The best body horror movies of all time get under your skin through their visual depictions of body modifications, mutilation, and extreme distortion. However, while the violent and gory scenes make you cringe, you’re often completely aware that this isn’t something that you would ever experience due to the impossibility of the situation, which brings such body horror to life.

The impact of body horror is often on the level of imagining how painful or disturbing it would feel to experience what the character on your screen is experiencing. The other, more intense level on which you feel the horror subgenre’s impact is cerebral. The good modern body horror movies demonstrate how body horror can address common anxieties of people.

This subgenre has space to explore the consequences of social norms, from oppressive body standards, most recently addressed in The Substance, to illicit desires, addressed in Raw, the horror movie that made me love the genre and serves as the perfect introduction to body horror. However, while they’re metaphorically meaningful, you know the exact circumstances wouldn’t become real for you.

We’re All Going To The World’s Fair Isn’t Completely Supernatural

The strength of Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, as a work of body horror, lies in removing the distance that cinema as a medium often creates between the viewer and the film. You aren’t just immersed, but also affected on a personal level, because its exploration of the impact of online interactions with strangers is terrifying.

Anna Cobb plays Casey, who is intrigued by the World’s Fair Challenge, a fictitious online trend that she wants to participate in. She performs various tasks as part of the challenge, and they soon begin to affect her grasp on reality. Casey notices that she behaves differently when recording for the game, and her body changes due to participation, too.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair pushes the limits of body horror, but never fully crosses into supernatural territory. As a result, there’s a sense of authenticity even in the extreme scenes, which look convincing because they don’t use unbelievable logic. The changes Casey undergoes sound realistic enough for you to believe that you could experience them as well.

The Creepypasta Genre Blurs The Line Between Real And Imagined

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair lies at the boundary between two subgenres of horror cinema, namely body horror and creepypasta. Creepypasta horror movies are mostly associated with YouTube and other user-run streaming platforms, where performers record themselves having uncanny experiences without clarifying if they’re real or staged. Dark backdrops, neon colors, and glitchy editing are trademarks of creepypasta.

Because We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is mostly a sequence of visuals of phone screens and monitors, it carries the same unnerving sense of authenticity that creepypasta is known for. As a result, when Casey starts losing her grip on reality, you feel like you’re also gradually losing the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what’s imagined.

Casey seems to live in eternal fear of doing something uncharacteristic, and the extreme nature of some of the tasks in the World’s Fair Challenge makes you concerned for her well-being. The tasks are also designed to reflect real online trends, thus tapping into the collective fear many viewers have of the internet beyond it just being an information center.

We’re All Going To The World’s Fair Uses A Realistic Scenario

The emotional punch of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair lies in the dynamic between Casey and her online companion, JLB (Michael J Rogers). JLB is revealed to be a middle-aged man who signed up for the challenge because he was feeling lonely. He claims to understand, based on his experiences, the darkness that the challenge brings with it.

His intentions might not be sinister, but many of us who grew up with the Internet know at least one JLB personally, and the dynamics didn’t go to wholesome places for many. You’re never sure if a stranger on the Internet is lying to get what they want, and watching Casey try to navigate this complicated space makes me anxious.

Joining creepy online challenges out of morbid curiosity and developing questionable relationships as a result of the participation is a believable scenario because it reflects the lived experiences of many viewers who grew up in the early 2000s. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair convinces you that you could experience what Casey does by being so true to reality.

Jane Schoenbrun’s Next Movie Is Just As Impactful

Jane Schoenbrun’s exploration of the impacts of finding solace in other people without truly knowing them didn’t stop with We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Her sophomore directorial feature, I Saw The TV Glow, also blends reality with fantasy, and follows a teenager who forms friendships based on their tastes in media to escape from being misunderstood at home.

Since it is less focused on body dysmorphia, I Saw The TV Glow doesn’t use body horror, but it still leaves an emotional and mental impact due to its exploration of loneliness and isolation in teenagers. No matter how old you are, the unnerving filmmaking will immediately transport you back to the absurdity of adolescence and its adjacent experiences.