The doctor will see you now.
Horror and surgery go hand in hand. The ability to cut people open and play with—I mean fix— their insides is horrific enough. So medical horror takes it only that much further into the land of abject horror as mad scientists and deranged doctors slice and dice with reckless abandon. Their lack of concern for humanity creates monstrous creations and downright disgusting results.
In honor of the release of Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, which features its fair share of demented medical horror, we’re looking at six of the genre’s most terrifying medical experiments.
Dead Ringers
David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers may not be his most goopy body horror, it’s one of his most terrifying. In the film, twin gynecologists (both played by Jeremy Irons) run a successful practice. But when one of them falls in love with a patient and slowly begins to lose his mind. He dreams of women with mutant vaginas and designs medieval-looking instruments to try and “fix” them. But that goes incredibly poorly when he whips out one of these tools during surgery. It may not be gory, but there’s something horrifying about a doctor who believes he’s on the cutting (pardon the pun) edge of his field. It feels like it could almost happen.
Excision
Oh Pauline, you sweet, surgery-obsessed teen. Before he made the wholesome King Knight, Richard Bates, Jr. blessed us with teen medical horror Excision. In the film, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) is an outcast who desperately wants to be a surgeon. The film switches between her dull reality and a hyper-stylized and sexual dream state where Pauline is a confident queen of blood and the knife. The surgical obsession culminates in a shocking ending that, while dark, is pitch-perfect.
Tusk
Have you ever wanted to see Justin Long get surgically transformed into a walrus? Well, Kevin Smith has got that for you in spades with his 2014 film Tusk. In perhaps one of the first films to satirize podcasters, Long plays a podcast host who goes a little too far for a good story. What’s even wilder is that the film is based on a person who supposedly offered a rent-free living situation if the tenant would dress as a walrus. It was eventually debunked as a prank, but it still led to this absolute nightmare of a movie.
The Human Centipede
Say what you will about The Human Centipede, but we can all agree it is top-notch medical horror solely for how hard it pushes the boundaries of the genre. The film follows a mad doctor who wants to create, well, a human centipede. This means connecting humans from anus to mouth, with each person serving as a segment in the creation. The first film sees the doctor using just three people in his deranged experiment. It’s an agonizing watch. I don’t think I need to explain why.
Eyes Without A Face
A parent would do anything for their child. That includes stealing the faces of unsuspecting women and putting them on said child. At least, that’s what plastic surgeon Dr. Génessier would do for his daughter Christiane in the 1960 French horror classic Eyes Without a Face. After he causes a car accident that causes extensive injuries to Christiane’s face, the doctor dedicates himself to find a way to fix his mistakes. So, he abducts young women to steal their faces and graft them on Christiane. But such a procedure isn’t so easy and the body count steadily builds as each surgery is unsuccessful.
The Fly
What would a horrific medical experiment list be without an entry dedicated to Brundlefly, the horrific combination of Dr. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) and a housefly. David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly is a masterclass in body horror and romance as Brundle toils to complete his life’s work while falling in love (with the impeccable Geena Davis). His work: a teleportation machine. Just when he thinks he’s perfected his creation and decides to try it himself, he accidentally mixes his DNA with that of a fly that snuck into the machine. The result? A man-fly hybrid that’s hungry, angry, and horny.
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse is out now on digital!
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