FP Staff List: Body Horror + SLUG AND OTHER STORIES

In Megan Milks’s SLUG AND OTHER STORIES, a woman metamorphoses into a giant slug, another quite literally eats her heart out, a wasp falls in love with an orchid, and hair starts sprouting from the walls. In celebration of these gross and absurd stories, we’ve made a list of our all-time fav pop culture that features body horror! When you finish Milks’s book and are looking for more deranged and otherworldly content, we’ve got you covered!

Titane

Directed by Julia Ducournau

Just like with Megan Milks's SLUG, the best body horror makes you question everything you know about the body, and often pushes you past your comfort level—purposefully. Ducournau, who also directed 2016's Raw, does this with stunning intensity in the new French thriller Titane.

—Nick

Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes

by Anne Elizabeth Moore (Curbside Splendor Publishing)

A brilliant essay collection by cultural critic Anne Elizabeth Moore, Body Horror dissects the impacts of capitalism on women's bodies, tackling everything from the labor conditions of the Cambodian garment industry to treating autoimmune disorders within the American healthcare system. The book also features stunning illustrations by artist Xander Marro, who designed the covers of both Slug and Other Stories and Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks. Don't miss this!

—Lauren

The Haunting of Hill House
Episode 5: “The Bent-Neck Lady”

Adapted by Mike Flanagan for Netflix, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson

One of the most iconic episodes of the series that also had me closing my eyes in anticipation and fear. The fact Shirley Jackson and Mike Flanagan had me rooting for someone with a literal broken neck…incredible. Rewatching the series, specifically this episode, every year is a new tradition for me.

—Lanesha

Bella's pregnancy in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn

From the brilliant minds of Stephenie Meyer and Bill Condon

If you've seen these movies, you'll remember the totally unnatural (and totally gross) degeneration of Bella's body when she's pregnant with her half-human/half-vampire daughter, Ms. Renesmee Cullen. If you haven't seen them, you're missing out on some of the finest body horror of our time.

—Lucia

The Magic School Bus
season 1, episode 3: "Inside Ralphie"

Written by Jocelyn Stevenson and directed by Lawrence "Larry" Jacobs; based on the Magic School Bus series by Joanna Cole

The Magic School Bus brand of body horror may be PG, but it's still pretty gross. Featuring a tour of Ralphie's throat tissue, a bloody, hairy scab that the miniaturized school bus sinks into, and a whole lot of bodily fluids and secretions, this classic episode would be right at home in the pages of SLUG.

—Rachel

Black Swan

Written by Andres Heinz and directed by Darren Aronofsky

Black Swan follows the story of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), who after being cast as the lead ballerina in Swan Lake, begins to mentally and physically deteriorate. Nina's obsession with being the perfect lead dancer takes a toll not only on her mind but very gruesomely on her body. Beyond the usual physical stresses of ballet dancing, we can see that Nina's changes are of a scarier nature. In one scene, Nina inspects the bruises on her back, and pulls a black feather from the wounds. In other scenes, her skin takes on a bird-like texture, suggesting she is actually becoming the character she is set to play.

—Ozichi

Megan Thee Stallion’s "Thot Shit" music video

Written and directed by Aube Perrie

A fascinating, darkly humorous video that features Megan and her working-class hottie friends (as secretaries, construction workers, and waitresses) harassing and humiliating a powerful, misogynistic, conservative senator in increasingly hostile ways. The video ends with a very . . . invasive . . . medical operation that ranks up there with some of the best body-horror twists in recent memory.

—Jisu

Annihilation

Written and Directed by Alex Garland

I'm fascinated by the uncanny horror of encountering your own reduplication. While not necessarily bloody or violent, when executed in movies like Annihilation and Jordan Peele's Us, this motif visually begs the question of our bodies and identities in a deeply unsettling way.

—Isla

The X-Files
Season 1, Episode 3: "Squeeze"

Starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny; written by James Wong and Glen Morgan

Something about Eugene Tooms (the "monster of the week" in this iconic, early episode of The X-Files) still does not sit right with me, years after I first encountered him. It could be the genetic mutation that allows Tooms to stretch and squeeze into impossible forms. Maybe it's his consumption of human livers? Or it might be the papier-mâché nest in which he lives, meticulously fashioned out of newspaper and bile. This episode's grotesque body horror is tempered only by Dana Scully's zero-tolerance policy for paranormal ritual killings, masterfully portrayed by the inimitable Gillian Anderson.

—Sophie