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.