When a piece of horror media sets out to create a monster, every detail is crucial. Will they be humanoid or more bestial? Will they be massive or tiny? Will they tear their prey apart with their raw strength or do they possess more esoteric characteristics? There’s an option that’s become very popular lately, and it involves smashing together a bunch of existing creatures into one really big Body of Bodies.
A dodgy horror film can besaved by a great monster. A good horror game can deliver a few incredible beasts on each level. There’s no perfect guide to creating a horrific antagonist, but there is a selection of traits that most of the best examples share. Skeletons, exposed gore, and things in places they shouldn’t be are pretty common.
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The Body of Bodies is a fairly self-explanatory trope. It’s a big bad beast composed of the flesh and bones of multiple other smaller organisms. This concept comes in a couple of key variations. In many cases, the creature made up of smaller creatures is introduced whole. The audience never sees the individual pieces as they werebefore they joined the collective. Other examples see one large and powerful being subsuming their minions, their enemies, or anyone who happens to be standing nearby into a more powerful form. Sometimes two or more beings that would already inspire terror willingly consent to fuse for their benefit. In some of the most interesting cases, a ton of living souls discover that they’re unable to complete a task individually, but possibly more powerful as a combined unit. It’s either a stark embodiment of the loss of identity or a moving message about the power of teamwork.
The idea of dozens of human bodies combining through some magical means into one massive monster is extremely old. Ancient paintings of demons in both Christianity and Hinduism feature beings with this basic concept. One of the best earlyexamples is a yōkai thatwas first depicted in 10th Century Japan. The Gashadokuro or Odokuro, translated as “Rattling Skull” or “Huge Skeleton” is a 30-foot-tall skeleton made out of the skulls of slain soldiers. Though it frequently resembles the massive Halloween decorations available at Home Depot, the first recorded story about the Gashadokuro is haunting. It follows a samurai called Masakado, who escapes punishment after butchering many of his family members. Masakado survived dozens of attempts on his life, but after a failed revolt against the government, he is publicly executed. Masakado’s daughter, a powerful and vengeful sorceress, constructs the first Gashadokuro out of the bones of fallen revolutionaries. The creature laid waste to Kyoto until Masakado’s head was moved and interred elsewhere.
John Carpenter’sThe Thingis probably the most recognizable body horror film ever made. It’s a bona fide classic that has opened the eyes of many to the genre. The film is remembered for its mastery of suspense and clever premise. Twelve men are trapped in an Antarctic research facility with a deadly alien creature who can change shape at will. As soon as the titular Thing is introduced, every living being is a suspect. Most of the film involves the heroes trying to figure out which of their colleagues is actually a monster, but the climax does allow the Thing to stretch itself out a bit more. In its last-ditch effort to survive, theThing twists itself intoa biomass of conglomerated victims. It’s a natural evolution of the concept that makes it look even more horrific. Partially inspired by this classic scene, tons of other movie and video game monsters have transformed into amalgamations of gore as a final form.
The entire FromSoftware catalog is in love with the Body of Bodies concept.Gravelord Nito is theposter boy for the concept. Much like the Gashadokuro, Nito is a towering skeletal humanoid composed of a metric ton of other human skeletons. Its form is more ghostly as it’s hunched forward and covered by a black miasma, but it evokes the idea of the ancient yōkai in a modern context. InBloodborne, FromSoft introduced The One Reborn, who keeps the idea of a body made of corpses, but takes on a lanky centaur-like appearance.Dark Souls IIIbrings out The Rotten, which is composed entirely of still-animated undead humanoids. Most recently,Elden Ringreturned to the Body of Bodies idea againfor the Grafted Scion. FromSoft is good for at least one of these bosses per game, but it’s hard to blame them for reusing ideas when it works every time.
The Body of Bodies concept is a natural evolution of eldritch horror. Most monsters are created by mixing and matching traits from existing creatures. Eyes, fangs, limbs, tentacles, and every other aspect of theaverage sibling of Cthulhuexist somewhere in nature. The horror of combining dissonant traits to create something horrific is as old as time. Putting together entire living creatures is a great way to up the ante.
