Introduction for Year’s Best Body Horror Unveiled

The human body has long been the enemy of horror films.  One only has to look as early as THE INVISIBLE MAN or THE WOLFMAN for manifestations of physical forms undergoing irrevocable change.  But the body horror genre encompasses three distinct variations of organic terror:  invasion via disease or decomposition, violation through mutilation or penetration, and transformation from a reconstitution of biology.

Body horror?  Yes, today’s email includes an announcement from Gehenna & Hinnom Editor/Publisher C.P. Dunphey that Shane Ramirez’s “Deconstructing Body Horror,” part of which is quoted above, as originally published in SOUNDONSIGHT.ORG and POPTOPIQ.COM has been selected as[image error] the introduction for YEAR’S BEST BODY HORROR 2017 ANTHOLOGY, the contents page for the rest of which has appeared below (cf. August 10, also September 18, 13, et al.).  This is a large book at 400-some pages, with forty-plus stories, expected out on September 30 and available for e-copy pre-order by pressing here.  And my cut in the carnage?  A story called “Flesh,” the surrealistic tale of a man of means and a nightmare-based need of a weighty nature.