Journal of Popular Film and Television

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Mutations and Metamorphoses: Body Horror is

Biological Horror

Ronald Allan Lopez Cruz

To cite this article: Ronald Allan Lopez Cruz (2012) Mutations and Metamorphoses: Body
Horror is Biological Horror, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 40:4, 160-168, DOI:
10.1080/01956051.2012.654521

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 Mutations and
Metamorphoses:
Body Horror is
Biological Horror
Downloaded by [El Colegio de Mxico, A.C.] at 10:54 06 October 2017

By
Ronald Allan Lopez Cruz

Copyright 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

DOI: 10.1080/01956051.2012.654521

160
 Mutations and Metamorphoses 161

Abstract: Body horror, a

genre trope that showcases
often graphic violations
of the human body, is also
justifiably called biological
horror. The true biological
nature of the horror
elicited by these films is
here discussed in light of
hybrids, metamorphoses,
mutations, aberrant sex,
and zombification.
Downloaded by [El Colegio de Mxico, A.C.] at 10:54 06 October 2017

Keywords: biological horror,

body horror, evolution,
hybrids, metamorphosis,
mutation, zombies

(left and above): The Fly (1986). Directed by David Cronenberg. Shown: Jeff Goldblum (as
Seth Brundle). Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp./Photofest. (Color figures
available online.)

What a book a devils chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful,

blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!
Charles Darwin1

W hen the severed head of Nor-

ris (Charles Hallahan) grows
and skitters away on arach-
noid legs in John Carpenters The Thing
(1982), the horrifying image prompts
one of the other crew members to say:
Youve got to be fucking kidding!
The reaction is understandable; what
else can one say when faced with such
an abominable, inexplicable violation of
humanity?
With this and many other scenes, The
Thing brings an extreme level of grue-
some disregard for the human body to
the type of horror film that is considered
body horror or biological horror. monstrous body not the monstrous char-
This popular horror trope is character-
ized by the manipulation and warping
of the normal state of bodily form and
function.2 In his influential article Hor-
ralityThe Textuality of Contemporary
Horror Films, Philip Brophy states,
The essential horror of The Thing was
in the Things total disregard for and
ignorance of the human body (10).
Contemporary horror films play on the
fear not of death but of ones own body
and its potential destruction. Body hor-
ror is often used as a label for the string
of horror films by David Cronenberg
in the 1970s and early 1980s and also
for slasher films, which of course are
characterized by the violation of the hu-
man body. Anne Jerslev focuses on the
splatter (e.g., zombie, gore) movies and
writes that, in them, The monster is the
to human): that it is indeed biological
acter (18).
The subject has been approached in
several ways, particularly with femi-
nist, psychoanalytic, and sociocultural
theories.3 Body horror and its powers of
revulsion can be approached in another
way that has not yet been adequately ex-
plored in this regard and in most other
genres of cinema: the biological.4 This
is not an effort to provide a biological
explanation to the astounding anatomies
and physiologies often encountered in
these horror films. Instead, the purpose
is to show what makes body horror a
truly frightening thing to behold even
from a biological perspective. The cen-
tral hypothesis is that body horror finds
strength in the way it goes against what
is considered normal anatomy and func-
tion in biological species (not limited
horror. The focus here will be on the
creation of monstrous hybrids; muta-
tions and diseases that are manifested
as physical and behavioral deteriora-
tion; metamorphosis; and zombifica-
 162 JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television

[B]ody horror finds strength in the way it goes against Vessey, and Jakob 307). More often than
not, hybrids brought to term are weak,
what is considered normal anatomy and function in sickly individuals (Mayr 169). Nature is
not kind to these invalids; either they die
naturally soon after birth or, in certain
biological species (not limited to human) . . . circumstances, they are killed and eaten
by kin.8
it is indeed biological horror. These hybrids can be considered fu-
sion monsters in the scheme proposed
by Noel Carroll, in which contradicting
tion. Prime examples of body horror tify the other as a nonviable mate (Mayr categories are fused into a single en-
are The Thing, Cronenbergs The Fly 17071). Should fertilization still occur, tity (Nightmare 19). In this case, the
(1986), and the Alien franchise (prin- the sperm may be killed by the internal categories are species, reproductively
cipally the first three installments: dir. environment of the female or, if an off- isolated biological groups that are not
Ridley Scott, 1979; dir. James Cameron, spring is produced, it is sterile. A typical
supposed to be brought together. This
1986; dir. David Fincher, 1992). Exam- example of the latter is the mule, an in-
category confusion is especially fright-
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ples from these films will form the bulk fertile animal that is an artificial hybrid
ening when the monster is partly hu-
of the discussion. From this biological of a female horse and a male donkey.7
man, as in the Brundlefly, Xenomorphs,
perspective, an argument will be made Interspecies hybrids are abnormal
the Thing, and lycanthropes (Tudor 30).
for certain staples of body horror work- and undesirable not only in the sense
ing on the frightening aspects of sexual that their creation does not occur natu- This is the same type of horror invoked
selection and for the zombie being the rally, but also in that they are essentially by the products of genetic engineer-
ultimate example of biological horror. evolutionary dead-ends. They can pro- ing in such horror/science fiction hy-
duce no offspring of their own and can brid films as Vincenzo Natalis Splice
therefore not continue their lineage and (2009). The uncertainty of what will be
Loathsome Hybrids and contribute to the growth of the popula- produced by the unnatural union is what
tion. This goes against the inherent drive frightens. Human cloning is not yet be-
Monstrous Offspring of all species, which is to procreate, pass ing practiced because of the many com-
In The Fly, Seth Brundle (Jeff Gold- on their genes to the next generation, plications in the process. Many clones
blum) steps into a teleporter that he and have offspring that are themselves among other animal species are born
has developed but not yet adequately reproductively successful (Drickamer, with deformities and infirmities.9 The
tested, and he steps out with the genetic
material of a common house fly incor-
porated into his own. He subsequently
transforms into a human/fly hybrid (a The Thing (1982). Directed by John Carpenter. Shown: Kurt Russell. Photo courtesy of
Universal Pictures/Photofest. (Color figure available online.)
Brundlefly), whose transformation is
a sublime exercise in prosthetic grotes-
querie.5 Such an assimilation of traits
from one species to another is also seen
in the Alien franchise. The adult form
of the Xenomorph corresponds to the
identity of its embryos host; although
the aliens in the first two installments
have been incubated in human hosts and
are thus bipedal, there are quadrupedal
creatures in the third that are birthed
by canines.
Species are defined in several ways
even by biologists, but the most well
accepted is the biological species con-
cept, which defines it as a group of in-
terbreeding individuals that can produce
fertile offspring.6 In the wild, two indi-
viduals of different species are normally
prevented from mating by physical re-
productive barriers, such as genital in-
congruence and chemical cues that iden-

horror of uncertainty of the health
or inhumanityof offspring is a real
biological concern and has also been
depicted in many films in the genre, in-
cluding Rosemarys Baby (dir. Roman
Polanski, 1968) and The Brood (dir.
Cronenberg, 1979).
Michael Grant sees the titular entity
in The Thing as both fusion and fission
monster (364), but it is still a hybrid, a
combination of elements not normally
brought together. And while the Thing
baffles and fools the humans around it,
dogs detect its abnormality easily. When
the alien/dog hybrid is brought into their
pen, they keep their distance from it and
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eye it with caution. They go wild with
fright when the creature finally mani-
fests its aberrant, chaotic form. Canines,
like many other animals, use a variety of
chemical (i.e., pheromones) and behav-
ioral cues to identify strangers, whether
or not of the same species (Drickamer,
Vessey, and Jakob 199202). Animals
normally respond to the presence of
strangers with aggression (285).
Baleful Metamorphosis
In biological parlance, metamorpho-
sis is an organisms post-embryological
change in form, such as from larval to
adult stages (Campbell et al. 655). Text-
book examples are the swimming tad-
pole turning into a leaping frog and a
caterpillar growing wings to become a
butterfly. The primary advantages con-
ferred by metamorphosis are the ability
to explore a wider range of habitats and
the lack of competition between juve-
nile and adult for resources (i.e., food
and space). Tadpoles graze on algae,
whereas frogs hunt for insects. Biologi-
cal metamorphosis is thus adaptive and,
particularly in the case of the butterfly, a
glorious transformation.
The horror of uncertainty of the healthor
inhumanityof offspring is a real biological concern
and has also been depicted in many films in the genre,
including Rosemarys Baby . . . and The Brood . . .
Mutations and Metamorphoses 163
Rosemarys Baby (1968). Directed by Roman Polanski. Shown: Mia Farrow (as Rosemary).
Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures/Photofest. (Color figure available online.)
In The Fly, Seths transformation to
the Brundlefly is protracted and gradual.
There is nothing particularly glorious
about it, although Seth himself seems
morbidly fascinated with his transfor-
mation. Neither is it adaptive. First, the
Brundlefly is a clumsy, broken figure
that cannot actually fly, thus removing
that locomotory advantage enjoyed by
insects that has allowed them to occupy
diverse habitats on Earth. The inability
to fly is attributable to the simple phys-
ics of biological design: the thin, mem-
branous wings typical of a fly are not
strong enough for an organism the size
of the Brundlefly.
Second, there is no competitor of the
same species to account for. By this
time, the transformation has taken Seth
beyond his species; what he is now is
completely, wholly incompatible with
humans. He is of his own species, and
there is nothing else like him. He is thus
also an evolutionary dead-end (although
it must be noted, of course, that he did
sire an offspring prior to his complete
transformation, and this new hybrid ap-
pears in the sequel). He cannot mate in
his final form, and his large body cannot
sustain itself for long on the body fluids
of prey. The Brundlefly is an abomina-
tion not only for its appearance and its
corruption of an erstwhile human body
but also for its physiological impracti-
calities and inefficiencies.
The alien in The Thing is a crea-
ture (or a conflux of many?) driven by
metamorphosis. Rarely is its true form
seen, for it spends most of its life in the
guise of another organism. It is in an al-
most constant state of flux, an unstable
mass. The reason why shape-shifters are
not found among any known group of
organisms on Earth is that at a certain
point during embryological develop-
ment, cells will commit to a particular
fate, that is, turn into a particular set of
tissues and organs. This is called differ-
entiation (Campbell et al. 36869). Even
in animals that undergo metamorphosis,
structures in the larval form simply rear-
range to form the equivalent parts in the
adult. It would seem that the Thing is an
organism made of perpetually undiffer-
entiated stem cells. Although research
on these pleuripotent cells (they can be
programmed to differentiate into many
different kinds of cells) is being pursued
in research laboratories worldwide be-
cause of their vast potential in the field
 164 JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television
of medicine (Campbell et al. 41516),
an organism whose cells never com-
mit to a particular structural and func-
tional congruence is an abomination.
The understanding of the titular Thing
as a mass of independent infective cells
rather than a whole unified organism10
is consistent with the fact that for true
multicellularity and thus formation of
tissues and more complex structures to
occur, individual cells must have lost
their independence and ability to divide
and differentiate as a distinct entity (Mi-
nelli 1920).
In a taxonomic classification scheme
that is based in large part on body plans
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and their development within the life-
time of organisms (giving rise, for ex-
ample, to distinctions between radially
symmetrical and bilaterally symmetri-
cal animals), there is no logical place
for the Thing and its ilk (White 401).
Tudor points out that there is a fear of
certain things, such as cinematic mon-
sters, breaking known classifications
(30), and in this case we may refer to
taxonomic classifications (i.e., Is it an
animal? If so, what kind of animal is
it?). White describes it thus: Hideously
metamorphic, compounded of tentacles,
insect and crustacean-like appendages,
dismembered mammalian and especially
human bodies, and covered in slime, this
unclassifiable presence transgresses ev-
ery attempt to impose a rational structure
upon experience (399). This goes back
as well to Carrolls assertion that crea-
tures that are categorically interstitial,
categorically contradictory, categori-
cally incomplete, or formless (Nature
of Horror 55), such as the Thing, are an
example of the impure.
The Xenomorph is a creature that
seems to undergo metamorphosis in the
true biological sense, changing drasti-
cally in form in its transition from ju-
venile to adult. What makes the alien
terrifying in this aspect is the bizarre-
ness of its metamorphic pathway. Upon
the hatching of the egg produced by
the queen, the facehugger phase at-
taches itself to the head of a host and
delivers a propagule into its mouth. This
parasitoid will incubate for a time in
the host before it emerges as a chest-
burster, the true juvenile stage of the
Xenomorph. It is certainly biological
The Fly presents a type of mutation that progresses
until the deformations completely destroy the body.
metamorphosis at work. Although the
facehugger seems more like a motile
copulatory or gamete-transferring or-
gan, much like the detachable (in some
species) hectocotylus (i.e., tentacle) of
a squid that carries sperm into a female
(Ruppert, Fox, and Barnes 36364), the
stage comes from within the egg and so
is likely an immature stage of the Xeno-
morph. What then does it force into its
host? It is likely a larva, which would
undergo its metamorphosis in the host.
This type of life cycle seems closest to
that of hydrozoans, cousins to the jelly-
fishes. The larva of the typical colonial
hydrozoan is a product of the joining of
sperm and egg from the mobile medu-
sae, which bud off from the adult for the
purpose of reproduction.11 The facehu-
gger is probably equivalent to the me-
dusa. On Earth, no vertebrate (which the
Xenomorph seems to be, by our defini-
tions) has a life cycle even resembling
this in its complexity.
A brief note here on one of the most
blatant examples of a metamorphic
creature in horror: the werewolf. The
transformation is from human to wolf,
another species, thereby breaking down
the accustomed anthropomorphic clas-
sifications, similar to the Brundlefly, the
Thing, and the Xenomorph. It is mainly
because of the graphic depictions of
bodily tearing and splitting in the films
An American Werewolf in London (dir.
John Landis, 1981) and The Howling
(dir. Joe Dante, 1981) that they can be
counted as body horror films and so
bear mentioning here. Tudor considers
these lycanthropes unruly bodies (33).
Aberrant Mutations
Mutations, or random genetic changes
(i.e., deletions or insertions of DNA
bases, genes, or whole chromosomes),
are among the driving forces of evo-
lution; they are our primary source of
genetic variability. But most mutations
are actually at least slightly harmful,
leading to morphological or behavioral
abnormalities (Mayr 9698; Campbell
et al. 471) and many disorders such as
Down syndrome and sickle-cell anemia.
Patrick Gonder points out that muta-
tions, particularly those caused by ra-
diation, were a common trope in 1950s
horror films, and that rebellious body
parts are a manifestation of those muta-
tions (34).
Just like mutations themselves, the
fear grounded in these changes is within
the realm of genetics, itself frighten-
ing for its many implications. Gonder
focuses on this genetics-based horror
in what he calls body rebellion films
(33). It is intriguing from a biological
standpoint that Gonder uses the central
dogma of molecular genetics (essen-
tially that DNA makes RNA, which in
turn makes the proteins that determine
our anatomy and physiology) to justify
fear of disruptive, mutinous body parts.
Mutations in the genetic makeup would
ultimately lead to those rebellious ap-
pendages, such as in the Brundlefly, for
which actual or symbolic dismember-
ment is the solution (39). Gonder also
points out that what is most frightening
about genetics is our loss of power (34).
We are who and what we are because
of our genes, and that genetic makeup
is beyond our control. Also beyond our
control are mutations, which are random
and unpredictable.
The Brundlefly is, of course, an ex-
treme example of a mutation; Seth
changes completely from human to
inhuman. Here, genetic splicing is the
culprit, bringing us back to the horrors
of genetics; Gonder says that the earlier
body rebellion films were influenced
by genetic transplantation technologies
(33). The Fly presents a type of muta-
tion that progresses until the deforma-
tions completely destroy the body. In
The Hills Have Eyes (dir. Wes Craven,
1977), radiation produces a family of
monstrous, violent, deformed cannibals.
In both instances, the mutations have
led to severe physical and behavioral
aberrations.

One prominent manifestation of a
physical abnormality is loss of symme-
try. We have a natural appreciation for
symmetry, a balance in proportions, in
objects and other organisms, whereas
the lack of it is often an undesirable
trait. This is by no means limited to
the human perspective of beauty. Other
animals are also known to shun asym-
metry. For instance, female gemsboks (a
large African antelope) are less likely to
choose males with unevenly sized horns
(Drickamer, Vessey, and Jakob 310
311). In the scheme of sexual selection,
in most cases of which it is the female
of the species that has the prerogative
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to choose its mate, the advantage goes
to males that look healthy, since they
will likely confer this health on their
offspring. Structural asymmetry is not a
sign of health for many animals (Ander-
sson and Iwasa 56).
Astonishing examples of asymmetry
are found in the Japanese manga Uzu-
maki (Spiral) by Junji Ito, which was
adapted into a feature film of the same
title in 2000 by Higuchinsky. It is an
underappreciated work of true body
horror; in it, human bodies are twisted,
stretched, and violated to unbelievable
extents by an unexplainable, unseen
force that contorts human bodies into
spirals. With the transformation of cer-
tain victims into giant snails, there is
Rabid (1977) aka Rage. Directed by David Cronenberg. Photo courtesy of New World
Pictures/Photofest.
Mutations and Metamorphoses 165
also metamorphosis, a staple of body
horror. Like in The Fly, the metamor-
phosis is trans-species and thus non-
adaptive and, of course, a frighteningly
literal loss of humanity.
Some writings consider the deforma-
tion in The Fly an allusion to the AIDS
virus, undoubtedly one of the most
feared human diseases (Mathijs 3334).
It is after Seths sexual misconducts
that his mutation accelerates. Here we
see how the concept of bodily dysfunc-
tions can be the central cause of fear in a
horror film, as in Cronenbergs Shivers
(1976), in which a sex-parasite causes
an epidemic through sexual transmis-
sion, and in his Rabid (1977) about a
cancer growth gone wrong (Brophy 8).
Aside from diseases, another example
of bodily dysfunction is the inability of
an organism, because of mutation, to
mate successfully.
Sexual Selection and the
Monstrous-Feminine
Among the more influential theoreti-
cal readings of horror films are those
of Barbara Creed in her works on the
monstrous-feminine. Creed contends
that horror films present the maternal
figure as abject, or abominable, as the
menstrual blood is akin to other un-
wanted bodily fluids such as vomit,
feces, and pus; and the maternal power
threatens the paternal power that hu-
man society has deemed acceptable
(4951). The animal kingdom must then
be a truly frightening thing in this un-
derstanding, for it is easily dominated
by species wherein the female has the
power to choose its mate to the exclu-
sion of many others. In certain extreme
cases, such as the deep-sea anglerfish,
the male evolutionarily becomes noth-
ing more than an appendage for the
female, and its sole purpose is to give
sperm (Pietsch 781). In others, as is
generally known in various mantids and
spiders, the female kills the male after
copulation. It is, quite literally, a game
of survival for males of many species. In
the body horror of Cronenberg, females
tend to represent the destructive sexual
other, whereas males stand by watching
(Beard 157).
This sexual selection has led to the
evolution of male characteristics that are
supposed to make them more attractive
to females. Female animals are in fact
very choosy and select potential mates
based on their perception of health. The
monsters of slasher films are usually
male and physically and mentally dam-
aged. We cannot imagine sane women
choosing as viable mates and fathers
of their children Freddy Krueger of
Nightmare on Elm Street (dir. Craven,
1984) or Leatherface from The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper,
1974). Says Tudor of these slashers:
The unruliness of his body, then, lies in
its failure to behave in a sexual fash-
ion appropriate to its presumed physi-
cal nature (34). It is interesting to ob-
serve that several writers, such as Aviva
Briefel, have argued that the audience
can find themselves sympathizing not
with the monsters victims but with the
monsters themselves, or at the very least
the audience is made to feel what they
feel because of the plight of the monster
(16). Indeed, can we not sympathize to
a certain extent with these abominable
males, losers in a culture dominated by
physical beauty, spurned by females?
Even more terrifying from the male
perspective is the concept of parthe-
nogenesis, wherein females are able to
produce offspring without the need for
 166 JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television
We cannot imagine sane women choosing as viable
mates and fathers of their children Freddy Krueger of
Nightmare on Elm Street . . . or Leatherface from
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . . .
sperm (Campbell et al. 998). This pro-
cess is known to occur in rotifers, in-
sects, and even a few vertebrates such
as the Komodo dragon. It is a form of
asexual reproduction, but unlike truly
asexual bacteria, parthenogenetic spe-
cies still have distinct males and fe-
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males. It just so happens that males are
not necessary for the continuation of
the population. The general consensus
among fans of the Alien franchise in on-
line forums is that Xenomorph queens
are parthenogenetic, producing their
eggs by themselves.12 Males are likely
produced only to protect colonies. In
The Brood, Nola Carveth (Samantha
Eggar) spontaneously gives birth to
monster children that are manifesta-
tions of her feminine rage. She has no
need for men for reproduction; in fact,
she has her brood kill males who have
wronged her.
One other horrifying aspect of the
Xenomorphs life cycle is their being
parasitoids, which are animals, usually
of the group of wasps, that lay their eggs
in other insects. When these eggs hatch,
the larvae literally eat their way out of
their host (Drickamer, Vessey, and Ja-
kob 139). This is a terrifying behavior
that we actually see among our existing
animals, bizarre even in the already dis-
concerting scheme of parasitism.
The Zombie: Ultimate in
Biological Horror
With the slew of projects inspired by
George A. Romeros cycle of zombie
films, the walking dead have become
among the most famous examples of
what are generally referred to as undead.
Julia Kristeva, in her influential Powers
of Horror, considers soulless corpses
a description that covers essentially all
undead (Creed 4748)as the ultimate
in abjection (34), but zombies are dif-
ferent from other forms of the undead
in that they are basically mindless au-
tomatons driven by base instincts. De-
spite the undead label, vampires are
distinguished from living humans by
only a few, superfluous physical char-
acteristics. They consciously think
and make decisions. Zombies do not.
Vampires are often portrayed as hav-
ing heightened awareness, strength, and
beauty, whereas zombies are shuffling
and decaying. There are few cinematic
examples of the human body wasting
away and being utterly torn apart that
are as blatant as in zombie films. Tudor
describes them thus: ... entirely out of
control: cannibalistic automatons, with
variously damaged and decaying bod-
ies.... They are simply unruly bodies
made manifest (33).
In the field of biology, which is the
study of life, what is the place of un-
death? How, indeed, can the term be
defined? An organism is either living,
with the ability to utilize energy (prin-
cipally through digestion and circulation
of gasses) and self-replicate (through
reproduction) at the minimum (Hick-
man et al. 67), or nonliving. Undeath is
a purely supernatural state of biological
death, not life, and therefore has no bio-
logical (i.e., scientific) definition. Given
that zombies are not known to reproduce
or digest the food that they eat, they seem
to be the epitome of undeath or nonlife.
Considering zombies as walking
soulless corpses, they are the ultimate
in abjection, even from a biological
perspective. All organisms die because
their cells die, and death limits the num-
There are few cinematic examples of the human body
wasting away and being utterly torn apart that are
as blatant as in zombie films.
ber of organisms that will put stress on
the resources supplied by the planets
ecosystems. Additionally, the decompo-
sition of dead organisms is of vast im-
portance in ecological balance; bacterial
and fungal activity returns vital nutri-
ents like nitrogen to the global cycles
(Campbell et al. 1,234). It can be argued
that zombies do decompose, albeit at a
much slower pace; it takes more effort
for decomposers to process a moving
body than a stationary one.
Physically, zombies are truly hor-
rifying creatures. Romero has taken
his creations to various states of decay,
with flesh stripping away and append-
ages falling off. The zombies in Lucio
Fulcis Zombi 2 (1979) are utterly de-
composed, with half-eaten and worm-
infested faces. There are those who can-
not stomach the mere appearance of the
cinematic zombie, for there is a natural
human repulsion to corpses, the state
of death, which is why human cultures
almost universally have ways of iso-
lating the dead from the living (Allen
and Hauser 230). Even other animals
avoid or dispose of their dead (228
230). There are many examples of ani-
mals that are able to identify and avoid
chemical signals coming from dead
conspecifics (i.e., animals belonging to
the same species), because these signals
may indicate the presence of a predator.
Thus, for these animals, the scent of a
conspecifics death is an alarm signal
for their own mortality. This avoidance
behavior is seen in many invertebrates,
including arthropods and echinoderms
(Drickamer, Vessey, and Jakob 204).
Animals also remove their dead to avoid
spread of diseases, as in ants (Allen and
Hauser 23031). It is very interesting in
the context of this discussion to point
out that some ant parasites such as the
fungus Ophiocordyceps have evolved
to control the behavior of the host such
that the ant moves away from its colony
before dying because its colony mates
 Mutations and Metamorphoses 167

would remove the dead ant before the
fungus has time to produce a reproduc-
tive stalk (Hughes et al.). Ants affected
in this way are called zombie ants even
in the biological literature.
Zombies cannot (and should not!)
reproduce. Indeed, the drive to mate
and produce offspring is completely
eliminated in them. They are, therefore,
truly unnecessary: waste that needs to
be purged. Turning other humans by
infection, usually through the infamous
zombie bite, does not count as repro-
duction, for zombies are not a distinct
species from humans. They are dead hu-
mans, physically and mentally damaged
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The uncoordinated, jerky movements of the typical
cinema zombie are indicative of severe damage to
the cerebellum.
ments and depth perception (Kardong when we see self-mutilation of the most
63840). Damage to the cerebellum has sensitive human parts, as with Charlotte
been documented to cause gross lack of Gainsbourgs unnamed She in the dis-
coordination, poor muscle tone, and ab- turbing Antichrist (dir. Lars von Trier,
normal walking patterns. 2009). Biologically, we are predisposed
to caring for our bodies for the purposes
of prolonging our life and attracting
If We Cannot Rely on mates. Jerslev points out that zombies
Our Own Bodies Then on are an abomination precisely in light of

beyond salvation. The destruction of the
body is complete in zombies.
This holds even if one were to con-
sider zombies as being only on the verge
of death and not completely dead (so as
to allow for their continued locomo-
tion and breathing). The uncoordinated,
jerky movements of the typical cinema
zombie are indicative of severe damage
to the cerebellum. The cerebellum is
responsible for fine, coordinated move-
What Can We Rely?
These words from Tudor (37) capture
the essence of the terror derived from
works of body horror. It is easily one of
the more horrifying flavors of the hor-
ror film genre, for it plays on our natu-
ral aversion to pain and damage to the
human body. We cringe when we wit-
ness those blood-soaked scenes in films
put under the label of torture porn, or
this ideal physique (2426). Even males
of other animals groom themselves and
create fascinating behavioral displays to
make themselves attractive to females
(Drickamer, Vessey, and Jakob 30812;
Andersson and Iwasa 5358). Bio-
logical horror throws all of that out the
window, giving us the natural horrors
of mutants, hybrids, transforming crea-
tures, and walking corpses. Ultimately,
it relishes the destruction of the organic

Zombie (1979, Italy) aka Zombi 2. Directed by Lucio Fulci. Photo courtesy of The Jerry Gross Organization/Photofest. (Color figure
available online.)
 168 JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television
Ultimately, [biological horror] relishes the destruction
of the organic form to the point of unnatural
evolutionary insignificance.
form to the point of unnatural evolution-
ary insignificance.
NOTES
1. This comes from a letter written by
Charles Darwin to his friend Joseph Hooker
in 1856 (qtd. in Dawkins 8).
2. For an overview, see Grant 35560,
also, Wood 195220.
3. The three sources most cited in stud-
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ies on body horror films (and horror films in
general, for that matter) are Brophy; Creed,
Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine; and
Kristeva, Powers of Horror.
4. With the noted possible exception of
White, which discusses the treatment of evo-
lution in the named sources; but his interpre-
tation of evolution is not truly biological and
makes no pretensions at being so.
5. Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis de-
servedly won the Best Makeup Award in the
Fifty-Ninth Academy Awards for this film.
6. As defined in many biological works,
including Mayr 166.
7. A hinny is produced by successful
mating between a male horse and a female
donkey.
8. This is called filial cannibalism and is
performed on lower-quality offspring for en-
ergetic and reproductive rate benefits. See,
e.g., Klug and Bonsall.
9. See, e.g., Humpherys et al.
10. This is stated by several characters
in the film and reiterated thus by Brophy:
[A]ny part of the Thing is a whole lifeform
by itself (11).
11. Campbell et al. 67273. The larva of
the typical colonial Hydrozoan is a product
of the joining of sperm and egg from the
mobile medusae, which bud off from the
adult for the purpose of reproduction. The
facehugger is probably equivalent to the
medusa.
12. Reinforced by Alien: Resurrection
(1997), writer Joss Whedon and direc-
tor Jean-Pierre Jeunet in the DVD release
(Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation,
1997). For instance, in most honeybee (Apis
mellifera) colonies the workers remove
larvae infected with the bacterium Bacil-
lus larvae, which can destroy the entire
colony.
Hughes, David P., et al. Behavioral Mecha-
nisms and Morphological Symptoms
of Zombie Ants Dying from Fungal In-
fection. BMC Ecology 11:13 (9 May
2011).
Humpherys, David, et al. Epigenetic Insta-
bility in ES Cells and Cloned Mice. Sci-
ence 293 (2001): 9597.
Jerslev, Anne. The Horror Film, the Body
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