5 body horror movies to watch on Hulu

Body horror is a popular sub-genre for horror movies and gets more acclaim as time goes on. The Substance regained the attention of body horror lovers and reminded me why I adore the genre. My fascination began in the 80s after watching movies like The Thing and Hellraiser.

Body horror is the abnormal modification of the human body to the point of being grotesque. The point of body horror is to shock the audience and to make them feel uncomfortable in their own skin. The movies on this list will do just that and remind you why the genre is so popular.

Alien franchise (1979-2024)

Alien is another movie that inspired my love for the genre. The iconic scene of the Xenomorph bursting from Kane's chest is forever burned in the back of my mind (spoiler alert, but come on, everyone knows the scene).

Alien follows the crew of the Nostromo, a ship floating through dead space trying to get back home. During cyro-sleep, they awake to a distress call from a foreign spaceship. On the mission, Kane finds hundreds of eggs, and one of them hatches, attaching itself to him. The alien is set loose on the ship and begins to hunt the crew until they are all dead. Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and Alien: Romulus are all available on Hulu.

Suitable Flesh (2023)

Suitable Flesh is a body horror that isn't necessarily too grotesque (apart from a couple of scenes) but instead focuses on the idea of body swapping. The body swapping is a horrifying concept that will deeply unsettle you. The thought of having no control over your own body and no way to get back to it seems utterly hopeless.

Elizabeth is a psychiatrist who is great at her job until one day she gets a new client. Asa confesses that he believes his father is taking control of his body. Elizabeth visits Asa and meets the father who has a book with incantations written inside. When whispered into someone's ear, the incantations cause a body swap. Elizabeth herself begins to experience this and must find a way to stop Asa's father in order to get her own body back.

Titane (2021)

Titane is a French body horror by Julia Ducournau who also directed Raw (2016), another gory body horror. The genre is shown through Alexia's kills as well as her unusual pregnancy. The body horror in this movie leans more to the gory side but also heavily leans into the unexpected plot.

As a young girl, Alexia was involved in a bad car accident, leaving her with a titanium plate in her head. As an adult she works as a showgirl for a motor show where it's revealed she has mechanophilia, a sexual attraction to the cars around her. Apart from her strange attraction, she is also harboring a dark secret, she is a serial killer. In order to evade capture, she impersonates a missing boy, Adrien, and is taken in by the father, who begins to uncover all of her secrets.

The Fly (1986)

The Fly is another body horror from the 80s that inspired the genre into what it is today. The Fly is body horror done right, the practical effects are fantastically disgusting. The transformation Seth goes through is nothing short of amazing but horrifying at the same time.

Seth Brundle is an over-achieving scientist who meets a journalist that he entices with his brilliant invention. Brundle invents a teleportation machine that can instantly transfer inanimate objects. Eventually he cracks the code on transporting live matter. He transports himself, not realizing a fly entered with him, and he begins to transform into a human-fly hybrid.

Hatching (2022)

Hatching is a Finnish film that not only accomplishes effective body horror but also bird-body horror. The transformations in this movie are a bit underrated, considering the puppet maker is who worked on movies like Jurassic World and Star Wars.

Tinja is obsessed with being the perfect daughter to her overbearing mother. She strives to be the best in gymnastics in order to gain her attention. One day, Tinja stumbles upon an injured bird and its egg; she takes the egg back to her house to keep it hidden from her mother. She promises to take care of the egg and to be the ideal mother to it. However, when it hatches it is unlike anything she has ever seen.