The Body Horror Genre is a difficult one to come to terms with. I dont know what David Cronenberg is reaching for inside James Woods but it isnt good.
Yes Body Horror is all about special effects but tell that to the number of people who get nauseated at the sight of these things.
What is Body Horror?
Body Horror is where the horror parts are all something to do with something going visibly wrong with the human body. These films have no jump scares but the scares are undoubtedly visual and mental.
I have not been a big fan of the genre as the earlier films I've seen of Cronenberg repulsed me. But i consider it necessary that i mention all the horror genres here and of the few films i have scene that fall in this category i can come to a sort of conclusion.
I saw Brian Yuzna's Society as i was curious about the 'shunting' scene that has a lot of mentions in this genre. Boy was it gross. It is the sort of scene that makes you forget everything else that happened in the film.
Other films like Slither in 2006 and even Altered States in 1980 can also count as Body horror. Even The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers as there are alterations to the human body in them.
But it is almost exclusively Cronenberg. I havent seen Re-Animator (yet) and i dont know anyone else except maybe films like Basket Case and Brain Damage.
Firstly Cronenberg stopped making such films since his 1999 film eXistenz which wasnt even a horror movie in itself but had the weird disfiguration/ something entering the body scenes.
Of his films the ones i have seen are The Fly; Videodrome and Dead Ringers. And Crash obviously.
The final two are not horror films as Crash is overtly sexual with some crazy sex (and i mean crazy) and Dead Ringers is just a drama in which Cronenberg couldnt help but put one trademark scene of Genevieve Bujold biting off a cord connecting the twin Jeremy Irons' characters in a dream.
The thing about Cronenberg's films is they always get straight to the fuckin point at the start. No need for a build up. Crash starts off with the sex and The Fly with Seth Brundle asking Geena Davis' character to come home so he can show her something.
Lets stick with The Fly. When i saw it first on TV in parts; my brother called the developing Seth Brundle 'Chocolate man' and my father would tell us to sleep or Chocolate man would come. That was effective for nealry 4 years.
I finally got down to watching The Fly in full 3 years ago and i could appreciate it.
Cronenberg's films were in the late 70s and 80s and people must have been very uncomfortable and grossed out watching these things happening to the human body - before the magic of computerized animation.
It is great that his latest films from A History of Violence to his latest A Dangerous Method are all very good but completely different from his early offerings.
BUT apparently his son Brandon just directed his own film Antiviral which is a body horror. In the genes?
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