9 Horror Directors Who Deserve An Honorary Oscar

David Cronenberg’s “body horror” pictures were married to developments in special effects technology and he provided enough spectacular set pieces – James Woods inserting a cassette into his stomach in Videodrome, say, or Scanners’ exploding head – to become a poster child for the Fangoria set. In 1986, his remake of The Fly won an Oscar for Best Makeup and gave him enough clout to make Naked Lunch, whose neo-noir look later influenced Dark City and The Matrix.

Cronenberg had his biggest influence, however, on Japan, and his explorations of infection and bodily mutation have informed such outstanding films as Evil Dead Trap (1989) and Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo (1990), the latter of which can be read as a cyberpunk take on The Fly. His grisly set pieces also massively influenced the effects of Yoshihiro Nishimuru, most obviously on Tokyo Gore Police (2008), where genetically-modified criminals transform any injury into a weapon.

What Jack Arnold was to 50s sci-fi, Cronenberg is to the modern monster film. According to critic Terrence Rafferty, the director “seems to have isolated, in remarkably potent form, the poignant monster form that runs through so many horror pictures.”