TL;DR Review – Thanatomorphose (2012)
Thanatomorphose follows a woman named Laura who, for reasons never explained, begins to physically rot while still alive. Her body peels, leaks, and collapses as her mental state deteriorates alongside it. Falardeau makes sure that every bodily fluid is represented. The action takes place entirely within a suffocating apartment. Thanatomorphous uses practical effects to create some of the most unsettling imagery in modern horror.
More than just gore, Thanatomorphose explores themes of decay, trauma, and isolation. Even more, it describes how society continues to take its pound of rotten flesh, even as we decline. It’s slow-paced, surreal, and hard to watch for more ways than one. The film represents a visceral descent into the abhorrent. If you’re looking for a film like Contracted, Bite, or early Cronenberg, this one might be a bridge too far, but if your looking for bleeding edge of body horror, this might be it.
Not for casual horror fans.
Where to watch Thanatomorphose
Extended Review of Thanatomorphose (2012)
Thanatomorphose is a film that dispenses with all pretense of storytelling to visually display a horrific metaphor. Written and directed by Éric Falardeau, this 2012 body horror entry feels less like an offensive assault on these sense. Likewise, this film likely speaks to a very small contingent of stomach hardened body horror fans. Thanatomorphose, a term referring to the visible process of bodily decay, sets the tone for what’s to come: a slow, festering meditation on mortality, trauma, and the gradual decomposition of the self.
The film follows Laura (Kayden Rose), a languid woman caught in an emotionally abusive relationship and a bleak existence. Inexplicably, after a night of rough sex with her boyfriend, Laura develops a rash. This rash rapidly progresses to a total disintegration of her flesh. No cause, no explanation. Her skin sloughs off, her nails blacken, fluids leak from every orifice. All the while, she says almost nothing. In fact, she seems to have succumbed to her fate from the beginning. The entirety of the film takes place in her cramped unremarkable apartment.
What makes Thanatomorphose fascinating is its refusal to play by traditional horror rules. There’s no origin story, no cure, no antagonist. The horror is the body itself. Falardeau uses tactile, practical effects to display rot in dark, stomach-churning detail. The gore isn’t sensational; it’s oppressive and never ending. There are no jump scares, no cathartic outbursts. There is only the slow and silent unraveling of a woman whose life was barely holding together before her flesh followed suit.
The viewers impression of Thanatomorphose largely rests on their interpretation of the metaphor and how profound they find it. Laura is a woman that is already decomposing. She is her mental and emotional states are visibly disintegrating for all to see, and all the while the world around her takes more and more. No matter how far her state of being decays, the negative energy never leaves on it own accord. It’s always down for another romp in the sack, or another blow job. It only stops when she kills it herself. In the end, all she has left is her art and her art is a direct expression of her herself, literally.
Thanatomorphose be one of the purest examples of body horror as there is little more than Laura’s body to consider. This aligns it with body horror films like Possession (1982) and Antiviral (2012) in name only. Most body horror depends on some know causation of or narrative. This makes Thanatomorphose is colder, more alienating and ultimately harder to watch. It’s not just for the gore, but also because the runtime of the film outlives the shelf life of the metaphor.
The sound design is delivers an extra dimension with its wet, squishy, suffocating presentation. The lighting dims into corpse-like blues and browns, with barely any natural light breaking through. The apartment becomes Laura’s sarcophagus, and one can only wonder about how horrible it must smell.
Ultimately, this is not a film to enjoy, it’s a film to endure. It’s bleak, but it’s also deeply committed to its vision. For fans of transgressive cinema and extreme body horror, Thanatomorphose deserves mention alongside the most challenging entries in the genre. Casual fans of horror might want to another. We mentioned Possession (1982) as it covers some similar ground, but with much more robust story.
Thanatomorphose (2012) - Extreme Body Horror of the Rotting of the Soul - Malevolentdark
Director: Éric Falardeau
Date Created: 1970-01-01 00:33
2.5