10 Body Horror Movies That Broke All The Rules
3. Annihilation
Alex Garland's superb sci-fi horror film Annihilation once again gave body horror a dramatic reinvention, given that most of its reshapings of the human body aren't repulsive explosions of gore but often oddly beautiful.
The film is centered around a group of scientists who enter a mysterious area called The Shimmer, a zone created by the arrival of a meteor several years prior.
As it turns out, the Shimmer exerts a profound effect on any living thing which enters it, fundamentally changing their DNA by mixing it with anything else in the vicinity.
And so, life within the Shimmer looks very different - an alligator the team encounters has shark-like teeth, and in more unsettling terms, humans can be bonded with both plant and animal life.
The crew stumbles across people who have been turned into plants, and in perhaps the film's most horrifying scene, a woman mauled to death by a mutant bear has her death rattle incorporated into the bear's growl.
Elsewhere people's insides transform into eels, doppelgangers are created, and one character even transforms into a gorgeous nebulous structure.
Rather than bogging itself down in expository explanations of what we're seeing, Annihilation largely lets viewers enjoy the unpredictable ride, focused on the mystery of quite how far the Shimmer is capable of remixing life itself.