Body horror: Alive and unwell
'Of the Flesh: 18 Stories of Modern Horror' explores the lived psychological traumas that exist in the real world

Of the Flesh: 18 Stories of Modern Horror
Various authors
HarperCollins
Body horror has recently regained popularity, particularly in literature. However, this form of horror has existed for much longer than we realise. One of the first examples is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, and Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. This subgenre was most frequently seen in film during the 1970s and 1980s, with films such as David Lynch's Eraserhead, John Carpenter's The Thing and Videodrome, and David Cronenberg's The Fly. The Oscar-winner The Substance, starring Demi Moore, is a more modern example of body horror, as is Nightbitch, directed by Marielle Heller and based on Rachel Yoder's novel from 2021. The primary distinction between contemporary body horror and earlier examples is the increased emphasis on feminism.
According to Wikipedia body horror is a subgenre “... that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body or of another creature” and “... are generally marked by a loss of conscious control over the body through mutation, disease or other tropes involving uncontrolled transformation.”
Of the Flesh contains 18 stories of modern horror with renowned writers, including Maria Enríquez; Lavie Tidhar; Emilia Hart; Irenosen Okojie and Francine Toon. Some stories, such as Bridget Collins' The Fruiting Body, J. K. Chukwu's Flight 2212, Michel Faber's The Broccoli Eel, and Lucy Rose's Carcinisation, fall squarely in the body horror genre. Others, such as Ainslie Hogarth's Waffle Thomas, return to old-school horror, with two strangers telling campfire stories about an urban legend about a shapeshifting serial killer who is rumoured to wander the woods.
From the horror of everyday racism in Adorah Nworah’s The Smiling African Uncle to a demon haunting a Bolivian mine in Robert Lautner’s Shade, this collection has something for everyone. Here are some of my favourites.
Susan Barker's Fight, Flight, Freeze kicks off the anthology on a strong note. She grabs our attention right away with a strange scenario. Our narrator appears to be drowning, but is terrified to swim back to shore because someone is waiting for her, and she would rather drown than face them.
From ghosts of the past to a house being possessed by a pervasive fungal rot in The Fruiting Body. A young couple moves into their new fixer-upper, but their new future, which unexpectedly will include a child, is jeopardised. What’s interesting here is the possible symbolic meanings of the ominous organism taking over the house. It could be interpreted as a physical embodiment of the uncertainty and worry of pregnancy, as well as the discomfort of losing control of one's own body. The story's stifling unease is heightened by a man who keeps gaslighting his partner by claiming it's her hormones and she's only imagining the danger of the fungal entity.
“The fruiting body had grown. It spread out from the matted tarry heart into a tracery of inky threads, a knot of shadowy roots that pulsed and burrowed; it reached from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, a dark throbbing network of veins.”
Eating the fruit of an apple tree allows a recently divorced woman to hear what everyone else is thinking, in Weyward author Emilia Hart's short story, Apples. When her daughter Laura brings her new, older boyfriend to visit, her unusual new ability takes a sinister turn.
From fruit to vegetables: Michael Faber’s The Broccoli Eel tells of a young boy who grows up in an abusive household. He recalls a scary story his mom used to tell him to about an eel living in his insides. The existence of the eel becomes real to him in an attempt to cope with his abusive father: “... he could feel the creature inside him. It would either curl up tight inside the stomach itself, or wriggle out to lie behind it, warming itself on the surface of the hot gurgling organ, allowing the rhythms of Benny’s breathing to massage its scaly skin.”
Once again, this anthology demonstrates that horror is more than just the blood-and-gore genre that many people think it is; rather, it underscores the lived psychological traumas that exist in the real world.
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