List of body horror media
Video Game Year Description
Amnesia : The Dark Descent & Amnesia : A Machine for Pigs 2010 & 2013 The gatherer enemies are deformed human-like monsters ; their eyelids are cut off and their bottom jaw is mutilated and stretched down and attached to their chests leaving their mouths permanently open
BioShock series 2007-2014 Both BioShock and BioShock 2 consist of enemies called Splicers , who were once normal humans that were heavily mutated and driven insane from a drug called ADAM , which they used to re-write their genetic codes to develop psychic powers such as telekinesis and pyrokinesis . The game also contains the iconic Big Daddy , which is a man whose skin has been removed , and whose organs have been grafted to the inside of a modified deep-sea diving suit . BioShock Infinite uses a similar premise , although in this case series of compounds called Vigors grant the player extraordinary abilities ; however , unlike ADAM they are consumed orally rather than injected . In this game , the Big Daddy has been replaced by the Handyman , a human whose spinal cord , head , and heart have been connected to a steampunk robotic frame with minor effects like psychological trauma
Bloodborne 2015
Dead Space series 2008-2013 The primary enemies of the series are called Necromorphs , which are mutated humans with protruding appendages , open wounds , and rotting flesh
Fallout series 1997-present The fallout games take place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland , and as such , many of the enemies and species have physical deformities from the radiation
Half-Life series 1998-2007 Parasitic monsters known as Headcrabs attach themselves to heads of people and cause them to develop mutations such as elongated claws and gaping jaws in their chests
Inside 2016 An indie puzzle platformer developed by Playdead . Inside tells the story about a young boy as he struggles against evil forces trying to take over the world . The boy infiltrates a massive facility where scientists perform mind-control and underwater experiments on human bodies
Outlast 2013 A first-person survival horror game in which an investigative journalist explores an asylum housing inmates displaying various degrees of bodily mutilation and/or mutation
Resident Evil series 1996-present A pharmaceutical company uses a mutagenic T-Virus in order to produce monsters to sell as weapons . The most basic were zombie versions of whatever organism was infected or giant versions of insects . There are also human/insect and human/reptilian hybrids , malformed super-soldiers called Tyrants , and various other mutants . Later games introduce , for example , more viruses and las plagas ( an ancient parasite which take over animal nervous systems )
Parasite Eve series 1998-2010 The Squaresoft ( now known as Square Enix ) video game based on the 1996 Japanese SF horror novel of the same title , was released in 1998 . The premise of both the novel and cinematic RPG being that the mitochondria , organelles from early aerobic bacteria that formed a symbiotic partnership with cells of most present-day multicellular eukaryotes , e.g . humans , are able to retain their separate identity as independent organisms in the form of cellular parasites . A dispersed intelligence , known as Eve , was able to take over the consciousness of certain individuals to make them reproduce and form an ultimate organism that will bring the downfall of humanity and other creatures alike
The Thing 2002 A sequel to the 1982 film The Thing , player follows Captain Blake , a member of a U.S. Special Forces team sent to the Antarctic outpost featured in the film to determine what has happened to the research crew . The enemies encountered come in three main forms . Scuttlers are small Things formed from the limbs and appendages of infected personnel . Walkers are larger and much stronger than Scuttlers , and finally the Bosses are larger and much more powerful than Walkers
Soma 2015 A SF survival horror game developed by Frictional Games
Use in video games
In recent years , the subjects of human experimentation , medical research , and infection have played large roles in video games whose plots are heavily influenced by themes common in body horror .
Body horror, biological horror, organic horror or visceral horror is horror fiction in which the horror is principally derived from the unnatural graphic transformation, degeneration or destruction of the physical body. Such works may deal with decay, disease, deformity, parasitism, mutation or mutilation. Other types of body horror include unnatural movements or the anatomically incorrect placement of limbs to create monsters from human body parts. David Cronenberg, Frank Henenlotter, Brian Yuzna, Stuart Gordon, Lloyd Kaufman, and Clive Barker are notable directors of this genre. The term body horror was coined with the Body Horror theme issue of the University of Glasgow film journal Screen (vol. 27, no. 1, January-February 1986), which contains several essays on the subject.