The Most Disturbing Human Body Mutilations in Contemporary Cinema

There is nothing we love more than seeing the human body mutilated on film. For all that the destruction of the human body reminds us of our own humanity and our mortality, seeing it on the movie screen allows us to also disavow it and pretend it cannot happen in real life.

"Saw"

Perhaps no film delights as much in the torture and mutilation of the human body than the original "Saw" film and its numerous sequels. Of course, what sets these films apart from other, similar mutilation films is the fact that the victims of the crimes are forced to commit the mutilations on their own bodies, something that runs counter to all of the self-preservation instincts hardwired into our consciousness. Thus, Jigsaw becomes the embodiment of our own fear, both of ourselves and of our own propensity for self-destruction.

"Hostel" and "Hostel: Part II"

Of course, the film "Hostel" also delights in seeing human bodies dissected, mutilated, and ultimately destroyed by forces and people beyond one's control. The second film in particular contains one of the most disturbing human mutilation scenes in the history of cinema: an explicit amputation of a man's genitals, which are then fed to the dogs.

One of the film's central messages concerns the sale of human bodies to the highest bidder, and the film also calls into question the attitude that many Americans adopt when voyaging overseas, challenging us to think critically about the ways in which we approach travel abroad.

"The Ruins"

Finally we come to this film, which follows the adventures of several tourists as they struggle to survive in a Mayan pyramid haunted by a vengeful and human-eating species of plant. Not only does the plant consume their injured guide, actually consuming him as he struggles with a broken leg, it also appears crawling beneath the skin of several of the other characters. The sight of the plant crawling under the skin is without a doubt one of the most disturbing images of the human body in that it signifies the invasion of the explicitly human space by something completely inhuman.

The release of "The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" shows us that the impulse to see human bodies mutilated onscreen continues to occupy our communal imagination. As medicine continues to make advances and stretch the boundaries of what we can understand about the human body and its workings, we shall certainly begin to see the mutilation of the human body take on new and ever more disturbing forms.

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