Substance: What is “body horror”? Explanations

Winner of the screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Substance leaves no one indifferent. In this film, Demi Moore plays Elizabeth Sparkle, an actress who is fired from her TV show when she is deemed “too old.” Then she decides to give herself a substance to create a better version of herself: more beautiful, younger, more perfect.

This visceral experience, imagined by French woman Coralie Farjit, echoes many film classics such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Flash or David Cronenberg’s The Flight. Like the latter, the substance belongs to a subgenre called body horror – Body horror or organization in French.

What is body horror?

As its name suggests, body horror On the screen, the human body is revealed through transformations, deformations or decomposition. These bodily changes are beyond any realism, even approaching science fiction. In the event that substanceThe product that an actress wears will have many consequences on her appearance.

among masters body horrorWe find David Cronenberg, whose numerous films deal with this idea of ​​the tested body. However, the director himself cannot find this term.

“I have never used the term body horror to describe anythingWill be releasing a movie at AlloCiné during an interview in 2022. Someone, a critic or a film historian, applied it to my films, then people picked it up, and now it’s become a genre in itself.“

David Cronenberg body horror :

He claims: “I don’t think what I’m showing is terrible. Maybe that’s the problem.“David Cronenberg is not the only one. Other directors have been very important in this subgenre, such as Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), Brian Yuzna (Community) and Frank Hennenlotter (Basket Case).

Be careful, it’s not enough of a feature film romp to make it into a subgenre body horror. For example, the Saw Saga and the movie Martyrs are not part of it because their violence is too realistic. THE body horror It still remains an underrated genre by sensitive souls.

Recently, and especially in France, body horror It’s getting a lot of attention thanks to female directors like Coralie Fargeat, but also Julia Ducournau, whose first two films, Grave and Titane – the Palme d’Or in 2021 – fit perfectly into this category.

10 movies body horror To see absolutely:

• flying by David Cronenberg
• Brian Yuzna Society
• Beyond Reality by Ken Russell
• Hellraiser by Clive Barker
• Tomb by Julia Ducournau
• Owned by Andrzej Zhulawski
• Eraserhead by David Lynch
• David Cronenberg Videodrome
• Item of John Carpenter
• substance Coral by Farjit

Commentary collected by Thomas Desroches, Paris, May 2022.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance can be seen in the cinema.