Threats to the body are a basic element of the horror movie in general, and for many a hardcore fan the gorier and more imaginative the special effects employed to spill blood, the better. With body horror, filmmakers make our physical vulnerability their theme, taking the hyper-graphic spectacle of bodily harm to psychologically unnerving conclusions. Seen by some critics as a postmodern evolution of classical horror motifs, the sub-genre was pioneered by Canadian director David Cronenberg in the 1970s, followed over the ensuing decades by important works from Clive Barker, Frank Henenlotter, Takashi Miike, Eli Roth, and Shinya Tsukamoto.
The clearly metaphorical nature of the gruesome transformations that afflict bodies in Shivers (1975), The Fly (1986), Hellraiser (1987), Brain Damage (1988), Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), and Audition (1999) provide keys to interpreting their anatomical horrors beyond mere spectacle. The painful realism that characterizes the new wave of extreme body horror from France, by filmmakers like Marina de Van (In My Skin, 2002) and Julia Ducournau (Raw, 2017), makes for some of the harshest fantasy the genre has offered since the US classics The Last House on the Left (1972) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978). This is work that tests audiences’ limits and attests to the damaging degree of wear and tear afflicting the body politic today.
Organized by Ron Magliozzi, Curator, and Brittany Shaw, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Film, with Caryn Coleman, guest curator.
Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.
Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by Debra and Leon D. Black and by Steven Tisch, with major contributions from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Karen and Gary Winnick, and The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston.
