#–A–B–C–D–E–F–G–H–I-J-K–L–M-N-O-P-Q-R–S–T–U-V-W-X-Y-Z

A

Ash
Released: 2025
Director: Flying Lotus
Synopsis: Riya (González) wakes up on a distant planet with no memory of what happened to her. She soon discovers the fate of the crew was much more horrifying than she was led to believe.
Verdict: An interesting premise, though not executed to the best of its potential. Mostly monotonous up until the third act, where it picked up steam with some solid body horror, alien activity and general oddness. 3/5
Read the Tiny Tapes Ash review.

B

Best Wishes to All (Japanese: みなに幸あれ)
Released: 2022
Director: Yûta Shimots
Synopsis: A young woman visits her grandparents in a rural town, and what she discovers at their house opens up a world of terror.
Verdict: An interesting look at how happiness sometimes requires the suffering of others, balanced well with body horror and the horror of waking up to the real world. 4/5
Read the Tiny Tapes Best Wishes to All review.

Body Melt
Released: 1993
Director: Philip Brophy
Synopsis: The residents of a small town in Australia become the unwitting test subjects of a new drug that alters the body in gruesome ways.
Verdict: Humorous? Yes. Good? Not really. The body horror aspects are fairly strong and horrifying, but with weak scenes in between it’s a struggle to get to the end. 2/5

Braindead (US: Dead Alive)
Released: 1992
Director: Peter Jackson
Synopsis: When his overbearing mother is bitten by a rat-monkey hybrid creature and turns into a zombie, Lionel (Timothy Balme) finds himself trying to survive in the middle of an outbreak along with love interest Paquita (Diana Peñalver).
Verdict: This early work of Peter Jackson, he of Lord of the Rings, has absolutely nothing in common with his later fantasy work bar one thing: his clear commitment to bringing something visually alive for audiences. Content-wise, it’s hilarious, gory, and a perfect B-horror-type film, and it certainly has that classic New Zealand-vibe of not taking itself too seriously. 4/5

Bring Her Back
Release date: 2025
Directors: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Synopsis: A brother and sister discover some strange things at the home of their foster mother.
Verdict: In spite of a slightly unoriginal story, the Philippou brothers prove their mettle by creating another horror film that is almost as horrific and gruesome as their debut (Talk to Me). 4/5
Read the full Bring Her Back review.

C

Castle Freak
Release date: 1995
Director: Stuart Gordon
Synopsis: An American man inherits an Italian castle, and while staying there with his estranged wife and blind daughter, they soon learn they’re not alone.
Verdict: A typically gratuitous B-horror that just about manages to have a sturdy plot and indulge in a little body horror amongst some questionable scenes. 3/5

Crimes of the Future
Released: 2022
Director: David Cronenberg
Synopsis: Due to advances in biotechnology and accelerated evolution in some humans, a performance artist and his partner are able to perform surgery as a form of entertainment, until an investigator gets involved and their work is exposed to the wrong people.
Verdict: An interesting story that presents themes worth talking about, however it relies mainly on visual effects to shock and awe, leaving audiences wanting more from the characters and their intentions. It’s an enjoyable and thought-provoking watch that could ignite many a conversation about evolution and genetics, but Cronenberg could have perhaps gone further with his ideas. 3/5
Read the Tiny Tapes Crimes of the Future review.

Cronos (Spanish)
Released: 1992
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Synopsis: An elderly antiques dealer discovers a device created centuries ago by an alchemist who used it to gain immortality. As the dealer uses the device and begins to grow younger, he discovers that he’s not the only one after the gift of youth.
Verdict: As interesting as the premise is, the execution of the story is up and down, with moments of intrigue and gruesome body horror often followed by moments of blandness. Federico Luppi puts in a great performance as antiques dealer Jesus Gris, but Ron Perlman feels out of place in this mainly Spanish-speaking horror. 3/5

D

District 9
Released: 2009
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Synopsis: In 1982, over a million aliens become stranded on Earth in Johannesburg, South Africa. Over the following decades, the aliens barely survive in a make-shift camp that quickly becomes slum-like. When Wikus (Sharlto Copley) is ordered to help move the aliens to a new camp, he unintentionally becomes involved in their plight to leave Earth.
Verdict: A fantastic premise that mirrors many of our own real problems revolving around immigration and racism. The characters are interesting, aliens included, the story is solid and is framed well in its documentary style, with a mix of interviews, news footage, CCTV and found footage. 4/5

E

Eraserhead
Released: 1977
Director: David Lynch
Synopsis: In this surrealist film set in a desolate world, Henry (Jack Nance) becomes responsible for a child that is supposedly his, but it is extremely deformed, hardly human at all.
Verdict: This body horror is what you make of it, but don’t go into it expecting anything straightforward. For me, there was a lot of emotion to be felt within its dreamlike design, and it somehow resonated with me. That’s not the case for everyone, so as mentioned, make of it what you will. 4/5

eXistenZ
Released: 1999
Director: David Cronenberg
Synopsis: A game designer is hunted down whilst playing her own virtual reality game, a game that is run through an organic pod that is biologically connected to the human body, and an amateur gamer is the only one who can help her stay alive.
Verdict: One of Cronenberg’s best films, eXistenZ mixes multiple genres to make something very unique about gaming VR before VR was a real thing in the game world. It’s unpredictable and culminates with a great twist. Jude Law’s American accent leaves a lot to be desire, and it does verge on a little too confusing on occasion, but it’s a fun ride through and gory and shocking world, never really knowing if it’s the real world or not (Inceptioning before Inception was a thing). 4/5

Eyes Without a Face (French: Les Yeux sans visage, US: The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus)
Released: 1960
Director: Georges Franju, based on the novel by Jean Redon
Synopsis: Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), a plastic surgeon, finds his next patient to be his own daughter after she’s involved in a car accident that leaves her face severly disfigured. He lures women to his home in order to try multiple times to conduct a face transplant on his daughter.
Verdict: Coming soon

F

The Fly
Released: 1986
Director: David Cronenberg
Synopsis: Eccentric scientist Seth (Jeff Goldblum) invents telepods to transport live things. Growing impatient, Seth uses himself as a test subject after successfully transporting a live baboon. However, unbeknownst to Seth (but knownst to us), a common housefly also transports with Seth, causing serious repercussions.
Verdict: Another excellent film from Cronenberg that is further renowned for Goldblum’s balanced tongue-in-cheek yet engaging performance. The Fly fully embodies Cronenberg’s penchant for body horror and a fictional story that is fully rooted in realistic themes. Entertaining, shocking and very well designed, this film is truly special in the body horror and sci fi genres. 4/5

Frankenstein
Released: 1931
Director: James Whale
Synopsis: Dr. Frankenstein decides to play god and reanimate a body thrown together with multiple body parts from different corpses in order to create the Monster. Without someone to guide him, the misunderstood Monster terrorises the locals until they set out to hunt him down.
Verdict: A horror classic that stands the test of time, if only for its brutal nature and dark tones (in both its visuals and its story) and the famous make-up on Boris Karloff. Staying more or less true to Mary Shelley’s famous novel, there’s a lot to be terrified of in this movie, and a lot to enjoy in its 1930s style. 4/5

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein)
Released: 1994
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Synopsis: Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) is hounded by the Creature (Robert DeNiro) he created and abandoned, discovering that playing God isn’t what he thought it would be.
Verdict: An excellent adaptation of the classic story with terrific performances and stunning (though at times horrifying) imagery, set designs, visual effects and make up. Almost like a stage play at times, it’s incredibly immersive and will leave you with more existential questions than answers. 4/5

Frankenstein
Released: 2025
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Synopsis: Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) becomes infamous for his work in reanimation, to the point where he is commissioned by arms dealer Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) to speed up the process and reanimate a full body, resulting in the ‘birth’ of his Creature (Jacob Elordi). Victor comes to see his creation as an imperfect specimen, an abomination that must not be allowed to live.
Verdict: Fantastical but grounded in reality, subtle in some respects, overt in others, del Toro’s career has led up to this film, and it has totally been worth the wait, with astounding performances, terrifying visuals and incredible emotional depth. Pure gothic brilliance. 4.5/5
Read the full Frankenstein (2025) review.

Freaks
Released: 1932
Director: Tod Browning
Synopsis: A trapeze artist named Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) joins a carnival sideshow, in which she seduces a fellow performer purely to get at his inheritance, getting others involved in her scheming. Amongst other relationships going on within the company of the sideshow, many of them become suspicious of Cleopatra and thus take matters into their own hands.
Verdict: While this film was probably quite discerning for its time (to put it lightly), it doesn’t hold up today due to its subject matter of putting people who are different on show as ‘freaks’. As a film it succeeds in having a clear story, but one can’t help but feel this film was purely for exploitation. Worth watching purely for understanding how times have changed dramatically, and for appreciating the performances by all the actors.

G

Gates of Hell trilogy
Released: 1980-1981
Director: Lucio Fulci
Synopsis: In City of the Living Dead, the suicide of a priest opens a gate to hell, and a group of people work to close it before All Saint’s Day; in The Beyond, a woman inherits a hotel that houses another hell gate; and in The House by the Cemetery, a family move into a house that is also home to an apparently immortal serial killer.
Verdict: These films don’t exactly boast strong storylines (they’re pretty basic really), but they are rather a vehicle for some pretty spectacular visual effects and make up. The body horror and gore is at times extreme so these films are not for the faint of heart, but absolutely worth your time to see how amazing the practical effects were before computer graphics. 3/5

H

Hellraiser series
Released: 1987-2022
Synopsis: Thanks to the discovery of a puzzle box known colloquially as the Lament Configuration, humans discover a hell dimension that is home to Cenobites. Some humans seek out this dimension to indulge in its rumoured pleasures, while others are haunted by what they witness.
Verdict: One of the best horror series out there, Hellraiser plays unapologetically with common fears of what constitutes ‘hell’, namely pain and unending fear. The Cenobites are fearsome demons, as are the people who seek them out. The series starts off very well in its inaugural film, and the gore and body horror that is introduced is kept at a relatively high level throughout the series, even if the quality of the ’87 original has not been easily replicated over the years.
Check out DOTT’s Film Club – Hellraiser.

Huesera: The Bone Woman (Spanish: Huesera)
Released: 2022
Director: Michelle Garza Cervera
Synopsis: Excited at the prospect of becoming a mother, Valeria (Natalia Solián) soon finds her pregnancy threatened by dark forces.
Verdict: With themes of women’s mental health and the pressure to have children, a subplot of traditional medicines and healing and subtle yet effective horror, this is a solid all-rounder that should probably be avoided by new/expectant mothers. 4/5
Read the TIny Tapes Huesera: The Bone Woman review.

The Human Centipede series
Released: 2009-2015
Director: Tom Six
Synopsis: The franchise begins with a German surgeon who kidnaps three tourists and stitches them together mouth to anus, creating a ‘centipede’-like formation. The second installment goes more meta, in that a viewer of the first film attempts to recreate the ‘human centipede’ with twelve victims, and the third involves a prison warden and his accountant doing the same with prison inmates.
Verdict: This truly is one of the most warped kind of film plots ever to exist in the mainstream. It is absolute car-crash viewing: so disturbing that you don’t want to watch, yet so insane that you can’t look away. You will need to be of a strong constitution to get through even one of these deranged films.

I

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Released: 1978
Director: Philip Kaufman
Synopsis: When Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) finds a strange flower, it appears to change her boyfriend. She talks to her friend Matthew (Donald Sutherland), a health inspector, and they come to find that the flower is of alien origin. They come upon pods that are duplicating and replacing humans, and Elizabeth, Matthew and a couple others race against time stop this apparent alien invasion.
Verdict: Other than some character changes, this film doesn’t really deviate from the ’56 film. Its strength lies in its body horror and a handful of shocking scenes, but its lulls are rather a bore – the performances and dialogue are quite monotonou, and so it relies on swinging from shock to far-between shock. 3/5

L

The Lair
Released: 2023
Director: Neil Marshall
Synopsis: An RAF pilot is shot down over Afghanistan and soon finds herself teaming up with US soldiers after she discovers a hidden bunker containing creatures developed from human experimentation.
Verdict: In a word: awful. The performances are average to poor, the basic plot pretty much a copy/paste of Marshall’s own Dog Soldiers, and although I appreciate the effort to use practical effects rather than entirely CGI for the monsters, they do not look good. Waste your time at your peril. 2/5

R

Raw (French: Grave)
Released: 2016
Director: Julia Ducorneau
Synopsis: Justine (Garance Marillier) has been a vegetarian all her life. When she enters veterinary school, she comes in close contact with mean, and soon she develops a taste for it, but not from animals.
Verdict: Coming soon

Re-Animator
Released: 1985
Director: Stuart Gordon, loosely based on the novelette “Herbert West – Reanimator” by H.P. Lovecraft
Synopsis: Medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) creates a reagent that can bring the dead back to life, but as he begins to test his creation, another doctor wants to claim it as his own, though both will find it has some severe detrimental effects.
Verdict: Coming soon

S

Slither
Released: 2006
Director: James Gunn
Synopsis: When an alien parasite comes to a small town and begins taking over peoples’ bodies, it’s up to Sheriff Bill (Nathan Fillion) to put an end to the infestation.
Verdict: Coming soon

Species
Released: 1995
Director: Roger Donaldson
Synopsis: An alien-human hybrid female named Sil (Natasha Henstridge) escapes a government facility and is hunted down by a ragtag group of scientists and agents. They intend to destroy her before she mates with a human male and produces children with the potential to destroy humanity.
Verdict: Despite being mainly infamous for being based on sex and an abundance of nudity, Species does have its genuine moments of decent gore and action. Not to mention, with the hybrid itself designed by the Xenomorph’s own H.R. Giger, there’s something to be said for this alien creature feature at the end of it all. 3/5

Splice
Released: 2009
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Synopsis: Two young scientists working on the splicing of animal genes decide to experiment by adding in human genes, creating an animal-human hybrid. As the hybrid grows, it starts to become a danger, and even comes inbetween the scientists themselves.
Verdict: Much like the movie Species, which was a likely source of inspiration for Splice, this film derives much of its ‘horror’ from the idea of creating something using human genes, something that becomes a threat to humans. It certainly has its weird and grotesque moments, at times maybe taking things a little too far, but it does a decent enough job of showing the risks and consequences of ‘playing God’. 3/5

The Substance
Released: 2024
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Synopsis: Aging actress Elisabeth (Demi Moore) feels the effects of growing older in her industry, so when she is offered a mysterious ‘Substance’, she uses it to create a symbiotic younger version of herself named Sue (Qualley). While they are encouraged to think of themselves as ‘one’, they become separate entities intent on destroying one another.
Verdict: The film is shot magnificently, and Moore gives an exceptional performance. With excellent themes on the aging mentality and objectification of female bodies, a massive Cronenberg influence (which can only be a good thing) and fantastic prosthetics, this is one body horror film you don’t want to miss. 4/5
Read the Tiny Tapes The Substance review.

Swamp Thing
Released: 1982
Director: Wes Craven
Synopsis: When his lab in a swamp is attacked and he is doused in a chemical he created, Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) becomes the monsterous Swamp Thing. He wishes to exact revenge on the mastermind behind the attack, as well as protect Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau).
Verdict: As a film, Swamp Thing has a lot to offer in the way of adventure and intrigue, but as an adaptation of the graphic novels, it falls short of the novels’ depth and the Swamp Thing’s own internal journey, as well as adding odd scenes that don’t really make a lot of sense for either Holland’s or Swamp Thing’s character. 3/5

T

The Thing
Released: 1982
Director: John Carpenter
Synopsis: In Antarctica, a group of scientists are besieged by an alien lifeform that can imitate anyone or anything, leaving the scientist in danger of it, as well as each other.
Verdict: One of the best body horrors ever made, The Thing adeptly uses the claustrophobic and isolated setting to instill fear into the characters and the audience from the off, building to frightful and gruesome transformations caused by the extraterrestrial organism. 4/5

Together
Released: 2025
Director: Michael Shanks
Synopsis: A couple move to the countryside where a supernatural occurrence affects their lives, from their relationship to their physical bodies.
Verdict: One of the best things about Together, and many decent horror films, is the blending of multiple sub-genres in an attempt to create something somewhat unique. With its combination of psychological, supernatural and body horror with a healthy sprinkling of comedy and even a dash of romance, it becomes its own hybrid in a genre that’s tough to stand out in. 4/5
Read the full Together review.

U

The Ugly Stepsister
Released: 2025
Director: Emilie Blichfeldt
Synopsis: After the passing of Agnes’s (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), aka Cinderella’s, father, her ‘evil’ step-mother begins to push her eldest daughter Elvira (Lea Myren) into more intense lessons, beauty regimes and surgical changes to make her more attractive to the opposite sex, the goal being to find a rich husband, at any cost.
Verdict: The extreme measures Elvira puts herself through, intiated by her mother, are truly horrific and reflective of the pain women will put themselves through to achieve the ‘perfect’ look. The performances are excellent, the story and characters well written, and the body horror scenes hard to look away from. 4/5
Read the Tiny Tapes The Ugly Stepsister review.

Under the Skin
Released: 2013
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Synopsis: An extraterrestrial Woman (Scarlett Johansson) preys on men in Scotland, but as she witnesses different sides of human behaviour, her icy attitude towards humans begins to thaw, which means putting herself in danger, too.
Verdict: A bizarre yet heavily themed film that has much in the way of social commentary while also being shocking and disturbing. Johansson’s performance is tremendous and a far cry from her usual Hollywood roles. She does have a few nude scenes, but none feel particularly sexual nor gratuitous – they all build the alien character and her actions. A strange yet intriguing film. 4/5