#body-horror

#body-horror

Bodies, for Lanthimos, are ill-fitting shells. Uncomfortable carapaces. We wear them, often awkwardly, because we have to, but we're typically struggling with the urge to take them off, trade them out, or-having failed to control our own-control those of others. Bodies betray us, fall apart, stop working, or inadequately represent our true selves. Maybe, if we're determined enough, we can inhabit a different body by taking someone else's.

Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) is a psychopathologist undergoing radical research, experimenting with psychedelic substances while immersing himself in a sensory deprivation tank. He hopes the research may help him further understand, or perhaps even cure, conditions like schizophrenia. Eddie starts having increasingly bizarre visions, bursting with bold colors and unthinkable imagery. Those visions fuel his desire to further his research, experimenting with extensive drug use, including ones from indigenous Mexican tribes.

The book opens with Pieces, a web of vignettes concerning the fate of amputated body parts, some surgically removed, others lost by accident or acts of violence. In the world of this story, one cannot enter heaven with a body less than fully intact, and the careful provisions that must be made for lost limbs and excised organs animate the business operations and spiritual rites of an entire small town.

Coralie Fargeat's no-holds-barred satire about the tyranny of female beauty standards and the perceived horrors of ageing features an inspired bit of casting in Demi Moore, who plays a role with echoes of her own career. More than holding her own amid a splurge of wince-inducing makeup effects, Moore is Elisabeth, a 50-year-old film star reduced to doing an aerobics show on TV.

If you're considering bathroom renovations, I would perhaps advise against hiring Lisa Herfeldt to do the work. Yes, it's true, she's something of a whiz with a silicone gun creating compelling sculptures from this unlikely art material. But the more you look at her creations the more you realise that something is a little off. The thick lengths of sealant she produces stretch beyond the shelves on which they sit, sagging off the edges towards the floor. The knotty foam pipes bulge until they split.

Yes, I'm talking about the Eyeball, the seventh-grade horror fan's notebook doodle come to CGI life, which is being held on Boy Kavalier's island with the rest of Weyland-Yutani's intergalactic spoils. While there are many new creatures that crashed to Earth aboard the specimen-filled Maginot, a ship on a biological-research mission, there is only one with the kind of shit-talking (and shit-taking) main-character energy to ensure it will be haunting our nightmares even longer than the original Xenomorph.

There is a certain degree of body horror baked into American football that becomes readily apparent whenever players sustain gruesome, career-ending injuries on camera. For some, football's overt violence is part of its appeal, and players are seen as people who have chosen to risk their safety in pursuit of fame and glory. Over the years, the public has become much more aware of football's potential to leave players' bodies and minds irreparably damaged.

I don't think I was supposed to feel emotional during The Toxic Avenger, a movie in which the title character pulls someone's intestines out through their asshole. But the truth is that I genuinely did get a little teary the first time Toxie triumphantly enters the scene of a hostage situation wielding his radioactive mop and preparing to dole out justice in generous gouts of red-dyed Karo syrup and fake viscera.

Ula Zuhra is a Bali-based illustrator, cartoonist and writer behind the full length graphic novel, Aca & Ica: Collected Stories. In the debut piece, the artist explores themes of "feminism, class, eroticism, mythological, and esoteric practices in Indonesia through a tongue-in-cheek satirical lens," the artist says. Throughout Arca & Ica, Ula often opts for a heady balance of high contrast black-and-white, set aside moments of vibrant colour.

The latest AI video generators allow anyone to generate scenes of horror that would make David Cronenberg feel queasy, and yet it's hard to look away.