Tag Archives: Body horror

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CAPSULE: ALPHA (2025)

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 Alpha is available to rent or purchase on-demand.

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Mélissa Boros, , Tahar Rahim

PLOT: Young teenager Alpha gets a homemade tattoo, and her doctor mother obsesses over the possibility that she may have contacted a disease that will turn her into a statue; meanwhile, her heroin-addicted uncle comes to crash in their small Parisian flat.

Still from alpha (2025)

COMMENTS: Alpha, the movie, is sick with contagion and addiction. In this diseased alternate-reality Paris, an Arab single-mom doctor tries to protect her improbably-named daughter Alpha from the dangers of the outside world. When the girl experiments with her limited teen freedom, getting a rustic homemade “A” tattoo on her arm at a party while intoxicated, her mother freaks out: where did the needle come from? Was it properly sterilized? Because, you see, there is a blood-borne disease going around which slowly turns those infected into statues. It primarily affects homosexuals and intravenous drug users, but unsanitary tattoo needles are also a disease vector. Fear that she may be deathly ill, and ostracism from her schoolmates once the rumors start circulating, aren’t the only stresses in Alpha’s life; her emaciated, estranged, heroin-addicted uncle, who is a stranger to her, has also moved into the small flat as he tries to get clean after a lifetime of relapses. At school, Alpha also keeps inconveniently (and humiliatingly) bleeding from her slow-to-heal tattoo wound; curious, although also seemingly tangential to the film’s main theme.

Despite the magical-realist plague and some confusing flashbacks, Alpha essentially plays out as a coming-of-age family drama. The three principals all do fine work, with Rahim (whose visible ribs suggest must have laid off baguettes for months in preparing for his junkie role) a particular standout. Cinematography is crisp, and needle drops from Portishead and Nick Cave add an undeniable (if possibly anachronistic) coolness factor.

Despite mostly eschewing the horror elements this time to focus on familial drama and teen anxiety, Ducournau retains her talent for conceiving scenes that are, on the surface, completely innocent, but which hint at deep perversions: in this case, a bit where Alpha’s jittery uncle white-knuckles his way through opiate withdrawal, while the anxious Alpha tries to fall sleep in bed next to him in their shared bedroom. The dreadful atmosphere of rising pandemic feeds into Alpha’s developmental worries. Growing independence, annoyance with lame and overprotective adults, and awkward liaisons with hormonal boys hardly override fears of death and an unstable adult roommate constantly on the verge of fatal overdose.

Alpha is well-written, well-acted, well-shot, well-scored, and has an serious emotional core… and yet, for some reason I can’t find it in my stony heart to unconditionally recommend it. The problem here is that, while Titane succeeded because it was a weird movie that slowly developed a deep emotional appeal, Alpha underwhelms because it starts as a humanist drama and then tacks on unnecessary surreal accoutrements. While Ducournau’s two previous efforts were weird movies that provided accommodations for art-house patrons, this one is an art-house movie offering accommodations for fans expecting something strange. Other than allowing an excuse for some cool makeup, the marbelizing symptom of the central disease adds little to the movie’s emotional or aesthetic effect. Had Ducournau made a standard drama, she might have gained a more appreciative audience… though at the cost of her reputation as one of the few provocateurs willing to ignore the inconvenient blah-ness of reality. Still, even if Alpha is not entirely a success, it’s a good film, and we’re happy to note Ducournau hasn’t sold out to the commercial allure of realist cinema. Let’s hope this is a temporary retreat, and she’ll relocate the bloody pulse of deep, dark weirdness for her next project.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Strident, oppressive, incoherent and weirdly pointless from first to last … Julia Ducournau’s new film Alpha has to be the most bewildering disappointment of this year’s Cannes competition; even an honest lead performance from Mélissa Boros can’t retrieve it.”–Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (festival screening)

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY (1997)

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DIRECTED BY: Mick Garris

FEATURING: Christopher Lloyd, , Raphael Sbarge, Missy Crider

PLOT: The mysterious Aaron Quicksilver shares two tales of ill-fated individuals: a traveling salesman who encounters a suspicious set of novelty clattering teeth, and a plastic surgeon who finds that his hands have developed minds of their own.

Still from Quicksilver Highway (1997)

COMMENTS: Horror on television is a tricky proposition. The genre frequently relies upon visceral shock and gore, elements too unseemly for broadcast, which is why the most successful series either emphasize psychological terror or abscond to cable where the standards are looser. But Bless Mick Garris for continuing to try. He is responsible for five Stephen King TV adaptations, including takes on classics The Stand and The Shining. Plu,s he’s well-versed in the televised horror anthology, with credits in “Tales from the Crypt,” “Freddy’s Nightmares,” and “Masters of Horror.” If anyone is going to make Quicksilver Highway work, it’s Garris.

He doesn’t, though. That’s not necessarily his fault, of course. The film is a busted pilot, with two unrelated episodes inelegantly slammed together. They both traffic in body horror, a genre that is never going to get a fair hearing on network TV. The small-screen budget is also a limitation, with simplistic special effects (including some terrible CGI) and overly broad acting. The stories are also heavily padded to fill out 45 minutes apiece, with long diversions into pointless philosophical debates and weak character monologues arriving right at the moment when the story really needs to be gaining steam. Mostly, though, the finger needs to be pointed at the material, which is best described as “better on paper.” Neither of these are horror short story classics from genre masters King and Clive Barker, but one can see how they managed to create a sense of unease though their unlikely subjects. But visualizing them, without the reader’s imagination to hide behind, reveals them as low-stakes and low-impact. 

The King story, “Chattering Teeth,” relies upon a familiar trope from the author, an innocent-looking object that carries with it bad juju and sinister intent. A classic monkey’s-paw scenario. In this case, the object is an oversized set of windup walking choppers, which the protagonist somehow imagines is going to be the perfect gift to appease his disappointed son. When the novelty mandibles attack a nasty hitchhiker, it’s impossible to see it as anything other than an actor forced to pretend-wrestle with a goofy prop. The teeth need to have a “creepy doll” vibe in order to work, and they just don’t.

The second tale, Barker’s “The Body Politic,” finds greater success by indulging in sublime silliness. Here’s a villain we can get behind: human hands which have somehow become imbued with the spirit of Che Guevara, calling for liberation from the oppression of being attached to Matt Frewer. They are ridiculous little gremlins, speaking to each other with Smurf-like voices and hyperactively gesturing at each other while plotting their revolution. They’re risible, but they benefit from a couple solid jump-scares and the full commitment of Frewer, who actually does some pretty nifty acting with opportunities for his face and his hands to play conflicting emotions. Once again, though, what probably reads as spectacularly macabre on the page becomes ludicrous on screen, as when Frewer outwits a whole platoon of severed hands by leading them off the roof of a building, resulting in the jaw-dropping sight of dozens of hands flinging themselves into oblivion. I am sure you’re supposed to laugh in shock. The laughter you get is different.

The connective tissue is our good Mr. Quicksilver, a sort of wandering troubadour of the grotesque. He repeatedly insists that his tales have no moral, but contempt for his audience positively oozes out of him. Lloyd is a curious choice for a narrator. Already odd with his spiky red hair, black peasant’s blouse and knee-high leather boots, looking for all the world like Johnny Rotten in a witches’ coven, he’s an actor we often recognize for his manic interior that threatens to break into the open. This puts him at odds with the cool detachment he tries to project, the hint of judgment from on high that we associate with Rod Serling in “The Twilight Zone,” Vic Perrin in “The Outer Limits,” or even David Duchovny in “Red Shoe Diaries.” It’s telling that, the moment he gets someone to join him in his trailer for a pleasant meal, he immediately jumps into an indictment of America as a land of lies and darkness. (He’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s hardly an icebreaker.) It’s hard to understand why someone would sit through his spiel. Intriguingly, one can easily imagine Frewer in the role in a slightly lower-budget version.

Quicksilver Highway isn’t bad, just extremely inessential, an empty-calorie snack that’s not a career highlight for any of its participants. If you’re driving out west and happen to pass by a strange-looking man in a Rolls-Royce towing an Airstream trailer, don’t stop for one of his stories. Not because of the horrible fate that awaits you. But because there are so many better things to do.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s odd, it meanders, it has unusual moralist tales, and it’s totally goofy. It’s not great, but it has a charm that’s hard to resist.” – Jolie Bergman, Horror Habit

(This movie was nominated for review by Dave Pistol. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

Quicksilver Highway [DVD]

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates, Shorts

THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: GHOSTS BEFORE BREAKFAST (VORMITTAGSSPUK) (1928) / APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ALICIA (1994)

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Recommended (for both)

Repression in a society is often noticed first in the arts. When works are banned or proscribed for subject matter deemed offensive to the state, or when artists and their patrons are threatened if they do not alter their messages so as not to displease the powers that be, an attentive eye can pick up the seeds of repression being planted. One might even notice it in attacks on the programming at the national center for the performing arts. Today, our attention turns to a pair of short films that are in the orbit of repression: one that was its victim and one expressly about it.

The title card that precedes “Ghosts Before Breakfast” points the finger  clearly at its tormentor: “The Nazis destroyed the sound version of this film as degenerate art.” The accusation seems absurd to modern eyes, so it’s instructive to recall, in the march to World War II, just how much the ascendant Fascists despised modern art, especially surreal and abstract works. No doubt that attitude came from the top, considering failed artist Adolf Hitler was a strict devotee of classical styles. Dictatorships are always humorless scolds, though, and the Third Reich was especially obsessed with a devotion to German propriety and order. Director , who literally wrote the book on Dadaism, was always going to run headlong into trouble.

Nothing that ensues in “Ghosts’” 500-second running time would seem to merit the iron jackboot of censorship: a bow tie refuses to stay knotted, body parts detach and spin around, and men disappear behind poles. (That last is a nifty special effect once accomplished by your humble correspondent.) Most notably, a quartet of bowler hats liberate themselves from the tyranny of resting upon men’s heads, choosing instead to fly about the neighborhood in flock formation until tea is finally served. It’s mostly lo-fi camera trickery in the Méliès tradition, not overtly serious at all. (Occasionally, one can see the strings on the hats and even the shadow of the marionette’s pole, and it detracts from the short’s charm not a whit.) Richter is always a playful surrealist (witness the giddy way he skewers the evangelization of capitalism in Dreams That Money Can Buy), and “Ghosts” captures that spirit in its simplest form. It’s light, it’s fun… no wonder the Nazis hated it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Featuring unimaginably brilliant special effects achieved through the use of stop-motion animation as well as live-action tricks, the film chronicles the delightful protests of objects ranging from hats to water hoses. The entire short is structured like a relentless magic trick, inviting the audience to witness a bewildering spectacle where the laws of physics completely break down.” – Swapnil Dhruv Bose, Far Out

Oh, how they would have utterly loathed “Alicia,” Jaume Balagueró’s nightmare musing on the abhorrence of femininity. After our young heroine menstruates during a moment of idle self-pleasure, uniformed thugs haul her away to become a kind of indentured remora to a hideously bloated creature. Alicia’s act of defiance is to have the temerity to reach sexual maturity, at which point she is a commodity for the beasts to consume and discard. Balagueró’s film (a student work that presages his future efforts such as the REC series) exudes a palpable sense of a terrible power that punishes people for who they are.

In less than 8 minutes, there’s no time to be subtle, and Balagueró dials up the unsettling and odd atmosphere well past the initial premise. Alicia herself (played by twins Ana and Elena Lucia) is as white and smooth as a cherub, the very essence of purity before her blood drips onto a book titled “The Drama of Jesus.” Rubber-clad troops force the girl to consume a goopy slime that emits from their masks and drill into her neck in a cascade of oily fluid. When she finally emerges from this dark underworld, she exits through a refrigerator, as if she has only been kept around as food. Meanwhile, the final shot is the ogre framed with the shape of a cross, just in case you’re wondering whom to implicate. The theme of the punishment women endure is explicit, but the concept is dressed up in grotesque imagery that carries the slight story up to another level.

Film is storytelling, and storytelling is speech. Richter may have only intended to tweak the establishment, not rouse the beast; Balagueró was clearly prepared for whatever expressions of offense or disgust might come his way. But both are compatriots in cinema, for storytelling is also bravery, and there’s nothing weird about standing up for their voices.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

 “…a disturbing and even suffocating atmosphere in which we also glimpse hints of the purest Cronenberg every time the mutilations of the flesh come into play.” – Rubén Collazos, Cinemaldito (translated from Spanish)

(“Ghosts Before Breakfast” was nominated for review by Rafael Moreira; “Alicia” was nominated for review by Morgan. Suggest a weird movie or two of your own here.)

Capsules

CAPSULE: ELSE (2024)

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Else is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: Thibault Emin

FEATURING: Matthieu Sampeur, Edith Proust, Lika Minamoto

PLOT: A shy young fellow and an outgoing woman he recently met shack up together during a lockdown as a strange, body-altering disease runs rampant worldwide.

COMMENTS: Intricate foley work, meditative shots of organic geometry, creepy flesh holes in the wall, a sparky female protagonist, and laconically philosophical overtones: Thibault Emin’s narrative feature debut is a mélange of ingredients as offbeat as the inhabitants of an apartment for the cinematic French middle class. There’s whimsy; there’s melancholia; there’s paranoia; there’s political messaging; the style’s heady as a strong cognac; and there are lots and lots of creepy body morphing closeups, leaving to the viewer to run the cerebro-emotional gamut from “Oooh,” to “Ick,” to “Hmm..” And it’s accomplished with tasteful eroticism sprinkled throughout.

This is art-house drama with requisite lashings of romantic comedy. The aptly named Anx, who is often anxious, doesn’t quite fear being with others, but rarely seeks their company. He prefers to tinker away amongst the relics of his childhood home. He hosts a party, however, and there makes the acquaintance of Cass, a manic-pixie-dream-girl in the true French mold, who first forces him out of his shell, before the strange disease converts her into his… But I’m getting ahead of myself. Anx and Cass are stereotypes in many ways, but at least they’re believable. (Having attended a particular variety of liberal arts college in the early Aughts, I have met both of these archetypes in the flesh.) Seeing as we spend nearly the whole film with this pair, in one apartment, it is no small relief that their doings remain largely within the realm of the relatable and interesting.

Far more interesting is the nature of the affliction which begins striking down the world’s citizens within the first twenty minutes or so. It’s a skin condition (you have been warned), which has hints of mineral development along the lines of metamorphic rock formation (you have now been intrigued, I’d wager). The makeup effects—eventually morphing into set design, if you gather my meaning—are a wonder to observe, as the victims struck down by this ailment do not simply die: in most cases, they become something Else.

Else‘s building blocks are sourced, built, compressed, stretched, and twisted from and into any number of things. And the title and film—like the featured disease—isn’t explainable: it’s just there. There for us to ponder on, chuckle at, think about, and occasionally reel from with squicky ill-ease.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“To be honest, the theme of the movie should’ve tipped you off already, but just in case, get ready for goo, sticky things, and lots of weird close-ups…” — Lucy Muñoz, Cut to the Take (contemporaneous)

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE SUBSTANCE (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Coralie Fargeat

FEATURING: , Dennis Quaid,

PLOT: An aging actress loses her job as hostess of an aerobics show on her 50th birthday and is recruited into trying a bizarre underground “anti-aging” substance, with instructions and regimens that must be followed precisely to avoid unwanted side effects.

Still from the substance (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: In the third act, an unhinged black comedy emerges from the carcass of what to this point had merely been an odd, satirical horror movie.

COMMENTS: Incredibly, just about everything in Coralie Fargeat’s sophomore film—which mixes sledgehammer satire and comedy with clean ian interiors, squicky Cronenbergian body horror, and a third act tonal shift often described as “bonkers”—works. It’s a message movie that doesn’t spare the blood and guts or the leering nudity (the movie is of the view that you can’t satirize the male gaze without indulging it). The cinematography is ace, the soundtrack on point, the practical effects astonish, it never drags despite a almost 2.5 hour runtime, Qualley appears to be the most beautiful woman in the world, Quaid hams it up delightfully as an empty-suit corporate cad, and has never given a better performance. It’s both elevated horror and degraded horror, equally indebted to the art-house and the grindhouse, and it never goes halfway when it could instead go to twice the length you expect.

The high concept plot gives Fargeat space to make lots of obvious—but funny—jokes about men reduced drooling idiots when confronted with a beautiful woman, and why women might lust after that kind of power. We are a superficial species, after all. That’s why we fall for blatantly Faustian bargains, as when Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle is offered the opportunity to create a “better version of herself” by picking up a packet of suspect medical gear from a back-alley beauty supply company. Set amidst L.A.’s glitz, the script addresses our obsession with surface beauty, but as it intensifies it peers deeper into human psychology. Sure, youth and beauty is associated with fame and success, but it’s also the inverse of decay and death: even slowly fading beauty like Elisabeth’s is a reminder of mortality. The scenario also invites concepts of split personality and addiction (there are a lot of needles here, and literally self-destructive behavior). Besides the satirical jibes at such follies, The Substance offers a good deal of heart and empathy. Moore reveals her (gracefully) aging body to public scrutiny in an uncomfortable nude scene, and is compensated with a wonderful scene in front of the mirror as she desperately attempts to achieve an impossible ideal of female beauty, despite the fact that it’s obvious to everyone but herself that she’s more than glamorous enough for the occasion.

The Substance‘s first two acts take place in an exaggerated reality that allows it to focus solely on satire and psychology. Just about everyone other than Moore and Qualley act like caricatures (Quaid is the lynchpin here). Why is the substance apparently offered to Elisabeth for free? Why are network TV aerobics programs so lucrative and influential? How does Sue manage to build that secret room, and why is there no super in her million-dollar apartment? What are the chances either Elisabeth or Sue are always the featured image on the billboard right outside her own window? And just how in the hell is this Substance supposed to work, in a biological/continuity of consciousness sense? You take everything on faith: details that are irrelevant to the main characters’ psychological realities are simply ignored. But your ability to suspend disbelief is shattered in the third act, which is a pure B-movie nightmare hallucination. The practical effects, which previously recalled Cronenberg, now look like a blend of Screaming Mad George’s work on Society,  Toxie from The Toxic Avenger, and something out of a freak movie—in fact, the entire finale resembles something that might result if Henenlotter were given a multi-million dollar budget for stage blood and access to an crack cinematographer. Even with those hints, the results are nothing you could possibly anticipate.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…while the film’s escalating weirdness eventually spirals out of control in the final sequence—it’s not quite camp; it’s more like John Waters- or Lloyd Kaufman-style trash—I was certainly never bored during the 140-minute runtime.”–Sonny Bunch, The Bulwark (contemporaneous)

The Substance [4K UHD]

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