Directed by David Cronenberg • 1975 • Canada
Starring Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry
Canadian auteur David Cronenberg has spent much of his career mining our fears about sex, technology, and corporeal existence, but this breakout feature is perhaps the most shocking of all his body-horror visions. Starliner Towers is just another high-rise apartment building until something terrible begins to go wrong. A terrifying parasite has taken hold, infecting everyone and turning normal people into sex-crazed, deranged, and violent hosts who are committing uncontrollable acts of mindless violence. A doctor races to contain the infection before it spreads from the building to the entire city. There’s nowhere to hide and no escape from the terror!
Up Next in Body Horror
-
Eyes Without a Face
Directed by Georges Franju • 1960 • France
Starring Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, François GuérinAt his secluded chateau in the French countryside, a brilliant, obsessive doctor (Pierre Brasseur) attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore the beauty of his daughter’s disfigured countenance—a...
-
Matango
Directed by Ishiro Honda • 1963 • Japan
Starring Hiroshi Koizumi, Kumi Mizuno, Kenji SaharaLeaving behind the kaiju genre for which he was best known, Ishiro Honda took a detour into hallucinogenic science fiction with this disturbing psychological survival thriller that stands as perhaps the d...
-
The Face of Another
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara • 1966 • Japan
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Machiko Kyo, Mikijiro HiraA staggering work of existential science fiction, THE FACE OF ANOTHER dissects identity with the sure hand of a surgeon. Okuyama (YOJIMBO’s Tatsuya Nakadai), after being burned and disfigured in a...
