The Recent Rash of Body Horror

With 'The Substance,' 'Shell,' and 'Nightbitch,' Body Horror broke out at TIFF. Why is the subgenre hotter than ever?

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(No spoilers)

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The rise of body horror at TIFF was hard to miss. If one trend had to be pinpointed, it would be this. The Substance, which opened this weekend, peddles plenty of flesh. Shell, a new thriller starring Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson, inspired by 80s B-movies, does too. And Amy Adams turns into a dog in Nightbitch.

If horror is one of the best genres for subliminally expressing present anxieties—whether it’s Dracula reflecting Victorian xenophobia against Eastern Europeans as syphilis spread or how zombies symbolize consumerism—why is body horror having a moment now?

There are plenty of films that satirize ageism in Hollywood, like The Substance does. 1950’s Sunset Boulevard is the first that comes to mind: a sad, grand, mysterious, and psychologically unnerving portrait of decay. No body horror, but an ending that wallops you into questioning your own complicity in the broader Hollywood project—the need for youth, beauty, and “the hot new thing,” especially as it relates to actresses. 

Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard

The Substance takes this conceit and blows it out…