Disney released a movie with some of this year's most cringe-inducing body horror

There's no question that Coralie Fargeat's vivid and grotesque feast for the eyes The Substance is the reigning queen of body horror in 2024 (and maybe the decade?), but there's another movie that had some surprisingly unsettling moments and it was released by Disney. I'm talking about Marvel's R-rated team-up film Deadpool & Wolverine.

The Deadpool franchise, and X-Men in general, are no strangers to body horror. That's kind of their whole thing, actually, especially in Deadpool's case. But most of the gore and hard R violence in the previous Deadpool films, or Logan, came from significant bloodshed and fight sequences. There's no shortage of those in Deadpool & Wolverine, but the thing that surprised me is the horror movie-worthy villain, Cassandra Nova, played by Emma Corrin.

Twin sister of Charles Xavier, Nova takes on the role of the primary adversary in this film. She hangs out in a nebulous space between universes called The Void, and that's where our titular heroes first cross paths with her. Corrin is a formidable actor as it is, their steely-eyed and vicious performance in this film is genuinely chilling, especially for a Marvel film where the villains aren't always the strong suit.

But what intrigued me the most was Nova's usage of powers. Like her brother, Nova has psionic powers. Unlike Charles, she can't simply access someone's mind via telepathy but must physically stick her fingers inside of them with an ability known as bio-phasing, meaning the movie treats us to multiple scenes where Nova literally sticks her fingers into brains, namely Deadpool, Wolverine, and Paradox.

Marvel released a behind-the-scenes video demonstrating how the VFX team created the effect and you'll get to see a few clips of how it looks in the finished film if you've yet to watch it.

There's something really gross and icky about watching her fingers slide underneath Matthew Macfadyen's skin and poke out through his eye sockets. There's no bloodshed involved, yet somehow that makes it even more sinister. It's cringe-worthy and kind of makes your insides curdle imagining something like that happening to you. It's not often we get to see those kinds of disturbing effects put into place in a Marvel film, but it's fitting when you have a villain as menacing as Cassandra Nova.

Though Deadpool & Wolverine isn't a horror movie, Nova's powers aren't the only moments in it that might appeal to fans of the genre. As the first official R-rated film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they didn't hold back when it comes to the gore and violent fight scenes.

Deadpool & Wolverine is now streaming on Disney+.