The Catharsis of Body Horror [censored]

the FG rating was a tad more appropriate with the uncensored version but i had to censor so it’s really just a light FG

Thank you so much for this video

Doctor: yall have problems

This is one of the best video essays. Ive been a huge body horror fan for my whole life and found more and more that it represents beauty to me, an exploration and evolution into something unbound and yet still based on humanity. Im not being as eloquent as this video essay is, but I hope it made some bit of sense.

TW: WALRUS!!

For anyone who's also gained odovainophobia.

I fully agree with everything in this video, but also, I think it should be ok to like body horror for the simple fact it’s gross.

Just watched The Fly and came back to this video

I would be a fan of a lot of remakes or late sequels/spin-offs if they didn’t make SO many nowadays

wow.. new favorite channel

The cockroach transformation is scary right up until its completion and then it becomes comedic (like a lot of Freddy film scenes). I suppose the terror of transformation itself is the horror - being trapped between two states - a successful transformation brings us to a stage of finality we can then deal.

Body horror is so good because it’s so real it’s sooo real

fiction is such a great avenue for talking about bodies. what makes it great about the body is it is immediate, it has a form, and it has limits. so seeing that form change, those limits be breached, and something as immediate as our bodies be warped is intriguing in itself. and no matter who we are and what material possessions we have, we can all be victim to something that affects and limits our bodies. and that's fucking cool to see how one deals with it.

on another note i love that you used sophie here, her music Fucks

I watched this video when it came out while not really watching any horror. And now after more than a year, I've watched most of the film mentioned in this and many more body horror and horror movies in general. I became so attached probably because my struggle with my own body and gender identity. I even made a sound art piece for my contemporary sound art class in college about body transformation (I kind of incorporate the three Rs structure in my piece actually).
So thank you for introducing me to probably my favorite film subgenre and making this, my favorite video essay. This also has like the best soundtrack for any video essay ever.

This is one of the best video essay about this kind of topic I've ever seen on yt. Not only did it help with my screenwriting for the limited horror body tv series for my diploma, but also made me even more excited about body horror. Thank you so much, great editing, great opinion and arguments.

I think it is worth mentioning a rather insane game, that i feel does a very great job at capturing these themes, called “fear and hunger” (spoiler warning) at the end of the first game (in the ending A play through cause there are like 12 different endings) you and your party travel to the lowest part of the prison you are trapped within. Amongst your company is a young girl who you have protected throughout the game. Being your first party member, she is incredibly weak and fragile. When you arrive at the final depths she suddenly turns pale and begins a horrifying transformation (which act as the phases for the boss fight in each stage). As the companion you knew throughout the experience rapidly transforms into a new being, you can only survive its collateral attacks from this uncontrollable evolution before it is reborn as “the god of fear and hunger.” Its final act to you upon its metamorphosis is mercy, as it watches over you as you peacefully bleed to death. Telling you to rest, and take peace in the inevitable. Considering F&H is definitively the most difficult game i have ever played this moment was so shockingly cathartic and so different than the prior experience, and created a beautiful moment i still vividly remember. If you can stomach the subject material (which is admittedly highly disturbing) it’s a wonderful experience strongly recommend

the use of faceshopping was sublime!

Wonderful video on a great genre.

This was amazing. It gave me new language to put menstruation into context

I've recently took up a further interest in the genre, having gone through my own body horror experience last year. A severe health crisis led to my body becoming unrecognizable and I had to navigate feeling like a stranger in my own skin. I'm doing a lot better now, but I think these films are helping me process what happened and what could happen again, and how I can learn to exist within that framework. Wonderful video; keep up the good work! <3

body horror? not to me. not if its you.

Request: There are so many films which have been forgotten over time. Please, Review the horror film Mr. Frost with Jeff Goldblum, the sci-fi films Scanner Cop 1 and Split Second with Rutger Hauer, the John Candy comedies Only the Lonely and Summer Rental along with The Resurrected horror movie with Chris Sarandon. Thank you!!!!

I am trans, and for years, even before coming out, I felt like Cronenberg movies just showed what the experience of having a body was. Body horror has always felt extremely cathartic. Happy to see this is a somewhat common experience.

"I could conceive of a beauty contest where people would unzip themselves and show you the best spleen and the best-looking viscera."

So that's where that scene in Crimes of the Future came from.

as an artist, I started drawing body horror around last year when roe was overturned. I got really bad anxiety about my own body, and how it could make my life hell if something dreadful were to happen. body horror has helped me feel more in control of how I present myself; for me, it’s a massive “fuck you” to the objectification of women by portraying my body how I feel in it, rather than how other people may see it. it’s honest and uncompromising, and I think there’s something beautiful about that.

we need more body horror

Another fantastic video! I really started getting into body horror in my early/mid 20's while spending 2 years working as a domestic care worker for elderly, physically disabled and mentally ill people. It was all pretty depressing but what really traumatised me was being young but having this intimate daily understanding what aging is like. Having the personality, thoughts, awareness, mental abilities and needs of your 25 year old self but having the agency of a new born baby, trapped in a prison of your very own flesh, the tools of your actualisation being indifferent and unresponsive to your will... But yeah because of this I felt very alone and isolated from most people so watching Body Horror was and still is really therapeutic. It's hard to describe but seeing these things portrayed so bluntly just goes to show that there's others out there with this understanding of the potential horrors of life. Seeing these biological things phrased as an external force speaks volumes about the human experience

great vid as always!!

You put into words so perfectly why I love the body horror sub genre. I also love hearing you talk about Teeth. It’s so underrated.

NEVER SUBMIT! NEVER SUCCUMB! NEVER RELENT!!! REMAIN UNCORRUPTED! REMAINNNNNN HUMANNNNNN!!

love this video! also, i appreciate the usage of No Love by Death Grips lol
that song, (along with many others by them) is the perfect soundtrack to a horror movie

Wes Craven: "horror films are not meant to scare you. they are meant to take the fear out of you."

Where are you? I miss your content

Man i just wanted to watch a video about people's faces going 🙃 and now I'm having an existential crisis

Came from FD Signifier and he was not wrong! Great analysis!

I really enjoyed your narration but pixeling out scenes in a video about body horror is just meh...

I feel like From Beyond is very interesting in regards to what you're talking about as it serves as a view of 80s conservativism. With McMichaels transformation towards the end showing something she would never indulge in otherwise, and while it's not as grotesque as what Crawford has to deal with it is notable that his inebriations are lost once he too changes. Going for McMichaels with gusto once he is able to see beyond himself through the resonator.
Idk I know it's not as good as the films you talked about, but still I think it adds a little something extra to this chaotic bi-panic educing 80s body horror flick.

I felt those The Stuff opinions on a visceral level.

Hmmmm. Okay I have a new appreciation for it.
Still not something I like to watch, which extends to regular scary movies, but this video was nice.

i had never seen the roach transformation scene and now that you have shown it to me i am worse off for it

❤❤❤❤❤❤

You have a really pretty voice

i feel that transgender people like myself have an intimate relationship with body horror

Yeah, this is my absolute favorite horror subgenre.

One of the things it resonates along is my persistent backdrop of health anxiety which is tied to weird gender feelings and self-focused tokophobia all rolled into one.

I like the liminal spaces like the Release part of the genre too. Superficially because I'm biracial and nonbinary. But also have been through so much personal trauma (not going to get into that in your comments section) and just somehow... persisting. (So one of my favorite categories of monsters are the Undead - especially the process of Turning and perhaps accepting that new existence.)

SOPHIE & Junji Ito in the same video?! You're the best.

Wow, this really made me look at some of my favorite movies in a different light.

She’s just like me fr

Teeth... O.O

I've always enjoyed body horror as a psychological story but it tends to cut straight to my lily liver. It's not the gore, it's not the uncanny, it's the deformity of your body, the betrayal of becoming a monster. Maybe because I have always been a fat person, and growing up my body didn't belong it me, it was the nightmare of others, it was an object of disgust and desire and none of that was mine. I've always been very neutral on my body.

Wow, I could NOT watch the scene where she turns into a cockroach, but I really feel like watching the movie now, along with all the others mentioned in the video. I didn't expect the video to touch me like it did, but I too feel like crying now.