3 Underrated Body Horror Films That Will Gross You Out
Maybe skip the movie snacks for these ones
I love a good visually disturbing horror movie, and there’s a plethora to choose from. Body horror is a subgenre that focuses on graphic and psychologically disturbing distortions of the human body (or sometimes other creatures). We’re talking terrifying transformations, disgusting bodily decay, and often awe-inspiring practical effects work.
Typically, the conversation of body horror falls back to the powerhouse directors such as David Cronenberg (Videodrome, The Fly), Brian Yuzna (Society), and more recent newcomers like Julia Ducournau (Raw, Titane). Instead of focusing on the more popular entries to the subgenre, let’s dive into 3 indie films that deliver strong practical effects with a much smaller budget, designed to make us gag at our screens.
Contracted (2013)
“There's something wrong with me.”
Contracted gives a fresh spin to the standard zombie horror movie by allowing us to watch the transformation and all the bodily decay that comes with it, from the perspective of the character living through it.
The film follows Samantha, who’s struggling with the recent breakup with her girlfriend, Nikki (who by the way is a complete bitch the entire movie, but that’s a deep dive for another time). In an attempt to cheer up, she reluctantly agrees to attend her friend’s birthday party. Her friend ends up being a real gem too as this story progresses. In fact, everyone in her life is pretty much awful, including her own mother, but again I’m getting off-track.
At the party, she breaks a cardinal girl rule and accepts a drink from a complete stranger, and as you might expect, the drink is drugged and this upstanding young man takes her to his car and rapes her. She wakes up the next morning with what she assumes is a bad hangover, but as the next few days drag on, it gets so much worse.
It starts with an unholy level of what she thinks is just period bleeding and cramps, but soon her hair is falling out in clumps, her fingernails start falling off (at one point directly into a customer’s salad at the restaurant she works for), and her eyes turn bloodshot. It only gets more disgusting from there as she continues to basically fall apart.
If you’re uncomfortable with the idea of maggots falling out of very concerning body locations, Contracted will definitely make you reconsider that bag of popcorn you made for movie night.
Starry Eyes (2014)
“Ambition - the blackest of human desires.
Everyone has it, but how many act on it?”
Starry Eyes gets compared quite a bit to Contracted, and if you like one you’re likely to enjoy the other. Arriving around the same time period, they both have very similar slow burn vibes, pacing, and practical effects elements (yes, this one will feature plenty of maggots as well).
The film focuses on Sarah, an aspiring actress trying to break into Hollywood while she works as a waitress to pay her bills. She attends an audition for a new horror movie, which doesn’t go well, but after quite literally ripping her own hair out in the bathroom in frustration, the casting director takes an interest in her and offers her a second chance.
However, this director is a member of a dark cult hiding in Hollywood, and he tells Sarah that in order to find fame she must “transform” and be reborn. Unfortunately, this isn’t the glow-up type transformation, but rather one where her body and mind start to completely fall apart as she loses hair and fingernails, suffers severe vomiting, and begins to become facially disfigured. Sarah is willing to make any sacrifice for fame, and we see her continue to physically deteriorate through the course of the film as a consequence.
Ironically, the actress who plays Sarah, Alex Essoe, finds her own small level of success in horror in the years following this film. You may recognize her from many more well-known horror projects, including The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, Doctor Sleep, and The Pope’s Exorcist.
In My Skin (2002)
“You rip your leg open, you don’t feel it. I touch you, and you jump and scratch.”
In My Skin is one of the first movies to introduce me to the French Extremity subgenre of horror. The subgenre is associated with a group of films trending starting in the early 2000’s that were considered extreme or transgressive, often featuring graphic violence and sexual imagery.
The film was written, directed, and stars Marina de Van who plays a woman named Esther. Ether appears to have it all, a great job in marketing, a caring boyfriend, and an active social life. All that start to unravel when she attends a work party and injures her leg, leaving a large cut that she doesn’t notice until she arrives back home.
She quickly becomes obsessed with it and with her skin in general. As her obsessive nature violently surfaces, Esther spirals down into a world of self-mutilation and cannibalism. The story graphically depicts a woman disillusioned and disconnected from herself and society who is desperate to feel seen.
Perhaps an obvious trigger warning based on the plot, but there is a significant amount of self harm involved here. It’s a tough watch, but the film immerses you full force into Esther’s crumbling mind, exploring the theme of self discovery and self destruction thorough addiction, obsession, and stomach-churning body horror.