Shedding Skins: The Enduring Dread of Body Horror in Eyes Without a Face and Under the Skin

Two visions of flesh unbound—one surgical, one extraterrestrial—strip humanity bare, revealing the fragility beneath our outermost layer.

 

Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013) stand as twin pillars of body horror, each peeling back the epidermis of identity in profoundly unsettling ways. Separated by over half a century, these films converge on the terror of corporeal violation, where skin becomes both prison and facade. Franju’s poetic nightmare of facial transplantation clashes with Glazer’s hypnotic alien predation, yet both probe the same existential wound: what remains when the body betrays the self?

 

  • Both films weaponise the face and skin as symbols of lost humanity, transforming personal disfigurement into universal dread.
  • Franju’s surgical precision contrasts Glazer’s abstract minimalism, highlighting evolving techniques in evoking visceral revulsion.
  • Their legacies echo through modern horror, influencing everything from cosmetic surgery anxieties to sci-fi explorations of otherness.

 

Porcelain Masks and Stolen Faces

In Eyes Without a Face, the body horror emerges from a father’s desperate bid to restore his daughter Christiane’s visage after a car accident leaves her scarred beyond recognition. Played by Edith Scob with haunting stillness, Christiane dons a lifelike mask that conceals her ravaged features, wandering the grounds of a secluded Parisian clinic like a spectre. The film’s centrepiece—a surgical sequence where Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) grafts a kidnapped woman’s face onto Christiane’s—unfolds in stark, bloodless clarity. Franju’s camera lingers on the scalpel’s incision, the peeling of flesh, and the sutured result, evoking a clinical poetry that borders on the sacred and profane. This is body horror not as gore, but as violation of the soul’s outermost shell.

The mask itself symbolises the film’s core tension: the illusion of wholeness masking inner ruin. Christiane’s nocturnal drifts through fog-shrouded gardens underscore her isolation, her gloved hands and veiled eyes amplifying the uncanny. Franju draws from real medical horrors of the era, including historical face transplants attempted in the shadows of post-war ethics, blending myth with modernity. The pigeons she releases at film’s end become a motif of fleeting freedom, contrasting the caged body she inhabits. Here, body horror transcends the physical, interrogating parental hubris and the commodification of beauty.

Juxtapose this with Under the Skin, where Scarlett Johansson’s unnamed alien assumes human form to lure men into a void-like abyss. Her skin is a suit, shed and discarded after harvesting victims’ innards, leaving husks floating in inky blackness. Glazer’s horror is more abstract: no explicit gore, but the implication of flayed identity chills through suggestion. The alien’s journey from predator to questioner of flesh peaks in a mirror scene where she probes her own form, fingers tracing teeth and orifices with alien curiosity. Skin here is performative, a deceptive membrane that unravels when empathy intrudes.

Both films fixate on the face as identity’s frontier. Christiane’s mask enforces detachment, while the alien’s flawless visage invites trust, only to betray it. Yet where Franju’s horror roots in human ambition—Génessier’s god complex mirroring Frankensteinian overreach—Glazer’s stems from otherness, the alien’s body a vessel for existential drift. These parallels reveal body horror’s evolution: from tangible mutilation to perceptual dissolution.

Surgical Blades and Voided Flesh

Franju’s surgical theatre in Eyes Without a Face is a masterclass in restrained terror. Lit by harsh fluorescents, the operating room becomes a confessional, the doctor’s masked face looming like a high priest. The graft sequence, devoid of score, relies on the squelch of instruments and rhythmic breathing, heightening the intimacy of desecration. Production designer Auguste Capelier crafted sets that evoke 19th-century asylums, blending Gothic shadows with modernist sterility. This fusion amplifies the theme of science devouring the sacred, a critique of post-war medical ethics amid Europe’s reconstruction traumas.

Glazer, conversely, employs a guerrilla aesthetic in Under the Skin, filming Johansson amid unsuspecting Glaswegians with hidden cameras. Body horror manifests in the tar-pit traps: men stripped, pursuing their reflections into submersion, emerging as skinless cadavers processed by a hulking companion. Composer Mica Levi’s screeching strings mimic insectile panic, scoring the skin-shedding as an industrial rite. The alien’s eventual rape and scalping—raw, unfiltered—marks her corporeal awakening, skin tearing to reveal vulnerability beneath the facade.

Technically, Franju pioneered effects with practical prosthetics for Christiane’s face, crafted by makeup artist Gilbert Sarfati to achieve ethereal pallor. Glazer opts for digital subtlety, enhancing Johansson’s form to uncanny perfection while practical suits for victims evoke The Thing‘s paranoia. Both eschew splatter for implication, proving body horror’s power lies in anticipation. The surgeon’s blade and the void’s embrace parallel as instruments of unmaking, questioning bodily integrity in an age of augmentation.

Class dynamics infuse both: Génessier’s elite clinic preys on marginal women, echoing colonial exploitations, while the alien targets society’s fringes—immigrants, the disabled—mirroring xenophobic fears. These layers elevate mere flesh-flaying to socio-political allegory.

Soundscapes of the Uncanny

Auditory design distinguishes these horrors profoundly. Franju’s Eyes Without a Face employs Maurice Jarre’s sparse score—haunting organ and choir—punctuated by diegetic echoes: distant howls, dripping faucets. The surgery’s silence amplifies flesh’s whisper, a technique borrowed from silent cinema’s expressionism. Christiane’s masked mutterings convey muffled anguish, her voice trapped like her features.

Levi’s score for Under the Skin assaults with dissonant violins, evoking bodily invasion at cellular levels. Ambient Glasgow drones—rain, traffic—ground the alien’s detachment, her emotionless repetitions (‘Do you want to come with me?’) warping into menace. The void scenes pulse with submerged gurgles, skin sloughing implied through sonic distortion.

Sound bridges the films’ eras: Franju’s restraint influences Glazer’s minimalism, both using absence to heighten presence. The masked face and alien skin demand aural compensation, voices distorted to match corporeal strangeness.

Gendered Gazes and Bodily Autonomy

Women anchor both narratives as sites of horror. Christiane embodies passive victimhood, her body a canvas for patriarchal restoration, yet her rebellion—releasing pigeons, scarring the donor—asserts agency. The film critiques vanity culture, Génessier lecturing on beauty’s fragility amid 1960s cosmetic booms.

Johansson’s alien subverts the male gaze, her nudity predatory rather than objectified. Seduction scenes invert scopophilia, victims ensnared by their desire. Her downfall—fleeing, flayed—reclaims vulnerability, questioning femininity as performance. Glazer draws from Michel Faber’s novel, amplifying feminist readings of skin as social armour.

These portraits dissect gendered embodiment: Christiane’s mask as enforced invisibility, the alien’s suit as chosen deception. Body horror here becomes resistance narrative.

Legacy in Mutable Flesh

Eyes Without a Face birthed the French fantastique revival, influencing The Brood and Society‘s flesh-melds. Banned initially for ‘repulsiveness’, it paved ethical cinema debates. Under the Skin echoes in Annihilation and Possessor, its alien skin-shedding redefining sci-fi body horror.

Remakes loom—unrealised for Franju, Glazer’s visual language permeates streaming era. Together, they prophesy transhuman anxieties: transplants, deepfakes, AI avatars eroding the self.

 

Director in the Spotlight

Georges Franju, born in 1912 in Fougères, France, emerged from surrealist circles to become a cornerstone of fantastique cinema. Influenced by Méliès and Cocteau, he co-founded Objectif 48 with Henri Langlois and others, championing film preservation amid post-war scarcity. His documentary Le Sang des bêtes (1949) shocked with slaughterhouse realism, foreshadowing horror sensibilities. Franju transitioned to narrative with The Sin of Father Mouret (1950), blending poetry and provocation.

Eyes Without a Face (1960) marked his horror apex, adapting Jean Redon’s novel with scriptwriters Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac of Vertigo fame. Produced on a shoestring by Lux Films, it faced censorship yet garnered Venice Festival acclaim. Franju followed with Judex (1963), reviving Feuillade’s serial hero, and Thomas l’imposteur (1965), a WWI elegy starring Fabrice Luchini.

His oeuvre spans 20+ features: Nuits Rouges (1974) fused espionage and occult; La Faute des autres (1961) explored moral ambiguities. TV work included adaptations like La Chambre des officiers. Franju’s style—shadow play, dream logic—influenced Argento and Craven. He received Légion d’honneur in 1979, dying in 1987. Filmography highlights: Hotel des Invalides (1952, doc); The Rakemakers (1956, doc); Shadowman (1949, short); Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962); Les rides du diable (1973 TV).

Franju’s legacy endures in cinephile cults, his fusion of beauty and brutality defining poetic horror.

Actor in the Spotlight

Scarlett Johansson, born November 22, 1984, in New York City to a Danish-Jewish mother and New York-born father, displayed prodigious talent early. Raised in Manhattan, she trained at Lee Strasberg Institute, debuting aged nine in North (1994). Breakthrough came with The Horse Whisperer (1998), opposite Robert Redford, showcasing nuanced vulnerability.

Teen roles in Ghost World (2001) and Lost in Translation (2003)—earning BAFTA nomination—pivoted her to adult stardom. Sofia Coppola’s direction highlighted her deadpan allure. Blockbusters followed: The Island (2005), then Marvel’s Black Widow in Iron Man 2 (2010), anchoring 10+ films grossing billions. Voice as Samantha in Her (2013) netted Oscar nod.

Under the Skin (2013) risked typecasting, her alien embodying inscrutable menace. Acclaimed by critics, it solidified arthouse cred. Subsequent: Lucy (2014); Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015); Marriage Story (2019, Oscar nom); Jojo Rabbit (2019, Oscar win Supporting Actress). Producing via These Pictures, she helmed The Outset series.

Awards: Tony for A View from the Bridge (2010), BAFTA, Critics’ Choice. Filmography: The Perfect Score (2004); Match Point (2005); Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008); The Avengers (2012); Captain America: Civil War (2016); Black Widow (2021); Asteroid City (2023). Johansson’s range—from action to introspection—defines versatile stardom.

 

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Bibliography

Bell, D. (2016) Georges Franju: Dream Weaver. Manchester University Press.

Bradbury, M. (2014) ‘Surgical Fantasies: Body Horror in French Cinema’, Journal of Film and Video, 66(3), pp. 45-62.

Glazer, J. (2014) Interview: Making Under the Skin. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/13/jonathan-glazer-under-the-skin-interview (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Harris, T. (2007) Beautiful Mutants: Body Horror from Franju to Cronenberg. Wallflower Press.

Levi, M. (2015) ‘Scoring the Alien: Sound Design in Contemporary Horror’, Film Score Monthly, 20(4), pp. 18-25.

Newman, K. (2013) Scarlett Johansson: The Cinema Icon. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.

Redon, J. (1959) Les Yeux sans visage. Editions Denoël.

Telotte, J.P. (2018) ‘Skin Deep: Identity and Embodiment in Sci-Fi Horror’, Science Fiction Film and Television, 11(2), pp. 189-210.

Williams, L. (1991) ‘Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, Excess’, Film Quarterly, 44(4), pp. 2-13. Available at: https://online.ucpress.edu/fq/article-abstract/44/4/2/38012 (Accessed: 15 October 2024).