There is nothing more visceral than being a woman, and that is something that horror directors understand completely. The newest film in the trend is the heavily lauded body horror film, The Substance.
Starring Demi Moore, The Substance has already been getting rave reviews at Cannes due to its evocative subject matter. Moore appears as Elizabeth, a once-popular performer who has faded into obscurity because of outrageous beauty standards.
The Substance takes this relatable notion and spins Elizabeth into a horrific world. After she injects The Substance, it divides her cells and creates another version of herself. This one is younger, more beautiful, and evidently better in every way a man could think up. According to the advertisements of The Substance, you exchange time with this new enchanting version of yourself. One week your prime version lives, and the next week, the younger version does. Sound fair?
It wouldn’t be body horror if it were. Inevitably, Elizabeth finds herself wasting away, a clear allegory for the male gaze in society. Even a few years ago, it may have been difficult to get this film out to the masses. But this subject matter appeals to the woman in all of us who feels objectified and used by patriarchal society. Of course, The Substance isn’t the first film to toy with this subject. There are many features to watch in preparation for the release of Moore’s film. Whether through supernatural or other terrifying means, the following films are feminist horror pictures that depict women going through some inexorable change.Â
6. Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky’s nail-biting thriller may not be considered body horror in the David Cronenberg sense, but fans don’t need to see Nina (Natalie Portman) turn into a human fly to get the creeps. The young ballerina is so dedicated to becoming the titular character in the production of Swan Lake that she cracks her toes and mutilates her nails. But that is child’s play compared to the last act. After the high-anxiety tension of Nina’s competition with Lily (Mila Kunis), the former literally transforms into a swan in the final moments of the ballet.Â
Black Swan is a tragedy as the women in the film languish for the approval of the ballet’s predatory choreographer, Thomas, (Vincent Cassel), only for Nina to be presumably mortally wounded at the end. Even more tragic is she vocalizes that it was worth it because she was perfect.
5. Under the Skin
Director Jonathan Glazer uses the subject of gender to tell a story about empathy in Under the Skin. Scarlett Johansson portrays an alien known as The Female who traverses Scotland in search of men to seduce. Once she has, she brings them to a dimension where their meat is siphoned from their skin, leaving only a sack behind. While she first exhibits no understanding of human suffering, she eventually becomes acquainted with humanity.
However, that doesn’t stop from the grotesque visuals of body disfigurement in the process. At the end of the film, The Female’s true form is revealed in a rare depiction of the human form. Skin and all.
4. Teeth
While many body horror films rely on the despair of their subjects, Teeth is instead a celebration. A cult classic at its finest, the horror film follows Dawn (Jess Weixler), a young woman who realizes she has vagina dentata. Though she first surmises she has some sort of strange mutation, it soon becomes clear that her second set of teeth is meant to protect her.
Any time she encounters a man in a sexual situation, it turns out he is untoward in some way, and her teeth punish him. The concept is straightforward forward, to be sure, but a delightful turning of the tables where sexual predators get what they deserve.
3. Raw
Raw is a coming-of-age story in the most violent way imaginable. Raised as a vegetarian all her life, Justine (Garance Marillier) goes to veterinarian school and discovers she has a terrible family secret. After consuming meat as part of a hazing ritual, she finds that her taste for flesh doesn’t just stop at animals. She and her sister are ravenous creatures whose mother has kept their wendigo heritage a secret in a bid to protect them from it.
Justine doesn’t particularly have a choice but chooses to embrace her new identity as a carnivorous cannibal. A metaphor for female sexuality, the scenes are full of vomit-inducing visuals that perfectly encapsulate how hard it is to live as a female in society up until its surprising final moments.
2. Fresh
The Hulu film shows how hard dating is for women in the simplest of terms. When Noa (Daisey Edgar-Jones) reaches her limit with online dating, she is pleasantly surprised to meet a man in real life. Steve (Sebastian Stan) is too good to be true. Funny and sincere, this seems like a real connection. At least until Steve drugs Noa to farm her meat. A black market proprietor of delicious human meat, Steve kidnaps women (because they taste better, duh), and slowly hacks off flesh to sell to his clients.Â
Fresh depicts every woman’s fear, including the point where Noa has to escape after Steve has already separated her from a good portion of her body. The true nightmare begins when Noa has to do what every woman has learned — appeal to his vanity to avoid getting murdered. But don’t worry. This movie has a happy ending.
1. Starry Eyes
Hollywood is brutal, though hopefully not half as bad as it’s depicted in Starry Eyes. The 2014 film focuses on Sarah (Alexandra Essoe), who will do whatever it takes to become a star. But unlike Pearl’s (Mia Goth) unhinged commitment in the Ti West franchise, Sarah goes through a gruesome transformation to make her dreams come true.
She enters into a diabolical bargain with a production company, after which her body starts to deteriorate. Sarah becomes more and more unwound as her hair and fingernails fall out. She murders all her friends and enters into the final stages of her nightmarish transformation. Starry Eyes is another film that shows the horrifying lengths people will go to in the entertainment industry, even if it means mutilating themselves. Literally or figuratively.
