Editorials
What Grosses You Out The Most?
As horror fans, we see a lot of pretty gruesome things. We see stabbings, dismemberments, disembowelments, flayings and countless other scenes of graphic violence on a weekly basis. We crave movies to get a hard-R rating and have creative and/or really gory kills. My point is, we can take a lot. Some people may call us weird or demented, but I just think it makes us interesting. But do you draw the line somewhere? I love some good carnage as much as the next person but there is one thing I can’t stand: pus.
I can take pretty much any type of gore a movie throws at me. Sure, fingernail stuff makes me a little uneasy, and I’m not a huge fan of things involving eyes either, but pus actually makes me want to gag. Whenever I see one of those Buzzfeed posts about popping zits I want to hurl my computer across the room. So imagine how I felt when I went to go see Eli Roth’s Hostel back in 2004 and there was a horrifying scene involving a severed eyeball and a whole lot of pus.
Blech. Words cannot describe just exactly how I felt when I first saw this scene, but I can tell you that I have averted my eyes from the screen every time I watch Hostel (which isn’t very often…I’m one of the very few people who actually prefers Hostel: Part II). Not only is here eye hanging out of her face, but the pus just oozes out once he cuts the eye off.
The only other scene that has really made me gag like Hostel did is probably the infamous custard scene from Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. That scene alone is part of the reason why I almost couldn’t finish the movie. I powered through it though, so don’t worry.
Am I alone here? Does the sight of pus gross anyone else out? I guess my reason for this brief article is because I’m curious to know: What grosses you out? What body part can you not stand to see be eviscerated or what bodily fluid do you never want to see on the screen? I know I’ve already mentioned fingernails and I’m sure that bothers some of you as well. Let me know in the comments below!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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