By Elliott Catoe-Griffis, Kaitlyn Rivers, and Madison Wyatt
How frightening can being a parent truly be? In October 2025, The Nickelodeon will explore this question with Spooky Spawn: Reproductive Body Horror and Perverse Parenthood, a three-film series that presents reproduction and parenthood in their most grotesque and haunting forms. Each film exhibits a uniquely terrifying take on the often stomach-churning processes of bringing life into the world. Those fearless enough to join us at The Nickelodeon this October will be left petrified by an undead daughter, mother figures with mysterious motives, and a bizarre bundle of joy. These hair-raising tales will leave audiences transfixed by just how freakish one’s own flesh and blood can be. Kicking off on October 14 with Birth/Rebirth, the series will feature Evolution on October 21 and Eraserhead on October 30.
Birth/Rebirth (2023), the first film in the Spooky Spawn series, depicts motherhood in its most vulnerable state. Would you disregard social and biological boundaries if you had a chance at saving your only child? Director Laura Moss explores this question, presenting the complexities of child mortality and maternal instinct with intense body horror and psychological terror. When main character Celie discovers her dead child missing from the hospital, she questions Emily, the morgue technician who last saw the body. Celie soon learns that her young daughter is the subject of a resurrection experiment. Featuring a battle between logic and maternal emotion, Birth/Rebirth highlights motherly sacrifice as Celie violates genetic and social ethics for her child’s last chance at survival.
The next film in the series depicts a nightmarish world that upends the relationship between mother and son. In Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution (2015), women and young boys are the only inhabitants of an isolated island. After a boy named Nicolas discovers a corpse in the ocean with a starfish pressed to its belly, he begins to suspect the mothers are not who they claim to be. Can the maternal bond go too far, twisting into something suffocating, or even parasitic? The film ponders this question as Nicolas challenges the women’s authority and uncovers his true purpose. In Evolution, childhood, a time of discovery and uncertainty, becomes an experiment without consent.
A screening of the legendary David Lynch’s unforgettable debut feature, Eraserhead (1977), will conclude the series. In this cult classic, Henry, the protagonist, leads a mundane and uneventful life until a grotesque baby and the responsibilities of fatherhood are dropped into his lap. Masterfully captured on black and white film, Henry’s story gives audiences a starkly surreal glimpse into the perils of parenthood—from meeting his partner’s weird family to learning to care for a repulsive, ailing, and helpless infant. Characterized by Lynch’s unnervingly dreamlike style, Eraserhead is an enthralling exhibition of what happens when the antithesis of a family man attempts to fit the mold of the perfect father.
Spooky Spawn: Reproductive Body Horror and Perverse Parenthood, curated by Julia Elliott and Nima Yolmo, is sponsored by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina. South Carolina Honors College students enrolled in Dr. Elliott’s Gender and Monstrosity in Horror Films course created all promotional and marketing materials for this series.