Midweek Hotness: Squick and Body Horror Edition

It should come as no surprise to people who have read my writing that I am into certain kinds of body horror. Alien face huggers? Insect mind control? Bizarre transformations into aliens? Yes, please!

Practically anything nondestructive that transforms or mind controls someone into becoming a part of the alien menace is a lot of fun for me. That's why I have a love/hate relationship with the Alien franchise - I love the body horror, but I hate the chest burster aspect.

It all seems rather dumb to me, anyway - why bother destroying your hosts when you can implant them with eggs and breed them over and over? The aliens have a non optimal breeding strategy. For a supposed 'perfect being,' the designers really screwed up.

I digress. If you're not into such stuff, now would be a good time to turn around and walk back out. If you do like this sort of thing, however, I have some fun stuff to share!

Alien(s)

Of course, 'Alien' was first, and 'Aliens' came later. All in the same universe, but different genres. A thriller isn't anywhere close to an action adventure film, but the Alien franchise has lent itself particularly well to both types of story telling. It would have helped if they had been more creative with the naming to avoid confusion, but I won't bother trying to understand the logic of movie makers.

Let's start the discussion about the Alien franchise by looking at some of HR Giger's art, from whence the designs originated.

All of HR Giger's material seems to feature a melding of humans with machinery, mixed with bizarre aliens. A perfect breeding ground for horror films.

Some of them are a bit more grotesque than others. I won't claim to like this one.

If you're into robotics, this one might tickle your uvula as well as your fantasies.

This... thing... is certainly well endowed, though I don't think it would be good for your health to get in bed with this creature. Those spiky nipples look positively brutal!

Let's loop back to the Alien mythos, shall we? It's hard for me to know whether images like this pre-date the films, but I imagine a few of them do, as they don't seem to be (pardon the pun) fully fleshed out aliens.

I believe this one is a mural done for one of the films. An accurate representation of the alien life cycle, as far as we know it. Only the guy wearing the mask has any sense at all, though even a space suit helmet was unable to save the guy in first Alien film.

The facehuggers in the films are rarely shown close up enough to see what's really on the back side - suckers, suckers, more suckers, and oh by the way a gigantic waggling tube that wants to fill you to the brim with alien eggs.

Of course, nothing would be complete without looking at some clips from the series. That twirling, worm-like tail from the first film is just so... amazing!

Yep, he's got that gigantic tube down his throat, with those huge alien balls slapping him in the face. I've always imagined how much more fun the story would be if the face hugger, instead of killing the host, bonded with the host, transforming them slowly into a xenomorph. A much more palatable plot, in my opinion.

There's even this theory that people can be morphed into alien eggs to perpetuate the alien race. A bit too vore-like to my taste, but fun to think about.

And then, of course, some strangely inventive people made this. Called 'Splorch' for more or less obvious reasons, I can't think of a more impractical sexual device. It does serve to give the mind a pregnant pause, as it were.

PredAlien

Ah, but wait, there's more weird stuff, courtesy of the Alien franchise!

If facehugger impregnations aren't enough for you, the new PredAlien introduced in Aliens vs. Predator 2 opened up a whole new world of mouth to mouth implantation!

I bet if you saw an alien rocking up on you while you're in a hospital bed you'd be pretty terrified, too.

The next part, where the eggs are jammed down her throat, is one of the most unintentionally arousing scenes I've seen in a film yet.

Glug, glug, glug. I really do wish this hadn't turned into another boring chestburster scene later in the film. There's no explanation why the alien chose her to bear its young instead of also impregnating the nurse outside. These aliens are far too irrational!

Slither (2006)

This film is remarkable for being *almost* something good, but never really getting there. Billed as a horror/comedy, it's not successful at either.

You have all the usual ingredients for success - an alien menace, worm creature thingies, a hive mind, parasite infectivity via mouths... but the alien is wholly unsuccessful at really stopping anything the main character does.

The best scene is when she's threatened by the creature, but nothing ever comes of it. Quite a shame.

As in many horror films, bad things always happen in the bath. This seems like a good reason to only take showers.

Oblivious, the worm menace approaches!

Ah yes, the old 'sucking on the gelatin snake' procedure.

If only she actually got infected here! Then the scene would be really interesting, in my opinion. How do you stop the worm from devouring everything... when you're a part of it? Hmmm?

Again, the worm has a non-optimal strategy. Completely destroying everything removes your source of food. Much better to create nice little farms to keep your mind controlled hosts in, happy and healthy while you spread your influence, sapping the will of your slaves so that they are unable to disobey.

Evil Aliens

This one is just plumb weird, but I like the idea anyway.

What if you were kidnapped by aliens and infected, slowly turning into one of them?

As the infection spreads, you slowly start to think like them. To be like them.

After your transformation, you are them. You join them. You do what you are told. You make more of them. You infect others.

Okay, well, the transformation is not slow or subtle here, but one can dream of having a proper corruption plot in a film some day.

That pretty much drains the well of weird stuff that I have for now. Anybody else have something they'd like to share?