10 Best Body Horrors That Make You Squirm

1. The Thing

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Universal Pictures

John Carpenter isn't known as the Horror Master for no reason. And in his 1982 The Thing - a take on John W. Capmbell Jr.'s Who Goes There? novella - Carpenter served up one of the greatest movies of its time.

Part horror, part sci-fi, The Thing gave moviegoers an offering that featured some truly ground-breaking special effects work from Rob Bottin and his team. While the present day so often sees filmmakers fall back on CGI for their creatures and beasties, Bottin's work on The Thing serves as a testament as to why practical SFX work can be so special and hit home so well.

To this day, The Thing holds up as a jaw-dropping feature that goes heavy on the body horror as its titular parasite possesses and then mimics person to person - or even a poor dog at one point during the film's opening!

John Carpenter defined the slasher movie with Halloween. He gave us politicised machismo in Escape from New York. He embraced the classic ghost story formula with The Fog. And he spun satire and social commentary in They Live. But with The Thing, Carpenter gave a perfect example of how to make a body horror that remains timeless nearly 40 years after it first hit the silver screen.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.