Plot: Inhabitants of a small Japanese town become possessed by spirals, called uzumaki.

KBZ’s Take: Uzumaki (Spiral) initially starts off so much like a romantic teen drama that you might be wondering if you’re watching the wrong film. However, similar to Audition (1999), the film takes a left turn in the second act by elevating the suspense and mystery. By the third act, you’ll be treated to some of the more disturbing Body Horror of the entire subgenre.

Ringu (1998), Pulse (2001) and Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) are the more well-known Horror Films of the late 90’s and 2000’s J-Horror wave. However, Uzumaki (along with the Tetsuo films), helped usher in the Body Horror themes that would later dominate the J-Horror subgenre. It’s a film every fan of Body Horror and J-Horror shouldn’t miss.

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Plot: In Oklahoma, Agnes, a lonely waitress living in an isolated and dilapidated roadside motel, meets Peter, a quiet and mysterious man with whom she establishes a peculiar relationship.

KBZ’s Take: Bug almost seems like a play as it features a total of 5 characters that interact predominantly in one setting. But the two main characters played by Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are the reasons to check out this film. Though it’s mainly a Psychological and Medical Horror film it slowly turns to more Body Horror themes as Shannon grows increasingly unstable. It’s a film where the Body Horror adds to the effect of someone slowly going insane.

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Plot: An aspiring hairdresser (Kuriyama) becomes the infatuation of a man who sells hair extensions to nearby hair salons. The source of the hair is the corpse of a girl whose dead body continues to grow beautiful, voluminous, black hair that comes alive, driving those who use the extensions insane or killing them.

KBZ’s Take: If you follow the J-Horror subgenre, you’re aware that plots and themes of those films are unconventional and often just crazy. By reading Exte’s plot, you wouldn’t think a film about hair extensions could actually be frightening. But the film intensifies the supernatural scares by layering them over child abuse.

Though the supernatural presence in the film leads to some creative Horror moments (and kills), the more frightening layer of the film is the physical and mental abuse of eight-year-old Mami (Miku Sato) by her mother Kiyomi (Tsugumi). Those scenes of abuse are hard to watch but add emotional depth to a film that’s much better than its plot line and premise might suggest.

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Plot: Dawn is an active member of her high-school chastity club but, when she meets Tobey, nature takes its course, and the pair answer the call. They suddenly learn she is a living example of the vagina dentata myth when the encounter takes a grisly turn.

KBZ’s Take: This Horror Comedy is very cringe inducing – especially if you are a male. The Body Horror in this film is used judiciously for maximum effect – and the effect is both comedic and horrific at the same time. The film utilizes the ‘vagina dentata’ myth for feminist themes throughout the film and those themes play perfectly into every Body Horror sequence. It’s a great film of the subgenre but be prepared that you will likely be looking away from the screen more than once.

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Plot: Psychological horror about a lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood, and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her.

KBZ’s Take: Another film that would is much more of a Psychological Horror film vs. a straight up Body Horror film. However, like other great Psychological Horror films, the Body Horror adds more depth to the psychotic break of an individual – in this case May. This film takes a while to get there, but the Body Horror sequence isn’t one you’ll soon forget.

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Plot: Medical student Paula Henning wins a place at an exclusive Heidelberg medical school. When the body of a young man she met on the train turns up on her dissection table, she begins to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, and uncovers a gruesome conspiracy perpetrated by an Antihippocratic secret society operating within the school.

KBZ’s Take: This German film has elements of a Medical Horror film intertwined with a Slasher film. Given its medical setting, you can probably guess what most of the Body Horror will entail. While you might guess right at first, this film does feature a rather unique twist in the third act with some demented Body Horror scenes. Outside of the Body Horror, it’s an effective horror/thriller/mystery hybrid with a unique plot. Recommended for fans of the subgenre.

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Plot In the Nineteenth Century, in Japan, the American journalist Christopher is traveling through the country searching Komomo, the missing love of his life that he had abandoned years ago promising to come back to her later. He arrives in a shadowy island inhabited by whores and caftans, where he has an encounter with a deformed prostitute that tells that his beloved Komomo had passed away. He drinks sake with her and later he asks the woman to tell the story of her life. The prostitute discloses a dark and cruel story about her life and the sad fate of Komomo.

KBZ’s Take: Who knows what Showtime executives were thinking when they selected Takashi Miike to director an episode of the Masters of Horror television series. Did they think he would somehow tone down his extreme Body Horror from films like Audition (1999) or even more extreme violence from Ichi the Killer (2001)? Imprint was the planned 13^th episode of the series but was shelved due to its extreme and disturbing content.

Imprint is a bit hard to find but worth seeking out if you’re a fan of Body Horror and Takashi Miike. While the film does have some extreme Body Horror (and other content), it’s run of the mill Takashi Miike ‘extreme content’. If you’re not familiar with Miike’s brand of Horror, then there’s a good chance you won’t make it past 15 minutes of this film.

Where to Stream / Buy: https://youtu.be/ENqEBBircyg

Plot: A brash rookie cop with a love for drugs and clubbing, Marc (August Diehl), and a cynical seen-it-all veteran detective, Minks (Christian Redl), match wits to hunt down a serial killer who is skinning his victims for their intricately designed Japanese tattoos. The two cops descend into an underworld of tattoo fetishists and sex clubs looking for their perp. But Minks goes into panic mode when his daughter (Jasmin Schwiers) goes missing and is possibly involved with the investigation.

KBZ’s Take: If you’re a fan of Se7en (1995) and 8MM (1999), you’ll likely enjoy this film. Like Se7en, it has a premise with an older and younger detective paired together to track down a serial killer. In this instance, the serial killer is skinning people for their tattoos. And like 8MM, it delves into a seedy subculture of society dealing with unique tattooing.

The film has enough twists and turns to differentiate itself from both Se7en and 8MM and doesn’t follow most Hollywood Serial Killer film tropes. The Body Horror is also kept at a minimum in this film which helps the film’s more suspenseful sequences. Highly recommended for fans of the subgenre.

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Plot: Americans Amy, Stacy, Jeff and Eric look for fun during a sunny holiday in Mexico, but they get much more than that after visiting an archaeological dig in the jungle.

KBZ’s Take: This film had a mixed reception as it tried to balance Survival Horror with Splatter & Gore. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to appease fans of either camp as gore hounds didn’t find it gory enough while more mainstream horror fans couldn’t take some of the gorier content.

We fall into the camp that it’s a great Survival Horror film that leans on the psychological impact of Body Horror. While the film does show some of the subgenres more memorably Body Horror scenes, it’s the Body Horror that intensifies the survival themes of the group as their situation grows increasingly desperate.

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Plot: A young woman’s quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tortured her as a child leads her and her best friend, also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.

KBZ’s Take: Warning: this film is not for the faint of heart. As we mentioned in previous articles that list this film, this was probably the most extreme French horror film released in the 2000’s. It’s often in the Top 3 of any Most Disturbing Films of All Time lists and it’s often labeled as “torture porn”. The film has also spawned numerous debates about the ending if you can make it that far.

From a Cults subgenre perspective, it shows one of the more extreme and disturbing cults and their beliefs. From a Body Horror perspective, it’s known as one of the top films in the subgenre for a reason. The Body Horror is a result of the beliefs of the cult but that does not make it any easier to watch. This is one film we only recommend to true Horror fans as it firmly sits at a very extreme end of the Horror spectrum. We can say with 100% confidence that it’s a film you can never ‘unsee’ or will ever forget.

Also, if you do gather up the courage to watch this film, make sure you watch the original French film and not the horrible 2015 remake.

Additional Lists: Top World Cinema Horror Films You Haven’t Seen #6, Top Films About Cults You Haven’t Seen 1990 – 2009 #2

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