Body Horror

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

History of Body Horror:
David Cronenberg, Frank Henelotter, Brain Yuzna, Stuart Gordon, Llyod Kaufman, and Clive Barker are notable directors of this genre. Cronenberg is one of the principal originators of the body horror genre.

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

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

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

Short films may include:

• The Herd
• Renaissance 

Key body horror movies may include:

• The Human Centipede Series 
• The Fly 
• Society 
• The Thing 
• Dead Ringers 

Conventions of body horror are difficult to pin down as the genre is so wide, but what all body horror movies tend to hinge upon is the Primal Fear of the Uncanny Valley, deformity, parasites, contamination, the ravages of disease, and the aftermath of bodily injury. Common camera techniques used may include close ups, panning, tilting, zooming, and eye level angles. 

Feature film: 'The Human Centipede' 

• Rating of 49% from Rotten Tomatoes - "Grotesque, visceral and hard to (ahem) swallow, this surgical horror doesn't quite earn its stripes because the gross-outs overwhelm and devalue everything else." 
• Entertainment Weekly praised Tom Six's direction; saying Six "has put together his nightmare yarn with Cronenbergian care and precision".  

The Herd

This short film is an example of body horror; the film entails the idea of women being held against their will and farmed for the milk they produce for their children, just as we use cows today. The use of this symbolism is effective as the captivity and the restraint agaisnt these women for something naturally given and then taken from them is ubrupt to the audience; furthermore, the message at the end of the film that the process of farming women for this reason is due to the vanity of the human race in that it is used for a anti-aging facial cream. This therefore portrays a distorted message at the price of our vanity and our need to meet beauty standards; 'The Herd' also evokes the question/message as to how far soceity will go to perfom at the highest level and at what cost. This is effective in the horror as our society is advancing everyday, the world is changing very fast and many there is no clear goal as to where we are heading; this sense of uncertainty evokes fear into the audience.

Human Form
'Human Form' is an example of Korean body horror; this film, like 'The Herd', portrays a distorted message surrounding society's expectations concerning our appearance.

Zombie Horror

Roles/events stereotypically within the genre:

• Leader 
• Children 
• Moronic character that messes everything up 
• An individual, stereo typically a girl, emotionally attached to a zombie
• Zombies are killed
• Mass destruction
• Panicked individuals

What has been said about the film? How have audiences received it? Why is it a classic of its genre? 

'Night of the Living Dead' - 1968 - an American independent horror film - directed by George A. Romero. 

This zombie horror film was made with a $114,000 budget and premiered on October 1st 1986. The film became a financial success, grossing $12 million domestically and $18 million internationally. It has been considered a classic ever since. However, it was heavily criticised for its explicit gore. 

The story follows a family being attacked by a large and growing group of unnamed "living dead" monsters drawing on earlier depictions in popular culture of the ghoul which has led this type of creature to be referred to most popularly as a zombie. 'Night of the Living Dead' led to five subsequent films between 1978 and 2010, also directed by Romero, and inspired two remakes.

Reception:
The film had earned between $12 and $15 million at the American box office after a decade. It was translated into more that 25 languages and released across Europe, Canada and Australia. The Wall Street Journal reported that it was the top-grossing film in Europe 1969.
More than 40 years after its release, the film enjoys a reputation as a classic and still receives positive reviews; review website Rotten Tomatoes collected 52 reviews and gave 'Night of the Living Dead' a 96% and it is regarded by many as one of the best films of 1968.

Critical response:
Reviewers disliked the film's gory special effects. The New York Times critic Vincent Canby referred to the film as a "junk movie" as well as "spare, uncluttered, but really silly".
Some reviewers cited the film as groundbreaking. Pauline Kael called the film "one of the most gruesomely terrifying movies ever made - and when you leave the theatre you may wish you could forget the whole horrible experience... The film's grainy, banal seriousness works or it - gives it a crude realism".

Identified patterns of conventions: Two short films
'Waterborne': Within this short film, the zombies were animals of whom drank from a contaminated lake, which thus led them to attacking a park ranger. Key conventions found in this was a contrast between slow and fast editing, introducing main characters, cliff hanger, main people dying, conflict between two characters.
'Alice Jacobs is dead': This film is set in a post-apocoliptic world after the virus has been cured, one man is hiding his wife who will eventually become a zombie. Key conventions used in this are the apocalyptic world, a betrayer, a character attached to a zombie emotionally, and zombies repopulating the earth.

What do experts say about this genre:

History:
Films featuring zombies have been part of cinema since the 1930s, with 'White Zombie' (1932) being one of the earliest examples. With George A.Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' (1968), the zombie trope began to be increasingly linked to consumerism. Today, zombie films are released with such regularly (at least 55 titles were released in 2014) that they can be viewed as a separate sub-genre of Horror films.
Codes and conventions:

• a tight community of protagonists 
• isolation 
• apocalyptic world 
• contrast between slow and fast editing 
• chase scenes
• abandoned locations
• want to survive
• shot in the head to kill

Typical character conventions:

• leader 
• children
• betrayer
• human sacrifice 
• eye candy
• nerd
• the dumb blonde (of whom usually dies first) 
• lead girl 
• 'moronic' character

Beginnings and endings:

• cliff-hangers 
• everyone dies 
• zombies are killed/cured
• show previous world before the apocalyptic state
• outbreak of virus 
• introduction of main characters

Story elements:

The first time someone interacts with or sees zombies are dangerous and traumatic, causing shock, panic and disbelief. The response of authorities to the threat is slower than its rate of growth, giving the zombie epidemic enough time to expand beyond containment. This results in the collapse of the given society and zombies take full control, while small groups of the living must fight for their survival. 

Most stories usually follow a single group of survivors, who have been caught up in the sudden rush of the crisis and they usually don't all know each other. The narrative generally progresses from the beginning of the zombie epidemic, then initial attempts to seek the aid of authorities, then failure, meaning they have to try surviving of their own. They usually focus on the way characters react to such an extreme catastrophe, and how their personalities are changed by the stress, often acting on more primal motivations than they would display in normal life e.g. being more violent because of their fear. 

Feature films: Conventions and ideas 

'Night of the Living Dead' (1968) - woman falling over is the first response to seeing a zombie, woman being helpless, needs to be saved - isolated place, abandoned house, the want to survive, shot in the head to kill. 

Comedy Horror

Short film: Toast / Phobia

• sex is almost always involved
• always a random turn of events
• the victim is oblivious and isn't as scared as they should be

Comedy horror is a literary and film genre that combines the elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorised under three types: "black comedy, parody and spoof." The genre almost inevitably crosses over with the black comedy genre. Comedy horror will often use satire on horror cliches as its main source of humour or take a story in a different perspective, such as 'The Cabin in the Woods' and 'Drag Me To Hell'.

Author, Bruce G. Hollenbeck, cites the short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving as "the first great comedy horror story". The story made readers "laugh one moment and scream the next", and its premise was based on mischeif typically found during the holiday Halloween.

In comedy horror film, gallows humour is a common element. As well as scares that comedy horrors provide for the viewers, it also provides something that dramatic horror films do not: "the permission to laugh at your fears, to whistle past the cinematic graveyard and feel secure in the knowledge that the monsters can't get you".

In the era of silent film, the source material for early comedy horror films came from stage performances instead of literature. One example, The Ghost Breaker (1914), was based on a 1909 play, though the film's horror elements were more interesting to the audience than the comedy elements. In the United States following the trauma of WW1, film audiences sought to see horror on screen but tempered wuth humour. The "pioneering" comedy horror film was One Exciting Night (1922), written, directed, and produced by D. W. Griffith, who noticed the stage success of the genre and foresaw a cinematic translation. While the film included blackface performances, Griffith also included footage of a hurracaine for a climatic storm. As an early experiment, the various genres were not well-balanced with horror and comedy, and later films improved the balance and took more sophisticated approaches. Charles Bramesco of Vulture.com identifies Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein as the first commercially successful comedy horror film. Its success legitimised the genre and established is as commercially viable.

Lots of reference to sex, very rude and lots of taboo subjects, shaky unprofessional camera work, lots of cliches.

The gore and specail effects are often very poorly done.

Reviews:

• "True, this film relies a bit much on poddy humour, but at the same time, there is a cleverness in the way a;l the films being spoofed (and there are many) get twisted together and played with here. Some of the slapstick and sight gags do fall flat, but the movie is quick paced and the satire is fun. If you don't go in expecting Shakespeare, you'll enjoy it. And you might even get some Shakespeare."
• "Though the comedy is frequently predictable, there is still elegance about the way Wayans achieves this effect. His close and unflinching style gives that humorous and equally horrific substance to fly across both genres into this tantalizing tale."
• "Funny, with better, more original writing that any spoof or other comedy I remember. First rate entertainment which keeps giving surprises which had me (and most of the audience) laughing aloud. Keenan Wayans (director) should be feeling on top of the world!"