beyond recovery, and yet still alive and fully conscious. Even worse; when they can't kill themselves to escape their hellish existence. I'm the type of person that puts down a beloved pet as soon as I find out it's suffering and can't recover. My family had bunnies when I was a kid. An older one had fallen over on the floor one night, unable to get back up. He was shaking badly with his eyes shut tight, when we found him in the morning. He seemed unconscious but we weren't sure. We tried warming him up to get him back for over an hour, but nothing improved and he just suffered the whole time. I couldn't take it any longer and started begging my parents to take him to the vet and put him down. Thankfully, they listened.
I like my horror films to have a bleak, nihilistic, soul crushing endings rather than happy ending. It feels much more disturbing knowing full well the characters didn't have a chance to make it during the ordeals or trials and tribulations. That's just me though. Perfect example would be Hereditary. That film did not hold back AT ALL
The worst part of any horror is human suffering for me. I can look at guts, inner organs, lots of blood, flesh etc. flying around from (for example) explosion or a lot of corpses, but I can't handle when I see/hear/understand that a human feels pain. It's just impossible for me
same. that's why i want to work with bodies post-mortem, instead of being a doctor. if i had to watch my patients writhe in agony under my care and i couldn't do anything to help them, i would off myself. if, when i'm a forensic pathologist, my patient starts writhing in agony, all i have to know how to do is run away in fear because if there's a corpse moving on its own there's something worse to deal with
the thing about body horror is that the problem is internal. You can run from scary ghouls and evil monsters but you cant run from yourself. Cancerous growths, horrible disfigurement, disease, you cannot escape. Its a deeply human fear that stems from fear of disease, disfigurement, being outcast (because of either of the two) and of course the inevitability of death or suffering.
@@wren_. im very sorry to hear :( Hopefully you can find a way to transition to the body that coincides with the way you feel. A friend of mine is going through the long journey of transition aswell, but the closer they get the better they feel. They have much less dysphoria ever since they started HRT !
annihilation has some very good examples of body horror: SPOILERS FOR ANNIHILATION The guy with the thing moving in his organs after he's cut open; it's never clarified whether his actual organs are moving or if it's a parasite of some kind. His later fate being exploded into a giant fungal monstrosity The bear taking vocal cords and taking your voice and it being theorised the bear itself is a mutated human. seeing your own cells moving in your hand, having an alien being take on your form, being changed on a cellular level after entering the shimmer amazing movie
The guy's guts were his own, but they "decided" to become a separate being, an independent life form. It's literally the worst thing that can happen with your bowels.
It's a shame you haven't seen The Fly yet, because to me, that was THE quintessential body horror movie experience that really made me understand it's purpose. At least in that film, the way it was depicted all felt like it was touching on so many topics, namely the AIDs crisis, but also the 'war on drugs'. My uncle contracted hepatitis from heroin addiction. In the last few years of his life, his body transformed so horrifically that my mother didn't want me to see him, so that I would avoid having any association of him with his appearance in his last moments of life... The Fly was so moving, because it reminded me of my uncle, and the way his family must have felt watching him fall apart, come undone from his own actions... It was a really really upsetting watch. I was disdainful of my viewing experience because I saw it in the theatre where a bunch of teens went to see it, and they laughed at all of the 80s corniness of it. I felt frustrated that these very emotional beats were being laughed over... I felt like to them it was just a meaningless, shlock horror film. But it speaks volumes, about ageing, illness, and the fragility of our bodies and the ultimate lack of control we have over the ways our bodies transform with time...
The fly is a masterpiece. The second one isn't very good but is if your're looking for some 80's gory schlocky fun you should give it a watch. Some of my other favorite body horror movies include Re-animator and Bride of Re-animator.
I watched The Fly back in the 80's. I was in primary school. I must watch it again, I'm sure I'll have a different understanding now that I'm almost 50. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your Uncle. My sincere condolences to you and your family. 🙏🏾☮️
OH MY GOD!!! LOVE THAT FILM!! I still am hyperfixated on The Fly and it's not going away anytime soon because that film was AMAZING, even though my family fucking hates whenever i bring it up💀
The most disturbing thing about Tusk is the ending. The fact they didn't kill the creature but kept it alive in an abandoned Zoo was the ultimate cruelty.
Mannnn Tusk fucked me up fr, I still to this day don't understand why it's labelled a “horror comedy” bc I found NO PARTS of it comedic WHATSOEVER. The image of Justin Long turned into that walrus has been ingrained in my mind since I watched it in 2015. I plan to rewatch it at some point to see if it still carries the same weight for me but I'm still very reluctant even looking at pictures of him like that bc of the sheer disturbing feeling that overcomes me whenever I think about it. Sooooo ig you could say that Tusk is a pretty effective body horror film (worked like a charm on me at least, lol)
just watched it like two hours ago, im faschinated. that is so... so different and so interesting. i wish i could met that walrus, to try and see if it has any sanity left, how much.. of a human it is.
Literally was never more disgusted in my entire life watching that filth. Felt nauseous the whole time and wanted to puke afterwards. Not even a happy ending either shouldve just put him out of his misery.
It didn't cllick for me that it was horror until I read the comments on a video someone made of it. I'm always thinking about the cool ways a human could adapt according to their environment if it was a different planet, so when I was watching the video about it I was like "oh, that's interesting, that makes sense, that'd a cool concept" and I thought wow this is amazing world building and then everyone in the comments was talking about how hopeless It felt and how uncomfortable they were and I was like wait wat
@@willcole3944 The second part is more positive when they start evolving into sentient species such as the Snake People, Killer Folk and Sail People. It’s pretty creepy throughout, though. for instance, one of the species called the Pterosapiens die of heart disease by the time they are 25 because they aren’t able to support both flight and human intelligence and another species called the Modular People are made up of fully sentient body parts that can’t survive without their “colony.”
Body horror only bothers me when someone becomes something completely different like inanimate objects or creatures with with dilluted consciousness where one is unaware of self or is unable to perceive the self due to sensation. I find body horror only terrifying when the self is the prison rather than mere transmutation to be adjusted to.
You should read “horse destroys the universe”. It’s not necessarily horror but it does cover a horse gaining higher consciousness from the point of view of said horse.
Body horror is truly the only kind of genre where I'm left feeling utterly disturbed. It's the only thing that's forever found a way into the back of my head and it STAYS there because of how much it's left an impact on me. In other words, it was so disgusting to the point of burning memories into my head.
Body horror is one of the very few physical things in existence that I genuinely fear. The idea of the form that you're most familiar with, the kind that your soul inhabits, being mangled and contorted into something gruesome, is already a disturbing enough thought. But _witnessing_ such a thing provokes a physical reaction out of me and makes me want to look away.
Body horror makes me feel really weird. For some reason the feeling of being trapped inside your body is something that really hits home for me, so the extreme version of that (being trapped in a deformed/mutilated body) is extremely scary to me. I think that's why I enjoy body horror movies
This video is soft. it is quiet. it is gentle. it is patient. it is kind. it is love. it is talking about stuff that makes me go mute for weeks as i contemplate my fate. thank you for this video, it is a gift to people like me who love this stuff. thank you so much.
@@jmart6750 being melodramatic is fun and it makes life funner , u literally have the american flag in the shape of a skull as yr pfp , that's way more dramatic than they are
Tusk and Human Centipede to me were incredible ways of showing body horror. They were alive, conscious. Forcefully made to experience some of the worst things imaginable. Tusk’s design with the human flesh being sewn together to create a walrus like creature was incredible. Human centipede felt like something that could genuinely happen in real life if someone was messed up enough to recreate it, because it’s a simpler procedure. Then the next two movies kept raising it past 11. Those are the ones meant to make you feel ill, to not just explore the deepest darkest parts of the human mind, but to make you wonder what was going on in the directors head. The first movie was the best with the concept of it being able to be rooted in reality and it’s simple, while the rest are retellings with more and more sickening twists. Zombie horror is common and yet there are movies that are able to make it feel new and add to it. The concept of zombies still having a soul inside of them, unable to control this decaying vessel of flesh and meat as they watch and feel themselves eat their own loved ones alive
Cronenberg's version of "The Fly" is brilliant. Goldblum should have won an oscar. I always thought his character in "Jurassic Park" was a watered down version of Seth Brundle.
I remember watching the fly at the cinema in the 80s, me and my boyfriend, now my husband amd my friend and her boyfriend, I will never forget her boyfriend screaming and hiding his eyes !
As a body horror enthusiast I can say for sure - it is very fun when your limit of disgust is different. Like, it takes A LOT of imagination to create an abomination to make people feel things. Even if those things are usually considered negative. Since, there are general rules of beauty and following them might get boring after a while, but there's no limit on how horrible you can make something look, and with people adapting - it always forces you to find something even worse. And when I make something like this - it brings me joy for some reason. It's like breaking the rules, but with no consequences (well except loosing a few friends but like, if that's the case, were they friends in the first place?). Overall, there are actually a lot of body horror enthusiasts, it's just they're not that loud. :'> As a great example - a lot of monsters in a lot of games and movies are made and drawn by people who enjoy body horror.
Indeed, few people actually enjoy this gendera, i've enjoy your point when you say that thers no limitation on how horrible you can make something looks... Its true, but to be completly honest, those new ways of finding thing you never see before or imagine yourself become rare as time go... Sadly, we will get to a point where we will no longer get that tchill passing through are spin in wich make body horror what it is, anyway good luck 😌
the first type of body horror i ever saw was when my mom showed me aliens at 14 (maybe 15??). that part where the main character and her crew comes across one of the infected corpses, then it comes alive and says "kill me" before the aliens bursted out of their stomach really fucked me up!!
Not sure if this is just me but as a trans person body horror is especially fascinating and it can resonate with me on a deeper level. Feeling uncomfortable in my own skin and feeling trapped in my body is just part of my daily life. Puberty on it's own was like it's own kind of body horror for me, my body changing in ways I had no control over was a source of great anxiety and discomfort for me.
Yess!! I’m not exactly trans, I am non binary and still feel somewhat connected to my assigned gender. But I still relate to that feeling so bad!! Not just gender wise (which happens sometimes) but Sometimes I wish I was an alien or something
What really hits me hard is the character that has been disfigured seeing themselves for the first time thar shit literally makes me feel so uncomfortable and sad for the character. For example, the mirror scene in the "the subject" segment literally had me sitting there for a minute just thinking about how i would feel in that situation
To me, there's a fine distinction to the true body horror of The Thing, and the body cringe of something like Saw. "The Thing" is genuinely horrifying because of the idea of your entire self being hijacked by a completely alien entity. Saw, as a franchise, plays off of the gross out cringe of forced self harm. It's not nearly as haunting as the existential dread something like The Thing can cause, but for general audiences, it's immidiately effective, while being easily mass produced and not asking the audience to really pay much attention.
Why y'all always gotta do this holier than thou act. Sure you can criticise Saw but it's an entirely different kind of horror and film from the Thing so ofc it's gonna be different. It's literally about the cruelty of humanity and ethics with mystery on the side. It's not 'cringe forced bad horror vs cool poetic meaningful horror' Saw when you actually break it down and put aside your biases, has some interesting themes to explore. The first Saw movie was genuinely interesting and unique in it's own right even after the series went downhill. Yeah it's got oversaturated stuff in it, it's dated and some stuff is cringey, but you're comparing apples and oranges then labelling the apples as the better flavour. It's just different types of horror. Tired of the elitist attitude and tone people have when discussing media, to label something as 'cringey forced self harm the masses don't have to pay attention to' is just terrible analysis of anything. Completely uncharitable.
The first Saw is an excellent thriller, and the second was still fun to watch (the needle pit is just… my favorite). 3+ can f right off. I‘ve watched the entirety just for the heck of it, and wouldn’t do it again. But I do recommend Dead Meat‘s Kill Count series. Even if the movies aren’t for you, watching the behind the scenes stuff here on UA-cam just show how much love and care was given. And seeing how the traps work from a production pov is just awesome, so much creativity.
The momster, not a typo, in The Color Out of Space, was probably one of the gnarliest body horror things I've seen. It was built up super well in my opinion.
I'm usually grossed by the body horror, then I put myself as the Main character and imagine the body horrors are all happening to me to get more grossed out lol
body horror is my favourite horror genre because of how hopeless the situation always is. it's disturbing, yes, but it's scary because there's no escape.
I wrote my final essay about this a couple semesters ago! I adore body horror because it makes us face our true vulnerability and how weak we truly are. It’s a very effective and truly unsettling type of horror
y'know what's even better than 2:08? When they're alarmingly, maniacally euphoric about it. Body horror honestly just doesn't get to me as much as it does most other people, but Discover My Body by Yames has stuck with me over the last couple years specifically because the subject was sickeningly delighted about all of the terrible(?) things happening to him.
The fly 2 really shook me with how it ended so i highly recommend you watch the fly and its sequel. Another movie i highly recommend is Mad God by Phil Tippet, would love to hear your perspective on it. Its a movie with no dialogue and has alot of attention to detail to tell its story in its own weirdly disgustingly beautiful way. I just found your channel through the algorithm and love your videos. Found your from the skinamarink video and binged your other vids. Love the content, keep it up!
@@msscott22 I agree with the animal testing commentary, however, I could not handle Martin as a character and the movie felt stale af. Did enjoy Stathis' scene, though.
Body horror comes in many forms the only one I could say I enjoy are from certain Sci-fi books where humans do extreme modifications for example like how they insert tubes that hook up to machines that they carry around to live longer or breathe in atmospheres humans normally couldn't survive or when they describe installing bionic eyes and they go into the gross detail of how they remove the natural eyes and implant the mechanical ones and so on. Not sure if any that kind of body horror could ever be adapted well in a movie.
I think the reason I prefer body horror is that it’s actually scary. Things like body horror and psychological horror get me the most because it’s things that could actually happen and I can imagine myself in those scenarios as opposed to supernatural things and cheap jumpscares.
To some degree, most movies have some aspect of body horror. Gore in and of itself is a form of body horror, and the fear of being dismembered or mutilated is a very real fear. Slasher movies capitalize on that fear, especially franchises like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hellraiser. As for zombies being considered a form of body horror, I'm not sure that this is the case. Demonic possession, or having AI implants that control you; having anything in you that isn't you which can influence your behavior is scary, but I think this has more to do with the psychological fear of not being in control of our thoughts and actions, which isn't exactly body horror, it's more like identity horror. With that in mind, conditions like Vampirism and Lycanism are also forms of identity horror; the idea that our thoughts and behaviors don't belong to us, and that we might act in ways we don't intend. However, Werewolf transformation and zombification come with another element that is body horror, and that's the destruction of our physical, visible identity. Furthermore, Tusk and Human Centipede are among some of the most extreme body horror films, but most of the major milestones in the genre were not even briefly mentioned. Testuo: The Iron Man The Blob The Fly Body Melt Basket Case We're scared of these things for a founded psychological reason, posited by Sigmund Frued, The Uncanny. We're terrified of things that aren't familiar to us, which explains a lot of psychological processes and even goes as far as to explain some fundamental issues with society and culture, such as that that some people who live in societies where they expect people to look a certain way sometimes are scared of people with a different skin tone, because it seems uncanny to them. The Uncanny preys on our sensibilities and what's familiar to us. Being murdered is scary, sure, but being murdered by a man in a mask is scarier because it's more uncanny. Dying in a fire is scary, sure, but having a parasite eat us from the inside out is scarier. It's scarier because its less common, it's less familiar, and it's strange. It challenges our brain's preconceived notions of reality. This is why every conventional slasher doesn't look human. They wear masks, they're burned up, they should be dead but aren't, etc. They're uncanny. They're almost human, they're almost on the cusp of what our minds believe to be real, but because they're just outside of the boundaries of reality they distort and confuse our minds. The uncanny is a highly visceral and visual experience. Micheal Meyers is just a guy in a mask, but he's 10x scarier with the mask because it just makes him look - uncanny - hollowed out, black eyes, dead-pan stare. He has an almost human appearance that steps just outside of the bounds of what we know, stripped of our most human elements - expression and eyes - to make him into a monster. Body horror plays into this literary device 10 fold. Rather than showing us something that's on the cusp of being possible, it goes way out into the left field to show us things that are beyond abnormal. It stretches the human body beyond its limit, it distorts the things that are familiar into something that's almost, if not entirely, unrecognizable.
I think zombies aren’t body horror themselves, but overlap can definitely occur. A good example are the infected from the Left 4 dead games. The mutations that occur as a result of the virus in those games always screamed body horror to me.
I'm a big fan of body horror. The Japanese body horror is enhanced by anime. You can do so much with it. I don't know why I love it but maybe it's the idea that something can totally alter you from your original form. But it's also the weird supernatural reasons why it happens that is interesting, like junto ito, parasyte, or parasite eve.
When i first watched FMA brotherhood I was suprised by the amount of body horror, loved that series tho. Then theres that crazy body horror/mutation scene from Akira i think too
Would Audition/Odishon count? I thought that was revolting. I'm not really a big fan of this type of horror, to be honest. It just seems to be done for shock value. The only proponent of the genre who actually made movies with stories was David Cronenberg.
the only fear i get out of this genre of horror is that, whatever happens in the movie is possible to happen in real life to anyone. like thats what scares me
I have been awaiting a video on this topic for so long now. But some great examples of body horror would be just the whole entire concept of All Tomorrows. Also the Goosebumps book "Calling All Creeps!".
Body horror has always given me a sense of uneasiness due to me imagining myself in these situations like being a zombie or being a part of the human centipede
If you like body horror, Junji Ito is a must. He’s a very popular manga artist who specializes in stories about body horror. Uzumaki is where his skill really shines. I’d definitely recommend reading him if you want to get into more body horror.
Human centipede 3 having references to the first two movies through similar characters is so funny to me. It's probably the least disturbing of the 3 but definitely has some weird scenes
@@alyssaclayton7464 I get where they’re coming from, the third got so outlandish it became ridiculous thus making it less disturbing, the other two feel somewhat within the realm of possibility which is what makes them so frightening or disturbing
i've come back to this video a couple of times in the past year and it has genuinely changed my life. no blame to the creator, the video is very well-made and prefaced. i made the decision to watch it consciously and i wholeheartedly regret it to this day, yet i can't help but look into the movies again and again for whatever reason. body horror fascinates me, but i am not a horror fan and i CANNOT handle it. i haven't even watched the movies, but the sole idea of the creation of a human centipede has terrified me so deeply that for a year i've had the images i've seen from the movie haunt me at random times. at this point, i know the whole plot of the movie without ever having watched it because this video sparked such an unfortunate curiosity in me. the words "tendons in their knees" randomly pop into my mind every once in a while and they make my skin crawl because they remind me of the human centipede. in an attempt to resist looking up the human centipede again the other day, i decided to look up tusk this time. i closed the wikipedia page before i had read the whole plot. it is my own unfamiliarity with horror and curiosity that has caused me to feel this way repeatedly. but this video opened this slightly traumatizing door for me. only goes to show the power of body horror. the mere idea of it is horrifying enough for many. nevertheless, i find this channel very entertaining. keep up the good work!
Spot on with the zombie claim! Ever since I was little and had first heard what they were, I was always terrified at the thought of becoming one, rather than living in some apocalypse. The uncertainty of it, and how I feel most people would rather be dead. It's terrifying. I think that's why zombie movies never scare me, they never truly explore the concept.
Body horror is also a genre I tend to stay away from, yet the Thing and the Fly are two of my favorite horror movies of all time. I remember watching the Thing with my brother for the first time, and we were full-blown adults by this point, but we were still screaming when the dog revealed itself as the alien. I also remember when the Human Centipede came out. I was in college and people were pretty much being like "Dude, I dare you to watch this movie. I bet you can't get through it." My roommate was going to quit, but I was like "Hey, I'll watch it with you." That's the only time I've watched it and that's all I needed.
I have strange relationship with this, gore doesn’t really affect me but body horror isin’t exactly gore. I like drawing body horror, I always think its fun to create a disturbing picture, since I love eliciting emotion through my art, disgust is one of the easiest to trigger. But also I love artistic body horror, I dont know if it makes sense but body horror that is especificaly framed to look beautiful but still horrifying. This example is not body horror really but it causes me basically the same feeling: when I saw “all quiet in the western front”, besides crying a lot, one of the mane things that stuck with me about the movie was its cinematography and how the bodies are portrayed. There is this amazing shot of a man impaled by a tree with no arms, its a terrifiyng image but its so well made, he is wearing white and the blood on his shoulders is staining the clothes and its a really beautiful shot. Same thing with the first friend Paul (the main character) sees die, when he looks at his friend’s face half of it is covered in dry green mud and the other in blood with little parts of his rosy light skin peaking out. One of my favorite details was that he had blue eyes so in the bloody side his sclera was fully red and the shining blue iris was just sticking out of the red. I liked it so much that I painted it.
Okay so I LOVE body horror 😂 it’s so uncomfy and I can’t look away. Human Centipede is my favorite, and Tusk surprised me - I thought I was going to hate it but I didn’t.
My friends and I watched this when it came out on Netflix I think it was. We were freaking 12 at the time, school called off so no parents around. The ending was so disturbing to me, i couldn’t shake the feelings it left me with for months.
This was super interesting to watch because I LOVE body horror. The thing is,, i haven't seen a single body horror movie. A ton of the stuff I consume is online stories (creepypastas, horror fanfiction) or manga (junji ito is iconic) Hell I WRITE a shit ton of body horror. One of my stories is just about it Tho personally I think I enjoy body horror because I have experienced it first hand (in a way). Growing up I had a ton of psychosis issues which caused awful sensations and left my body feeling ill fitted in a way that was straight up disturbing. Not "puberty is hard boohoo" but "the nerves in my arms are sinking out and detaching from my flesh" or "my bones are vibrating under my skin". Wouldn't recommend. Tho now that I think about it my stories are unlike a lot of this stuff cause mine almost always have a happy ending. Or at least a bittersweet one I enjoy the idea that, yes you are experiencing a fate worse than death, but eventually you kinda learn to deal with it. You will never be the same, but you will be okay. You can live on, even if it sucks. Life is still worth living. (Probably says a lot about how I dealt with my own horrors lol) But that's just my perspective lol. Amazing video! Its always cool to see people discuss horror!
Human Centipede 3 actually slaps. It's like a parody of the first two and ends up being more funny then actually scary. It still has the shock body aspect but it's also super aware of it's own ridiculousness.
i dont believe you for a fucking second, i can talk about the most disgusting things while eating but the human centipede made me lose all apatite for a few DAYS (sorry if this comes off as aggressive im just beyond traumatised from the "feed her" scene)
@@dontnubblemebro those were so gross 1 was sad and disgusting 2 I couldn’t finish scard me and I won’t watch 3. Shame on people who make that it could really happen☹😭. Just another reason not to travel abroad.
I feel like I'm a unique case because body horror is profoundly disturbing to me but if I think about it too long it becomes somewhat of a fixation. I think a big part of why I find it so disturbing is because of the suffering that is inherent in most of these scenarios. Like, I love the human centipede for it's concept but the thought of being part of one is disgusting and horrific on a number of levels. I think on some level body horror plays into a fear we all have, similar to that theory about how the uncanny valley scares people because it reminds them of death and disease, the thought of being stuck in a body that you can't escape that is gradually becoming sicker and less human is a very terrifying thought. I will say though I love the creativity that comes with this territory, I've came up with a few body horror creatures myself and they can be fun to design, I guess the trick is to not think about it too much.
I feel like practical effects vs CGI is soooo important in body horror. Being able to truly see the look in the eyes of the protagonist of Tusk and all of the drool and his movements just couldn't have been done with CGI. Same thing with The Thing. I haven't seen the 2011 remake of it, but the clips I've seen of it just don't feel as real. They don't have the same weight and impact as a true practical effect does.
Just by seeing the thumbnail i knew what i was getting into. The 1st human centipede movie in my opinion is the worst one out of the 3 because it feels real and its very uncomfortable while the other 2 are even funny in some ways
i wrote a substack article about this while looking at the film "jacob's ladder" from 1990. my theory on why body horror "gets" to so many seasoned horror fans (myself included) is because it falls into the uncanny valley - it's like a primal fear to be unnerved by humanoid beings who don't match our own anatomy. maybe even something deeper there about greater society perceives disabled/disfigured individuals as grotesque
I find it amazing what kind of thoughts people have to have to create stuff like that. Personally the most disturbing part in body horror for me is when the victim becomes something like an animal or object. It's not only the transformation but also the thought that the victim was absolutley helpless to their situation and others just decided over their lives and they now have to live with the consequences. Ig its the helpness that scares me the most. I have never seen "Tusk" but as much as I am curious to see how disturbing it is, I don't think I am gonna be able to to watch it any time soon, or just any body horror in general. Though now I am really tempted to watch the human centipede.
Honestly body horror has never really gotten to me, even when i was younger. I think this is mostly because the amount of agony the people usually are in is LITERALLY unthinkable, i can't even imagine it. When its more believable/imaginable body horror it actually does get me (Judd getting his achilles heel sliced in pet sematary actually got me pretty good because well... ouch)
I believe that I LOVE body horror. It’s the kind of horror that messes with you both physically and psychologically. It is a very intense genre, and it’s hard to find any good body horror pieces anymore. I’ve branched out to analog horror since it is the closest thing to getting in that sweet spot of being grotesque, but not overly grotesque. The human centipede movies though? Overboard completely
Yeah, I had a similar reaction to The Human Centipede I watched the first one and was like "yeah that wasn't so bad" then I tried to watch the second and I could not make it though that movie.
Always wanted to find a way to discuss the fear I had around the idea of parasites and zombies, to imagine yourself in those situations, the hope of ever being able to find a "cure" and be human again, only to watch as that hope gets harder and harder to find is horrifying... anyways, great video! I'll definitely be checking more of this channel out!
Crimes of the Future has to be one of the most disturbing yet philosophical body horror films of the decade for sure. It left me genuinely thinking about the premise long after the film stopped playing. Who else has seen this gem by one of the kings of body horror?
One piece of body horror media I truly wish I could erase from my memory is creepypasta called the pancake family. It is exactly like the name implies. I usually have a pretty good stomach for horror and even body horror to an extent, but I listened to this story at work about a month ago and it now lives rent free in my mind and I just pray to god I will eventually forget about it.
I cannot take Human Centipede seriously because it is simply unrealistic. There is no one in the world who would be interested in doing something like that, and besides, the victims probably wouldn't survive the operation if it was done by only one person. Body horror has to have a certain level of realism to be really scary, like 28 Days Later, for example. This movie is much scarier because you're under constant stress and rooting for the characters not to get infected. It's like watching yourself on the screen and trying to run away from a horrible infection which takes over your mind.
i remember when i was fifteen my friend showed me the trailer for human centipede and i don't know why but i felt such empathy for the characters, (from just watching the trailer!) that i got home and cried so hard in front of my family telling them how awful those people must have it, how that's the worst fate possible, how could a human do something like that to another and just like, poured my heart out and my family was so freaked out they forbid anyone from even mentioning the movie ever again in front of me 'cause otherwise i'd start tearing up. and they took it really serious too, like we don't take many things serious but they were all so nice to me about it. i guess they must've seen how deep my feelings were. anyway, almost ten years later and no one in my family ever said the movie's name again
Body horror is great. I remember it was a Doctor Who episode about the cybermen (humans cut up and had their emotions removed and "upgraded" into a cybernetic body) that really creeped me out when I was little which really shaped my love for body horror
As a trans person, I love body horror, especially Junji Ito's work. It's the closest thing I can find that represents the unease, lack of control, and disgust that comes with going through the wrong puberty, and watching your body become something you're repulsed by.
I remember when I first watched The Thing with my dad. I loved and hated it at the same time, but the acting, effects, and story truly make it memorable. I watched the first human centipede because I was curious about it. I ended up not sleeping for days. Now that I know what happens, I might try the series again. I’m not sure if I could watch The Walrus or any of these other movies.
I always the bleaker the better I can't believe you don't love bleak endings, especially Tusk! Have you seen Martyrs? Really intense body horror I had to actually walk out of the room and mostly listen to it from the kitchen and just peek in when I felt safe.
My dad wanted me to watch tusk with him a few months ago, but after explaining the premise i was like “haha NOPE”. I looked it up later and realized i dodged a bullet, that movie seems super fucked up 💀
I relate a lot to this stuff as a trans person. The feeling of your body changing into something that isn’t yours. 😣 Luckily i’ve been feeling whatever the opposite of it is lately
I feel like body horror is a different sense other than fear, it’s more of a disgust.
The urge to look away out of being grossed out, not fearing.
Idk, body horror scares tf out of me. Or at least parasites. Just the thought of tapeworms or bugs or something inside of you, living off of you. The xenomorph rping you and setting a time bomb in your chest, the thing changing your biology without you knowing, hell just real life nature is terrifying. Rats and maggots eating and crawling in and out of you, chewing on an infected wound while you’re still alive. It can also lead to psychological horror through tension and panic. How much time do you have? How painful is it during that time? What does it feel like to have something inside you killing you?
Nah there’s definitely fear as well, the fear of it happening to you. The fear of the pain you’ll feel, the loss of control, etc etc
@@atlf3357 I see what you mean.
I still won't watch tetsuo because that tye of body horror has always scared me. Bring aliens, organic mutations and shit but cybernetics, metal parts and all; Nah, hard fucking pass.
the idea of body horror scares me. it haunts me.
No matter how you feel about body horror you can’t deny it take a good amount of creativity to do right
that goes for pretty much most things ?
@@mic2348especially this
Body horror is the only horror genre where you question if the creator of said horror is a serial killer.
@@randomthingsxd9030 how so
What a dumb thing to say
I think what really gets me in body horror (and horror in general) is hoping the main character will find a cure or escape, have a happy ending, but eventually realizing that even on the best case scenario, their life is already ruined. It's crossing that point of no return, feeling hope die as the movie progress.
this is how i felt about no longer human and sick and sicker bastards
Very much like The Fly I suppose. Despite the extreme horror it's absolutely heartbreaking at the end.
This. I am easily disturbed by the concept of someone or -thing being ruined beyond recovery, and yet still alive and fully conscious. Even worse; when they can't kill themselves to escape their hellish existence.
I'm the type of person that puts down a beloved pet as soon as I find out it's suffering and can't recover. My family had bunnies when I was a kid. An older one had fallen over on the floor one night, unable to get back up. He was shaking badly with his eyes shut tight, when we found him in the morning. He seemed unconscious but we weren't sure. We tried warming him up to get him back for over an hour, but nothing improved and he just suffered the whole time. I couldn't take it any longer and started begging my parents to take him to the vet and put him down. Thankfully, they listened.
I like my horror films to have a bleak, nihilistic, soul crushing endings rather than happy ending. It feels much more disturbing knowing full well the characters didn't have a chance to make it during the ordeals or trials and tribulations. That's just me though. Perfect example would be Hereditary. That film did not hold back AT ALL
J-Horror has plenty of body horror films and manga
The worst part of any horror is human suffering for me. I can look at guts, inner organs, lots of blood, flesh etc. flying around from (for example) explosion or a lot of corpses, but I can't handle when I see/hear/understand that a human feels pain. It's just impossible for me
Touch synesthesia
same. that's why i want to work with bodies post-mortem, instead of being a doctor. if i had to watch my patients writhe in agony under my care and i couldn't do anything to help them, i would off myself. if, when i'm a forensic pathologist, my patient starts writhing in agony, all i have to know how to do is run away in fear because if there's a corpse moving on its own there's something worse to deal with
This yeah, cant watch torture, I didn't even watch this video past the the warning, i just wanted to read the description to know what it's about
Like that one vita carnis episode
@@Fatigue023 The harvester hunts down a kid one😁👍
the thing about body horror is that the problem is internal. You can run from scary ghouls and evil monsters but you cant run from yourself. Cancerous growths, horrible disfigurement, disease, you cannot escape. Its a deeply human fear that stems from fear of disease, disfigurement, being outcast (because of either of the two) and of course the inevitability of death or suffering.
Yes, but death is the explicit end to suffering…
That’s to separate the two; fear of death is one thing, and the prolonging of pain (I.e. suffering) is another.
Body horror emphasizes the latter, exposing the viewer to the harshest conditions that life has to cater.
that’s literally me (i have gender dysphoria and am trapped in my own body)
@@wren_. im very sorry to hear :( Hopefully you can find a way to transition to the body that coincides with the way you feel. A friend of mine is going through the long journey of transition aswell, but the closer they get the better they feel. They have much less dysphoria ever since they started HRT !
Junji Ito really succeeds in encapsulating body horror in his manga art. Highly recommend
I love Junji Ito. I'm not a huge manga/graphic novel reader but he's awesome
I also thought of him when I saw the video topic
I still remember those snail people from Uzumaki 😭😭
@@jayzepickle6637 bruh that chapter was traumatic af, along with the mushroom babies wanting to go "back inside"
@@coolbeans5911 omg I blocked out the mushroom babies 😭😭😭
annihilation has some very good examples of body horror:
SPOILERS FOR ANNIHILATION
The guy with the thing moving in his organs after he's cut open; it's never clarified whether his actual organs are moving or if it's a parasite of some kind. His later fate being exploded into a giant fungal monstrosity
The bear taking vocal cords and taking your voice and it being theorised the bear itself is a mutated human.
seeing your own cells moving in your hand, having an alien being take on your form, being changed on a cellular level after entering the shimmer
amazing movie
The guy's guts were his own, but they "decided" to become a separate being, an independent life form.
It's literally the worst thing that can happen with your bowels.
@@sendmorerum8241in other words, the result of a Taco Bell
@@__Konboi__god tier comment
@@sendmorerum8241 ah thats really cool!! Its my favourite movie so learning little things about it is awesome - thanks !!!!
i think the bear is actually imitating humans to catch prey, sort of how a lot of predators do that themselves
It's a shame you haven't seen The Fly yet, because to me, that was THE quintessential body horror movie experience that really made me understand it's purpose. At least in that film, the way it was depicted all felt like it was touching on so many topics, namely the AIDs crisis, but also the 'war on drugs'. My uncle contracted hepatitis from heroin addiction. In the last few years of his life, his body transformed so horrifically that my mother didn't want me to see him, so that I would avoid having any association of him with his appearance in his last moments of life... The Fly was so moving, because it reminded me of my uncle, and the way his family must have felt watching him fall apart, come undone from his own actions... It was a really really upsetting watch. I was disdainful of my viewing experience because I saw it in the theatre where a bunch of teens went to see it, and they laughed at all of the 80s corniness of it. I felt frustrated that these very emotional beats were being laughed over... I felt like to them it was just a meaningless, shlock horror film. But it speaks volumes, about ageing, illness, and the fragility of our bodies and the ultimate lack of control we have over the ways our bodies transform with time...
The fly is a masterpiece. The second one isn't very good but is if your're looking for some 80's gory schlocky fun you should give it a watch. Some of my other favorite body horror movies include Re-animator and Bride of Re-animator.
It’s so good! I really need to rewatch it
I watched The Fly back in the 80's. I was in primary school. I must watch it again, I'm sure I'll have a different understanding now that I'm almost 50.
I'm terribly sorry to hear about your Uncle. My sincere condolences to you and your family.
🙏🏾☮️
OH MY GOD!!! LOVE THAT FILM!! I still am hyperfixated on The Fly and it's not going away anytime soon because that film was AMAZING, even though my family fucking hates whenever i bring it up💀
dude thanks for recommending the fly!!! great movie but i probably wont be sleeping tonight lol
The most disturbing thing about Tusk is the ending. The fact they didn't kill the creature but kept it alive in an abandoned Zoo was the ultimate cruelty.
Mannnn Tusk fucked me up fr, I still to this day don't understand why it's labelled a “horror comedy” bc I found NO PARTS of it comedic WHATSOEVER. The image of Justin Long turned into that walrus has been ingrained in my mind since I watched it in 2015. I plan to rewatch it at some point to see if it still carries the same weight for me but I'm still very reluctant even looking at pictures of him like that bc of the sheer disturbing feeling that overcomes me whenever I think about it. Sooooo ig you could say that Tusk is a pretty effective body horror film (worked like a charm on me at least, lol)
just watched it like two hours ago, im faschinated. that is so... so different and so interesting. i wish i could met that walrus, to try and see if it has any sanity left, how much.. of a human it is.
Tusk is "comedy" due to how stupid the characters are
i just watched it after reading this and as soon as i saw him as a walrus i had to click off i cannot get that out of my mind jesus christ
same
Literally was never more disgusted in my entire life watching that filth. Felt nauseous the whole time and wanted to puke afterwards. Not even a happy ending either shouldve just put him out of his misery.
Not a movie, but All Tomorrows is probably the creepiest body horror story I know of.
I couldnt finish reading it it made me so uncomfortable
@@bickboose9364 or you could just read it
@@ssphgamingrepublic1693 reading is for nerds and I'm too busy making a gay druid
It didn't cllick for me that it was horror until I read the comments on a video someone made of it. I'm always thinking about the cool ways a human could adapt according to their environment if it was a different planet, so when I was watching the video about it I was like "oh, that's interesting, that makes sense, that'd a cool concept" and I thought wow this is amazing world building and then everyone in the comments was talking about how hopeless It felt and how uncomfortable they were and I was like wait wat
@@willcole3944 The second part is more positive when they start evolving into sentient species such as the Snake People, Killer Folk and Sail People. It’s pretty creepy throughout, though. for instance, one of the species called the Pterosapiens die of heart disease by the time they are 25 because they aren’t able to support both flight and human intelligence and another species called the Modular People are made up of fully sentient body parts that can’t survive without their “colony.”
Body horror only bothers me when someone becomes something completely different like inanimate objects or creatures with with dilluted consciousness where one is unaware of self or is unable to perceive the self due to sensation. I find body horror only terrifying when the self is the prison rather than mere transmutation to be adjusted to.
Don’t want made in abyss then omg 😢
Damn that sounds like the colonials from All tomorrows
I love writing stories with those themes.
You should read “horse destroys the universe”. It’s not necessarily horror but it does cover a horse gaining higher consciousness from the point of view of said horse.
Read “I have no mouth and must scream” it’s my favorite short horror story
District 9 can also be seen as a body horror. Scared the heck out of me
Yoo same, I just rewatched it yesterday and I forgot how much Wikkus' transformation scared me lmao
guess my life is pretty peaceful considering that the only thing that comes to my mind with District 9 is Stray Kids' song
How the fuck were you scared by District 9? Are your testicles like, completely devoid?
Man the very final scene where he looks at that family photo though..
The truly scary part was them about to dissect him alive, without even a thought that they were about to brutally murder a man.
Body horror is truly the only kind of genre where I'm left feeling utterly disturbed.
It's the only thing that's forever found a way into the back of my head and it STAYS there because of how much it's left an impact on me.
In other words, it was so disgusting to the point of burning memories into my head.
Body horror is one of the very few physical things in existence that I genuinely fear. The idea of the form that you're most familiar with, the kind that your soul inhabits, being mangled and contorted into something gruesome, is already a disturbing enough thought. But _witnessing_ such a thing provokes a physical reaction out of me and makes me want to look away.
Body horror makes me feel really weird. For some reason the feeling of being trapped inside your body is something that really hits home for me, so the extreme version of that (being trapped in a deformed/mutilated body) is extremely scary to me. I think that's why I enjoy body horror movies
This video is soft. it is quiet. it is gentle. it is patient. it is kind. it is love. it is talking about stuff that makes me go mute for weeks as i contemplate my fate. thank you for this video, it is a gift to people like me who love this stuff. thank you so much.
Omg you are so melodramatic
@@jmart6750 and you’re so edgy
@@datachunks1737 but his right tho
@@jmart6750He is and I still liked the hell out of his comment lol
@@jmart6750 being melodramatic is fun and it makes life funner , u literally have the american flag in the shape of a skull as yr pfp , that's way more dramatic than they are
Tusk and Human Centipede to me were incredible ways of showing body horror. They were alive, conscious. Forcefully made to experience some of the worst things imaginable. Tusk’s design with the human flesh being sewn together to create a walrus like creature was incredible. Human centipede felt like something that could genuinely happen in real life if someone was messed up enough to recreate it, because it’s a simpler procedure. Then the next two movies kept raising it past 11. Those are the ones meant to make you feel ill, to not just explore the deepest darkest parts of the human mind, but to make you wonder what was going on in the directors head. The first movie was the best with the concept of it being able to be rooted in reality and it’s simple, while the rest are retellings with more and more sickening twists. Zombie horror is common and yet there are movies that are able to make it feel new and add to it. The concept of zombies still having a soul inside of them, unable to control this decaying vessel of flesh and meat as they watch and feel themselves eat their own loved ones alive
It would be awesome to create a real Human Centipede.
Cronenberg's version of "The Fly" is brilliant. Goldblum should have won an oscar. I always thought his character in "Jurassic Park" was a watered down version of Seth Brundle.
I totally get that. He did seem to be channeling Seth as Malcolm. Malcolm is what Seth would have become had the accident not happened.
I remember watching the fly at the cinema in the 80s, me and my boyfriend, now my husband amd my friend and her boyfriend, I will never forget her boyfriend screaming and hiding his eyes !
As a body horror enthusiast I can say for sure - it is very fun when your limit of disgust is different. Like, it takes A LOT of imagination to create an abomination to make people feel things. Even if those things are usually considered negative. Since, there are general rules of beauty and following them might get boring after a while, but there's no limit on how horrible you can make something look, and with people adapting - it always forces you to find something even worse.
And when I make something like this - it brings me joy for some reason. It's like breaking the rules, but with no consequences (well except loosing a few friends but like, if that's the case, were they friends in the first place?).
Overall, there are actually a lot of body horror enthusiasts, it's just they're not that loud. :'>
As a great example - a lot of monsters in a lot of games and movies are made and drawn by people who enjoy body horror.
Indeed, few people actually enjoy this gendera, i've enjoy your point when you say that thers no limitation on how horrible you can make something looks... Its true, but to be completly honest, those new ways of finding thing you never see before or imagine yourself become rare as time go... Sadly, we will get to a point where we will no longer get that tchill passing through are spin in wich make body horror what it is, anyway good luck 😌
@@BG-rh4pp for some reason I didn't see the reply, my bad.
And also, that is why humans are awesome, we always find ways to make something spooky.
the first type of body horror i ever saw was when my mom showed me aliens at 14 (maybe 15??). that part where the main character and her crew comes across one of the infected corpses, then it comes alive and says "kill me" before the aliens bursted out of their stomach really fucked me up!!
Not sure if this is just me but as a trans person body horror is especially fascinating and it can resonate with me on a deeper level. Feeling uncomfortable in my own skin and feeling trapped in my body is just part of my daily life. Puberty on it's own was like it's own kind of body horror for me, my body changing in ways I had no control over was a source of great anxiety and discomfort for me.
Yah. Body horror is almost comforting because my brain goes "hey, that's me!"
👾
You don't have to be trans to feel like that.
Yess!! I’m not exactly trans, I am non binary and still feel somewhat connected to my assigned gender. But I still relate to that feeling so bad!! Not just gender wise (which happens sometimes) but Sometimes I wish I was an alien or something
I personally admire people’s ability to even create stories like these.
Junji Ito is obviously the posterchild of body horror done well. Another great creator/company is Hidetaka Miyazaki and FromSoftware
see now miyazaki got inspired a lot by berserk you should check it out although the big hybrid human monsters come a bit later
RIP Ludwig. He and his horse were such a gruesome sight, killing him was a mercy…
I must say my two favorite types of horror are body horror and lovecraftian horror. They also surprisingly mix well together
❤
What really hits me hard is the character that has been disfigured seeing themselves for the first time thar shit literally makes me feel so uncomfortable and sad for the character. For example, the mirror scene in the "the subject" segment literally had me sitting there for a minute just thinking about how i would feel in that situation
To me, there's a fine distinction to the true body horror of The Thing, and the body cringe of something like Saw. "The Thing" is genuinely horrifying because of the idea of your entire self being hijacked by a completely alien entity. Saw, as a franchise, plays off of the gross out cringe of forced self harm. It's not nearly as haunting as the existential dread something like The Thing can cause, but for general audiences, it's immidiately effective, while being easily mass produced and not asking the audience to really pay much attention.
if you think the saw movies don't ask the audience to pay attention you need to watch those movies again
Why y'all always gotta do this holier than thou act. Sure you can criticise Saw but it's an entirely different kind of horror and film from the Thing so ofc it's gonna be different. It's literally about the cruelty of humanity and ethics with mystery on the side. It's not 'cringe forced bad horror vs cool poetic meaningful horror' Saw when you actually break it down and put aside your biases, has some interesting themes to explore. The first Saw movie was genuinely interesting and unique in it's own right even after the series went downhill. Yeah it's got oversaturated stuff in it, it's dated and some stuff is cringey, but you're comparing apples and oranges then labelling the apples as the better flavour. It's just different types of horror. Tired of the elitist attitude and tone people have when discussing media, to label something as 'cringey forced self harm the masses don't have to pay attention to' is just terrible analysis of anything. Completely uncharitable.
The first Saw is an excellent thriller, and the second was still fun to watch (the needle pit is just… my favorite). 3+ can f right off. I‘ve watched the entirety just for the heck of it, and wouldn’t do it again.
But I do recommend Dead Meat‘s Kill Count series.
Even if the movies aren’t for you, watching the behind the scenes stuff here on UA-cam just show how much love and care was given. And seeing how the traps work from a production pov is just awesome, so much creativity.
The momster, not a typo, in The Color Out of Space, was probably one of the gnarliest body horror things I've seen. It was built up super well in my opinion.
i like body horror because it freaks me out so badly, but i feel like i can only handle it once every few months IF THAT
I'm usually grossed by the body horror, then I put myself as the Main character and imagine the body horrors are all happening to me to get more grossed out lol
body horror is my favourite horror genre because of how hopeless the situation always is. it's disturbing, yes, but it's scary because there's no escape.
I wrote my final essay about this a couple semesters ago! I adore body horror because it makes us face our true vulnerability and how weak we truly are. It’s a very effective and truly unsettling type of horror
y'know what's even better than 2:08? When they're alarmingly, maniacally euphoric about it. Body horror honestly just doesn't get to me as much as it does most other people, but Discover My Body by Yames has stuck with me over the last couple years specifically because the subject was sickeningly delighted about all of the terrible(?) things happening to him.
The fly 2 really shook me with how it ended so i highly recommend you watch the fly and its sequel. Another movie i highly recommend is Mad God by Phil Tippet, would love to hear your perspective on it. Its a movie with no dialogue and has alot of attention to detail to tell its story in its own weirdly disgustingly beautiful way.
I just found your channel through the algorithm and love your videos. Found your from the skinamarink video and binged your other vids. Love the content, keep it up!
The Fly 2 is very underrated as a sequel. A lot of good stuff in there with some touching commentary on the ethics of animal testing.
@@msscott22 I agree with the animal testing commentary, however, I could not handle Martin as a character and the movie felt stale af. Did enjoy Stathis' scene, though.
Body horror comes in many forms the only one I could say I enjoy are from certain Sci-fi books where humans do extreme modifications for example like how they insert tubes that hook up to machines that they carry around to live longer or breathe in atmospheres humans normally couldn't survive or when they describe installing bionic eyes and they go into the gross detail of how they remove the natural eyes and implant the mechanical ones and so on. Not sure if any that kind of body horror could ever be adapted well in a movie.
I think the reason I prefer body horror is that it’s actually scary. Things like body horror and psychological horror get me the most because it’s things that could actually happen and I can imagine myself in those scenarios as opposed to supernatural things and cheap jumpscares.
To some degree, most movies have some aspect of body horror. Gore in and of itself is a form of body horror, and the fear of being dismembered or mutilated is a very real fear. Slasher movies capitalize on that fear, especially franchises like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hellraiser.
As for zombies being considered a form of body horror, I'm not sure that this is the case. Demonic possession, or having AI implants that control you; having anything in you that isn't you which can influence your behavior is scary, but I think this has more to do with the psychological fear of not being in control of our thoughts and actions, which isn't exactly body horror, it's more like identity horror. With that in mind, conditions like Vampirism and Lycanism are also forms of identity horror; the idea that our thoughts and behaviors don't belong to us, and that we might act in ways we don't intend.
However, Werewolf transformation and zombification come with another element that is body horror, and that's the destruction of our physical, visible identity.
Furthermore, Tusk and Human Centipede are among some of the most extreme body horror films, but most of the major milestones in the genre were not even briefly mentioned.
Testuo: The Iron Man
The Blob
The Fly
Body Melt
Basket Case
We're scared of these things for a founded psychological reason, posited by Sigmund Frued, The Uncanny. We're terrified of things that aren't familiar to us, which explains a lot of psychological processes and even goes as far as to explain some fundamental issues with society and culture, such as that that some people who live in societies where they expect people to look a certain way sometimes are scared of people with a different skin tone, because it seems uncanny to them.
The Uncanny preys on our sensibilities and what's familiar to us. Being murdered is scary, sure, but being murdered by a man in a mask is scarier because it's more uncanny. Dying in a fire is scary, sure, but having a parasite eat us from the inside out is scarier. It's scarier because its less common, it's less familiar, and it's strange. It challenges our brain's preconceived notions of reality.
This is why every conventional slasher doesn't look human. They wear masks, they're burned up, they should be dead but aren't, etc. They're uncanny. They're almost human, they're almost on the cusp of what our minds believe to be real, but because they're just outside of the boundaries of reality they distort and confuse our minds. The uncanny is a highly visceral and visual experience. Micheal Meyers is just a guy in a mask, but he's 10x scarier with the mask because it just makes him look - uncanny - hollowed out, black eyes, dead-pan stare.
He has an almost human appearance that steps just outside of the bounds of what we know, stripped of our most human elements - expression and eyes - to make him into a monster.
Body horror plays into this literary device 10 fold. Rather than showing us something that's on the cusp of being possible, it goes way out into the left field to show us things that are beyond abnormal. It stretches the human body beyond its limit, it distorts the things that are familiar into something that's almost, if not entirely, unrecognizable.
Also adding Thanatomorphose to that list. Contracted. Virus has a very special element of body horror as well.
I think zombies aren’t body horror themselves, but overlap can definitely occur. A good example are the infected from the Left 4 dead games. The mutations that occur as a result of the virus in those games always screamed body horror to me.
yes!!!
I'm a big fan of body horror. The Japanese body horror is enhanced by anime. You can do so much with it. I don't know why I love it but maybe it's the idea that something can totally alter you from your original form. But it's also the weird supernatural reasons why it happens that is interesting, like junto ito, parasyte, or parasite eve.
When i first watched FMA brotherhood I was suprised by the amount of body horror, loved that series tho. Then theres that crazy body horror/mutation scene from Akira i think too
Would Audition/Odishon count? I thought that was revolting.
I'm not really a big fan of this type of horror, to be honest. It just seems to be done for shock value. The only proponent of the genre who actually made movies with stories was David Cronenberg.
@@rld1982 I'd say Audition is more of a slasher, albeit a much slower-paced and personal one, rather than your typical run-for-your-life version.
NOT THE WALRUS MOVIE I HATE IT SO MUCH BRO
0:03 Movie(s)? ... Oh no... We're gonna talk about *that* one...
The Thing is downright beautiful in the world of horror and film. Like that is genuinely just an amazing movie within and without the horror genre.
No way I got a hollow prayer ad before this
the only fear i get out of this genre of horror is that, whatever happens in the movie is possible to happen in real life to anyone. like thats what scares me
not all the time but the ones that do yeah it's... fucked. And has probably happened.
@rockeyhead3846 what makes you think that most of these things already happened?
fritzl @@juliancordella7282
@@juliancordella7282 i mean ive heard about a few cases in some parts of europe a longgg time ago
I have been awaiting a video on this topic for so long now. But some great examples of body horror would be just the whole entire concept of All Tomorrows. Also the Goosebumps book "Calling All Creeps!".
Body horror has always given me a sense of uneasiness due to me imagining myself in these situations like being a zombie or being a part of the human centipede
If you like body horror, Junji Ito is a must. He’s a very popular manga artist who specializes in stories about body horror. Uzumaki is where his skill really shines. I’d definitely recommend reading him if you want to get into more body horror.
Human centipede 3 having references to the first two movies through similar characters is so funny to me. It's probably the least disturbing of the 3 but definitely has some weird scenes
There's a 3rd one!? The fuck
It's wild to me you thought 3 was the least disturbing, I thought that was way worse than the first two
3 and 1 are on a similar level, I just think 2 is horrid
@@alyssaclayton7464
@@alyssaclayton7464 I get where they’re coming from, the third got so outlandish it became ridiculous thus making it less disturbing, the other two feel somewhat within the realm of possibility which is what makes them so frightening or disturbing
i've come back to this video a couple of times in the past year and it has genuinely changed my life. no blame to the creator, the video is very well-made and prefaced. i made the decision to watch it consciously and i wholeheartedly regret it to this day, yet i can't help but look into the movies again and again for whatever reason. body horror fascinates me, but i am not a horror fan and i CANNOT handle it. i haven't even watched the movies, but the sole idea of the creation of a human centipede has terrified me so deeply that for a year i've had the images i've seen from the movie haunt me at random times. at this point, i know the whole plot of the movie without ever having watched it because this video sparked such an unfortunate curiosity in me. the words "tendons in their knees" randomly pop into my mind every once in a while and they make my skin crawl because they remind me of the human centipede. in an attempt to resist looking up the human centipede again the other day, i decided to look up tusk this time. i closed the wikipedia page before i had read the whole plot. it is my own unfamiliarity with horror and curiosity that has caused me to feel this way repeatedly. but this video opened this slightly traumatizing door for me. only goes to show the power of body horror. the mere idea of it is horrifying enough for many. nevertheless, i find this channel very entertaining. keep up the good work!
Spot on with the zombie claim! Ever since I was little and had first heard what they were, I was always terrified at the thought of becoming one, rather than living in some apocalypse. The uncertainty of it, and how I feel most people would rather be dead. It's terrifying. I think that's why zombie movies never scare me, they never truly explore the concept.
Body horror is also a genre I tend to stay away from, yet the Thing and the Fly are two of my favorite horror movies of all time. I remember watching the Thing with my brother for the first time, and we were full-blown adults by this point, but we were still screaming when the dog revealed itself as the alien. I also remember when the Human Centipede came out. I was in college and people were pretty much being like "Dude, I dare you to watch this movie. I bet you can't get through it." My roommate was going to quit, but I was like "Hey, I'll watch it with you." That's the only time I've watched it and that's all I needed.
I have strange relationship with this, gore doesn’t really affect me but body horror isin’t exactly gore. I like drawing body horror, I always think its fun to create a disturbing picture, since I love eliciting emotion through my art, disgust is one of the easiest to trigger. But also I love artistic body horror, I dont know if it makes sense but body horror that is especificaly framed to look beautiful but still horrifying. This example is not body horror really but it causes me basically the same feeling: when I saw “all quiet in the western front”, besides crying a lot, one of the mane things that stuck with me about the movie was its cinematography and how the bodies are portrayed. There is this amazing shot of a man impaled by a tree with no arms, its a terrifiyng image but its so well made, he is wearing white and the blood on his shoulders is staining the clothes and its a really beautiful shot. Same thing with the first friend Paul (the main character) sees die, when he looks at his friend’s face half of it is covered in dry green mud and the other in blood with little parts of his rosy light skin peaking out. One of my favorite details was that he had blue eyes so in the bloody side his sclera was fully red and the shining blue iris was just sticking out of the red. I liked it so much that I painted it.
body horror is the only type of horror that can affect me to this day
i never get scared from anything else
Okay so I LOVE body horror 😂 it’s so uncomfy and I can’t look away. Human Centipede is my favorite, and Tusk surprised me - I thought I was going to hate it but I didn’t.
Tusk remains to this day my least favorite movie I have ever watched. Justin Long’s screams were so disturbing, I’ll never be able to unsee that.
My friends and I watched this when it came out on Netflix I think it was. We were freaking 12 at the time, school called off so no parents around. The ending was so disturbing to me, i couldn’t shake the feelings it left me with for months.
Can't forgive you for forgeting about "Distric 9" and "Splice" those 2 might be the best body horror movies after "The Thing"
Splice gets extra points for its gnostic Sophia allegory.
Bite gets harder to enjoy when you consider the fact that no one wouldn't immediately seek medical attention in her situation
Extremely good thumbnail and title
This was super interesting to watch because I LOVE body horror. The thing is,, i haven't seen a single body horror movie.
A ton of the stuff I consume is online stories (creepypastas, horror fanfiction) or manga (junji ito is iconic)
Hell I WRITE a shit ton of body horror. One of my stories is just about it
Tho personally I think I enjoy body horror because I have experienced it first hand (in a way). Growing up I had a ton of psychosis issues which caused awful sensations and left my body feeling ill fitted in a way that was straight up disturbing. Not "puberty is hard boohoo" but "the nerves in my arms are sinking out and detaching from my flesh" or "my bones are vibrating under my skin". Wouldn't recommend.
Tho now that I think about it my stories are unlike a lot of this stuff cause mine almost always have a happy ending. Or at least a bittersweet one
I enjoy the idea that, yes you are experiencing a fate worse than death, but eventually you kinda learn to deal with it. You will never be the same, but you will be okay. You can live on, even if it sucks. Life is still worth living.
(Probably says a lot about how I dealt with my own horrors lol)
But that's just my perspective lol. Amazing video! Its always cool to see people discuss horror!
**says something horrific but also inspiring** lol
Never knew what happens in human centipede 2. Didn't think it could get worse than the first one. I will be steering clear 🙏
Human Centipede 3 actually slaps. It's like a parody of the first two and ends up being more funny then actually scary. It still has the shock body aspect but it's also super aware of it's own ridiculousness.
i dont believe you for a fucking second, i can talk about the most disgusting things while eating but the human centipede made me lose all apatite for a few DAYS (sorry if this comes off as aggressive im just beyond traumatised from the "feed her" scene)
It's ridiculous. 1 was a movie, 2 was uncomfortable, 3 was self aware. Dieter Laser played an amazing role too.
@@dontnubblemebro those were so gross 1 was sad and disgusting 2 I couldn’t finish scard me and I won’t watch 3. Shame on people who make that it could really happen☹😭. Just another reason not to travel abroad.
@@SamClark-mf7es it's a movie
The way I knew immediately what movie was for the thumbnail 💀
I feel like I'm a unique case because body horror is profoundly disturbing to me but if I think about it too long it becomes somewhat of a fixation. I think a big part of why I find it so disturbing is because of the suffering that is inherent in most of these scenarios. Like, I love the human centipede for it's concept but the thought of being part of one is disgusting and horrific on a number of levels. I think on some level body horror plays into a fear we all have, similar to that theory about how the uncanny valley scares people because it reminds them of death and disease, the thought of being stuck in a body that you can't escape that is gradually becoming sicker and less human is a very terrifying thought. I will say though I love the creativity that comes with this territory, I've came up with a few body horror creatures myself and they can be fun to design, I guess the trick is to not think about it too much.
no i LOVE body horror content i think it can be such an amazing way to express an array of things it is probably my favourite little genre of film
I feel like practical effects vs CGI is soooo important in body horror. Being able to truly see the look in the eyes of the protagonist of Tusk and all of the drool and his movements just couldn't have been done with CGI. Same thing with The Thing. I haven't seen the 2011 remake of it, but the clips I've seen of it just don't feel as real. They don't have the same weight and impact as a true practical effect does.
Nah the human centipede scarred me for life. Can't stomach it and I want to cry whenever I see it
Just by seeing the thumbnail i knew what i was getting into. The 1st human centipede movie in my opinion is the worst one out of the 3 because it feels real and its very uncomfortable while the other 2 are even funny in some ways
The movie midsommar is the movie that terrified me
i wrote a substack article about this while looking at the film "jacob's ladder" from 1990. my theory on why body horror "gets" to so many seasoned horror fans (myself included) is because it falls into the uncanny valley - it's like a primal fear to be unnerved by humanoid beings who don't match our own anatomy. maybe even something deeper there about greater society perceives disabled/disfigured individuals as grotesque
I can tell this is going to ruin my night or more but I’m still going to watchit
Bizarro Horror, Weird Horror and Transgressive Horror are definitely some of the most underrated and unappreciated subgenres.
I find it amazing what kind of thoughts people have to have to create stuff like that. Personally the most disturbing part in body horror for me is when the victim becomes something like an animal or object. It's not only the transformation but also the thought that the victim was absolutley helpless to their situation and others just decided over their lives and they now have to live with the consequences. Ig its the helpness that scares me the most.
I have never seen "Tusk" but as much as I am curious to see how disturbing it is, I don't think I am gonna be able to to watch it any time soon, or just any body horror in general. Though now I am really tempted to watch the human centipede.
A lot of that stuff happened that’s where the idea came from
Honestly body horror has never really gotten to me, even when i was younger. I think this is mostly because the amount of agony the people usually are in is LITERALLY unthinkable, i can't even imagine it. When its more believable/imaginable body horror it actually does get me (Judd getting his achilles heel sliced in pet sematary actually got me pretty good because well... ouch)
I believe that I LOVE body horror. It’s the kind of horror that messes with you both physically and psychologically. It is a very intense genre, and it’s hard to find any good body horror pieces anymore. I’ve branched out to analog horror since it is the closest thing to getting in that sweet spot of being grotesque, but not overly grotesque. The human centipede movies though? Overboard completely
Body Horror is the only horror that gets me.
Yeah, I had a similar reaction to The Human Centipede I watched the first one and was like "yeah that wasn't so bad" then I tried to watch the second and I could not make it though that movie.
I think the scariest part of this movie is that its *actually* possible.
Always wanted to find a way to discuss the fear I had around the idea of parasites and zombies, to imagine yourself in those situations, the hope of ever being able to find a "cure" and be human again, only to watch as that hope gets harder and harder to find is horrifying... anyways, great video! I'll definitely be checking more of this channel out!
Body horror is the only genre of horror that actually disturbs me; and that is why it’s my favorite lol
Body horror is one of my favourite types of horror. Also I love that you mentioned V/H/S !
Crimes of the Future has to be one of the most disturbing yet philosophical body horror films of the decade for sure. It left me genuinely thinking about the premise long after the film stopped playing. Who else has seen this gem by one of the kings of body horror?
One piece of body horror media I truly wish I could erase from my memory is creepypasta called the pancake family. It is exactly like the name implies. I usually have a pretty good stomach for horror and even body horror to an extent, but I listened to this story at work about a month ago and it now lives rent free in my mind and I just pray to god I will eventually forget about it.
I cannot take Human Centipede seriously because it is simply unrealistic. There is no one in the world who would be interested in doing something like that, and besides, the victims probably wouldn't survive the operation if it was done by only one person.
Body horror has to have a certain level of realism to be really scary, like 28 Days Later, for example. This movie is much scarier because you're under constant stress and rooting for the characters not to get infected. It's like watching yourself on the screen and trying to run away from a horrible infection which takes over your mind.
I disagree it could be done very easily and that’s what’s gross some mad man could do it with tools and things from a hospital.
i remember when i was fifteen my friend showed me the trailer for human centipede and i don't know why but i felt such empathy for the characters, (from just watching the trailer!) that i got home and cried so hard in front of my family telling them how awful those people must have it, how that's the worst fate possible, how could a human do something like that to another and just like, poured my heart out and my family was so freaked out they forbid anyone from even mentioning the movie ever again in front of me 'cause otherwise i'd start tearing up. and they took it really serious too, like we don't take many things serious but they were all so nice to me about it. i guess they must've seen how deep my feelings were. anyway, almost ten years later and no one in my family ever said the movie's name again
Body horror is great. I remember it was a Doctor Who episode about the cybermen (humans cut up and had their emotions removed and "upgraded" into a cybernetic body) that really creeped me out when I was little which really shaped my love for body horror
Slither , that lady in the barn had to be the absolute worst way to go .
Your channel deserves so much more exposure!
The movie broken from nine inch nails was my first exposure to this kinda thing. Really freaked me out.
As a trans person, I love body horror, especially Junji Ito's work. It's the closest thing I can find that represents the unease, lack of control, and disgust that comes with going through the wrong puberty, and watching your body become something you're repulsed by.
As a trans person, you yourself are part of the body horror
I agree, body horror is extremely interesting and somewhat relatable as a trans person
BOO 👻
just dont be trans
oh my god yes. you explained it so perfectly. gender dysphoria is gruesome. i wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy.
I remember when I first watched The Thing with my dad. I loved and hated it at the same time, but the acting, effects, and story truly make it memorable. I watched the first human centipede because I was curious about it. I ended up not sleeping for days. Now that I know what happens, I might try the series again. I’m not sure if I could watch The Walrus or any of these other movies.
I always the bleaker the better I can't believe you don't love bleak endings, especially Tusk!
Have you seen Martyrs? Really intense body horror I had to actually walk out of the room and mostly listen to it from the kitchen and just peek in when I felt safe.
I once accidentally came across the human centipede movie. There were many sleepless nights after that.
No tusk?
I'm so glad the algo randomly recommended me this video. it's awesome!
Same lol, hes a great narrator
My dad wanted me to watch tusk with him a few months ago, but after explaining the premise i was like “haha NOPE”. I looked it up later and realized i dodged a bullet, that movie seems super fucked up 💀
Yup, the movie starts off ok but gets really twisted and dark halfway through.
I didn't know BITE existed till I watched this... now I gotta find it!
I relate a lot to this stuff as a trans person. The feeling of your body changing into something that isn’t yours. 😣
Luckily i’ve been feeling whatever the opposite of it is lately
the fact that the full film human centipede was on youtube and a 12 year old me stumbled across it
Wait, you're telling me this guy DOESNT have 100,000 subscribers? Jesus..
yeah I just stumbled on his content and its is without a doubt incredible.
Props on the title and especially thumbnail, instant recognition and knowing i couldnt not click it haha