Welcome back, goblins and ghouls, to the fourth annual installment of SpookyJawn! Each October, our love of horror fully rises from its slumber and takes over the MovieJawn website for all things spooky! This year, we are looking at ghosts, goblins, ghouls, goths, and grotesqueries, week by week they will march over the falling leaves to leave you with chills, frights, and spooky delights! Read all of the articles here!

by Billie Anderson, Staff Writer

I can enjoy a good haunted house flick or psychological thriller, but the kind of fear that stays with me long after the credits roll comes from a different place. The films that really unsettle me—the ones that dig deep into my psyche—are those that force me to confront the grotesque transformations of bodies, especially our bodies. I think that’s where the power of film lies–it makes us feel something profound, often tapping into our deepest anxieties and vulnerabilities. When I watch films that explore bodily transformation, I’m not just witnessing fictional horror; I’m grappling with the unsettling notion that our own bodies are not as stable or permanent as we’d like to believe. Movies like Crimes of the Future (2022), Annihilation (2018), The Thing (1982), and Akira (1988) don’t rely on monsters (though these are present) or slashers to provoke fear. Instead, they show us the horror of losing control over our own physical selves. The grotesque, with its disturbing blend of beauty, horror, and mutation, is front and center, and what makes them truly terrifying is the deeply personal, self-centered fear that the body being transformed on screen could, in instances far beyond our control, be ours.

The grotesque has always been about breaking down boundaries—between the human and the monstrous, between the self and the other. But in these films, the grotesque isn’t just happening to some distant, abstract “other.” It’s happening to us. It’s the mutability of our own bodies, the fear that we might wake up one day and not recognize ourselves, that creates a kind of horror that is both visceral and existential. Here, I’ve included some films about grotesque evolution that have always stood out to me, particularly because they connect bodily transformation to something real and tangible we face today: climate change.

Crimes of the Future: The Grotesque as Art and Evolution

David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future takes the grotesque to a new level by turning the body into a canvas for uncontrollable mutation. The film imagines a world where human evolution has gone rogue, and people—particularly artists like Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen)—spontaneously develop new organs. We aren’t told exactly how or why this evolution is taking place, but we are shown the ways that people will take advantage of these transformations: these strange new growths are removed in public performances, turning surgery into both art and spectacle. What makes the film grotesque isn’t just the physical transformations themselves, but the way the body is no longer a stable entity. Saul’s body betrays him, generating new, alien parts beyond his control, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human. His body becomes an ongoing art project—constantly modified, constantly changing—yet he is a spectator to his own transformation.

The body is not supposed to be fluid or malleable in such an extreme way. It’s supposed to be familiar, recognizable. But when the grotesque invades, the body becomes an unknown landscape. In Crimes of the Future, this invasion of the grotesque mirrors contemporary fears about climate change. Just as Saul’s body mutates in ways beyond his control, our own bodies may be subject to the grotesque forces of environmental degradation. Pollution, toxins, and disease are reshaping the world around us, and with it, the potential to reshape us. The grotesque body in Cronenberg’s vision isn’t just a symbol of future possibilities—it’s a reflection of present anxieties. The fear isn’t just that the world will change, but that our bodies will be forced to adapt in grotesque and unexpected ways.

Annihilation: The Grotesque in Nature

In Annihilation (2018), the grotesque takes on a more organic, nature-based form. The story follows a group of women entering “The Shimmer,” a zone where the DNA of everything within it is altered, resulting in grotesque hybrid creatures and landscapes. As the characters venture deeper into this transformed environment, they realize that the grotesque mutations are not just external—they’re happening within their own bodies. Lena (Natalie Portman) discovers that her DNA is being rewritten by the environment, slowly fusing her with the strange world around her. 

What makes Annihilation particularly unsettling is that the grotesque doesn’t just exist in the environment—it penetrates the characters’ own bodies. The slow, creeping realization that their physical selves are no longer their own adds a layer of self-centered terror. The body, which should be a fixed boundary between the self and the outside world, is now porous, open to grotesque change. When we read this as a movie about climate change, we start to see the connections between rising temperatures, toxins in the air and water, and shifting ecosystems all suggest a future where our bodies might not be as stable as we think. In Annihilation, the grotesque becomes a metaphor for these environmental forces, reminding us that the boundaries between ourselves and the natural world are far more fragile than we’d like to believe. As nature transforms, so too might our bodies, in ways that are as uncontrollable as those depicted in the film.

The Thing: The Grotesque as Invasion and Loss of Self

Few films capture bodily transformation as disturbingly as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). Here, the body becomes the ultimate battleground for invasion, as an alien organism consumes and assimilates its human hosts, turning them into parodies of their former selves. The true horror in The Thing isn’t just the gruesome, special-effects-driven mutations, but the way the alien completely obliterates any sense of bodily autonomy. The victims’ bodies are twisted into grotesque new forms, but they are still recognizably human—at least, until the alien bursts through. This blend of the human and inhuman generates a visceral fear that embodies what I believe the grotesque truly represents: the breakdown of boundaries between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the self and the other. A singular, internal, and unsettling transformation, challenging our perceptions of our own bodies.

In The Thing, the grotesque invasion of the body reflects a deeper fear about contamination—something foreign invading and reshaping the body from the inside. It’s a horror that’s deeply personal, because the loss of control over one’s own body is the ultimate violation. This theme of the grotesque ties into modern concerns about climate change, particularly as we face the potential for environmental forces to invade and alter our bodies. Diseases, toxins, and invasive species are all threats that could transform our physical selves in ways we can’t anticipate. Much like the alien in The Thing, climate change represents an unpredictable force that can penetrate and deform us, leaving us unsure of where our bodies end and the environment begins.

Akira: The Grotesque as Uncontrollable Power

Akira (1988) presents a vision of grotesque transformation rooted in uncontrollable power. Tetsuo, a young man exposed to a secret government experiment, undergoes a series of grotesque mutations as his psychic abilities spiral out of control. His body, once human, becomes a monstrous, writhing mass of flesh and machinery, consuming everything in its path. The grotesque here is the complete loss of bodily integrity—Tetsuo’s body expands and mutates until it is barely recognizable as human. His transformation is a terrifying metaphor for the unchecked power within him, a force that not only deforms his body but also erases his identity.

This grotesque transformation speaks to the fear of our own bodies becoming uncontrollable. Tetsuo’s body mutates without his consent, reflecting a core anxiety at the heart of the grotesque: the terror of losing control over one’s own flesh. As with climate change, the fear in Akira lies in the idea that forces beyond our control—whether technological or environmental—could reshape us. The grotesque in Akira highlights the fragility of the human body and the ease with which it can be transformed into something monstrous. Tetsuo’s mutations are inevitable and unstoppable, underscoring the fear that our bodies may one day succumb to forces we can neither predict nor resist.

To me, the grotesque is not just about nasty, wet, slimy, gooey representations, but about transformation, mutation, and the collapse of the familiar into something horrifyingly alien. The fear of bodily transformation in these narratives underscores a visceral horror: the potential for our bodies to become something unrecognizable and uncontrollable. Each film explores different facets of this fear, whether through external forces invading the body, the environment reshaping us, or the very essence of humanity being consumed by something monstrous. The grotesque serves as a reminder that our bodies are not as fixed or invulnerable as we’d like to believe.

Ultimately, these films reflect our anxieties about the fluidity of identity and the fragility of the human form. The real horror is not just that the world is changing—but that we are changing along with it, in ways that are grotesque, uncontrollable, and deeply personal. In these films, the grotesque isn’t merely a cinematic device—it’s a powerful reflection of our fears regarding the boundaries of self, identity, and what it truly means to be human.