Issue: Body Horror

A series of comic panels, showing a man's arm being transplanted

Monstrous Bioengineering and Horrifying “Transplants” in Farmhand (2018-present)

Brianna M. Anderson On January 7, 2022, David Bennett Sr. became the first living human to receive a genetically modified animal heart. In an experimental procedure, doctors replaced Bennett’s failing heart with one taken from a genetically modified pig engineered by the biotechnology company Revivicor, Inc. Bennett died two months later—potentially from a latent porcine […]

A woman sits on the ground with a building to the right. It's dark.

Contemporary Body Horror: On the Rise of Metamorphic Corporeality

Xavier Aldana Reyes It is a familiar story by now. The same month I delivered the manuscript for Contemporary Body Horror (2024) to my publisher, two films premiered that I wish I had had the opportunity to include in the book: Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, 2024), a co-production between the UK and the US, […]

close up of a dead girl head

Vulnerability of the Female Corpse

Kelly Gredner We are no stranger to the violence inflicted upon human bodies when watching horror films. As the story progresses, bodies pile up, bloodied and marred, with the audience watching with trepidation while munching on salty popcorn. We watch people die at the hands of otherworldly creatures such as ghosts, demons, and aliens, entertained […]

A shot of a woman's face, screaming, multiplied many times across the screen

Visions of Mutation: Scientific Discovery in The Fly

Sarah Thompson Few films capture the tensions between scientific ambition and the fragility of the human body quite like The Fly. Released in 1958 and remade by David Cronenberg in 1986, both versions of The Fly are tales of transformation. Each film tells the story of a scientist whose teleportation experiment goes horribly wrong, leading […]