Body/self, interrupted: Necrotic transplants in Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor (2020) and Antiviral (2012)

This article analyses Brandon Cronenberg’s films Possessor (2020) and Antiviral (2012) as examples of transplantation horror, enabling a deeper exploration of the shared onto-epistemological concerns of both horror production and organ transplantation. The two films are preoccupied with anxieties surrounding biomedical technologies and the violation of ‘somatic wholeness’ – the concept of the body as a unified, self-contained entity. A four-part critical grid common to horror and transplantation – transgression, corporeality, movement and openness – is employed to examine popular biomedical representations of transplantation, particularly medical narratives concerning health and disease, control and its loss. In the sections devoted to Possessor and Antiviral , the article focuses on themes of body/self image and visuality, the unsettling consequences of bodily transformations under late capitalism, and the limitations of contemporary horror in addressing deeper concerns about identity and corporeality.