Koko Lists
Start a new list
Log in
Sign up
← New random battle
Koko Battle
Tap your pick.
Society
Society, released in 1989 and directed by Brian Yuzna, follows an alienated Beverly Hills teenager who gradually discovers his wealthy family and their social circle are hiding a monstrous secret, building toward an notoriously extreme practical-effects climax depicting grotesque bodily merging among the film's wealthy elite characters. The film's final act "shunting" sequence, in which the wealthy characters are revealed to physically and grotesquely merge and feed on the film's protagonist, remains one of the most extreme and technically elaborate practical body horror sequences ever filmed, created by effects artist Screaming Mad George. Its underlying social satire, depicting literal bodily parasitism as a metaphor for the wealthy elite's exploitation of those beneath them economically and socially, gave Society's extreme practical effects a substantive class-commentary subtext beyond pure visceral shock. Society's combination of genuinely audacious, technically extreme practical body horror effects and its pointed class satire has made it a significant cult classic within the body horror genre, particularly celebrated by effects artists for its climactic transformation sequence's sheer technical ambition.
VS
The Thing
The Thing, released in 1982 and directed by John Carpenter, follows an Antarctic research team confronting a shapeshifting alien organism capable of perfectly imitating any living being it absorbs, and the film's practical creature effects, depicting the alien's grotesque transformations, remain some of the most technically celebrated in horror film history. Rob Bottin's makeup and creature effects work, achieved entirely through practical techniques without any digital assistance, pushed body horror's visual possibilities to an extreme that critics and effects artists still reference as a technical high-water mark for the genre. The film's central paranoia premise, in which any team member might secretly be the alien in disguise, created a sustained atmosphere of mutual suspicion that distinguished The Thing's psychological tension from more purely visceral horror films relying primarily on shock effects. Despite its now-legendary reputation, The Thing was a significant box-office and critical disappointment upon its original 1982 release, released the same summer as the more optimistic E.T., and its status as one of the greatest horror films ever made developed substantially through later critical and fan reappraisal.
Next battle
Full comparison
About Society
About The Thing
Popular Battles
1984 vs. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
1 votes
Friends vs. Curb Your Enthusiasm
1 votes
Ideogram vs. Sora
1 votes
Navy Pier vs. Bishop Museum
1 votes
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree vs. Skittles
1 votes
George Carlin vs. Oprah Winfrey
1 votes
