Body horror
Body horror, or biological horror, is a subgenre of horror that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body or to any other creature. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutations, mutilation, zombification, gratuitous violence, disease, or unnatural movements of the body. Body horror was a description originally applied to an emerging subgenre of North American horror films, but has roots in early Gothic literature and has expanded to include other media. Characteristics According to the film scholar Linda Williams, body horror falls into one of three "gross" genres or "genres of excess" which also includes pornography and melodrama. Williams writes that the success of these body genres "is often measured by the degree to which the audience sensation mimics what is seen on the screen". For example, an audience may experience feelings of terror through horror, sympathy through melodrama, or sexual arousal through pornography. Body horror specifically focuses on the limits and transformative capabilities of the human body. Body horror often overlaps with, but is distinct from, other horror subgenres. For example, while elements of mutilation may be present in body horror, other similar subgenres such as slasher, splatter, or monster horror may also share this trope, but differ in message and intent. A common difference in the body horror genre is that violations or distortions of the body are rarely the result of immediate or initial violence. Instead, they are generally marked by a loss of conscious control over the body through mutation, disease, or other tropes involving uncontrolled transformation. The genre can invoke intense feelings of physical and psychological disgust, or squick, and play upon anxieties of physical vulnerability. In addition to common tropes used within the broader horror genre, some tropes specific to the body horror subgenre may include invasion, contagion, mutation, transformation, disease, mutilation, or other unnatural or violent distortions of the human body. Body horror films, such as Crimes of the Future and Titane, have been likened to erotic horror. History The term "body horror" was first used by Phillip Brophy in his 1983 article "Horrality: The Textuality of the Contemporary Horror Film". He coined this term to describe an emerging subgenre which occurred during a short golden period for contemporary horror film. Although Brophy coined the term to specifically describe a trend within cinema, film director Stuart Gordon notes that the body horror trope had existed before its adaptation to the screen, most notably within fictional writing. Literature Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is an early example of the body horror subgenre within fictional writing. The success of gothic horror in the 19th century, in combination with the birth of science fiction as a literary form, is thought to be the origin of body horror as a literary genre. According to Halberstam, "By focusing on the body as a locus of fear, Shelley's novel suggests that it is people (or at least bodies) who terrify people... the landscape of fear is replaced by sutured skin." Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is