Found on Medium today, a short essay on body horror and its appeal. 

Horror offers the unique opportunity to experience and feel, in a controlled setting, all the things you would definitely want to avoid in real life — fear, violence, and death. It is like a simulation. It allows us to take a deep plunge into the darkest depths of our existence, while being assured that no real harm can come of it.

I post this paragraph because the real-world seems passive in the unfolding never-ending horror show. It’s part of the reason people gravitate toward horror. We can make sense of it when it’s confined to a controlled environment. 
The subtitle of the article reads “On twisting the human form to make a point” and discusses Shelley’s Frankenstein, Dali’s “Surreal Drawers of Psychoanalysis”, Munch’s “The Scream”, Caos Diz’s “Story Twist”, as well as the works of David Cronenberg, Julia Ducournau, and Coralie Fargeat.
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At its best, body horror confronts our fears of change, especially through age, and challenges us by suggesting we aren’t much more than mobile meat. Body horror also is one of the subgenres willing to “go there.”