‘Furiosa’ Turns the Body Horror of the Mad Max Franchise Up a Notch (2024)

In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), the opening song has Tina Turner singing out lyrics, “Oh, they always said that the living would envy the dead.” Beyond Thunderdome may have a lighter tone as the campiest installment in this franchise, but the opening song makes it clear the stakes aren’t gone. Staying alive in this post-apocalyptic future takes a grueling determination for the survivors. Whichever place Max (Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy) wanders to next, he finds people who haven’t given up hope, which is remarkable given this brutal landscape has no end to vicious gangs.

It’s not that surprising when the violence rises to the levels of horror’s most visceral and disturbing subgenre: body horror. In these movies, characters experience horrific violations of their flesh in gross-out, nightmarish special effects. Filmmakers such as David Cronenberg and Clive Barker are the first to come to mind when you think of body horror, but they aren't alone. George Miller has made body horror part of the DNA of the Mad Max franchise since the beginning, although it’s truly explicit in the new prequel. The body horror in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga represents the savagery of the Wasteland, and the damage to the human body isn’t always the result of vehicle destruction.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

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The origin story of renegade warrior Furiosa before her encounter and team-up with Mad Max.

Director

George Miller

Cast

Anya Taylor-Joy , Chris Hemsworth , Tom Burke , Alyla Browne , Nathan Jones , Angus Sampson , Daniel Webber , Lachy Hulme

Main Genre

Adventure

Writers

George Miller , Nick Lathouris

Franchise(s)

Mad Max

See Also

10 Great Movies That Are So Brutal You Can Only Watch Them OnceConsider The Cost, Then Hold To The Truth :: By Dave Hubley

George Miller Was Inspired by His Work as a Doctor for ‘Mad Max'

In a 2006 interview, Miller explained to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia two key inspirations for the original Mad Max (1979). He grew up in rural Queensland, Australia, a place that had, “-- a very intense car culture. I mean, the main street of town and Saturday night with just the kids in their cars. By the time we were out of our teens, several of our peers had already been killed or badly injured in car accidents. And there was just those long, flat roads where there was no speed limit and people would just go.” When he worked as a doctor before becoming a filmmaker, Miller saw injuries from car and bike accidents that he never forgot when he created the first two Mad Max films. The Road Warrior confronts speed demons, leading to characters getting burned or mangled in the ensuing wreckages.

The ending of the original sees Max taking out those he blames for the murder of his wife and baby, and there is just one man left. Max handcuffs the guy’s ankle to a crashed car that is leaking gas, then positions a lighter with an open flame nearby before handing the guy a handsaw. If he wants to escape from the cuffs, he’ll cut off his ankle to do so. Viewers don’t see if this happens. Max drives away, and the explosion in the background is all we need to know the guy is dead. This forced self-mutilation resembles the ending in Saw (2004), also by Australian filmmakers, James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Furiosa takes the body horror established in the earlier movies and brings it to new and vivid heights.

In the Wasteland of ‘Furiosa,’ Everyone Is at Constant Risk of Attack

The violence that pops on-screen in the 2024 prequel can be relentless during one of the best action sequences that never seems to end. When the War Rig comes under attack, it’s the kind of wildly inventive, high-speeding — and when the Mortiflyers enter — high-flying set piece that this franchise has become known for. Furiosa and War Rig driver, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), kill enemies that try to invade the tanker truck in gruesome ways. Enemies are crunched up by the wheels, and one is consumed by the spinning Bommy Knocker. These kills aren’t done to be shocking and nothing else, it establishes the constant threat in the Wasteland. Characters are constantly finding themselves under attack with no warning. This is a dystopia where no one is safe when they head out into the open — not those on the War Rig and definitely not those who attempt to steal from it. Survival skills that are important to this world are expert driving and a killer’s instinct. But vehicular warfare is not where the body horror ends in this prequel. In the Wasteland, dictators hold control over their groups, and wielding this dominance means there will be unlucky victims.

'Furiosa' Does Body Horror Better Than the Other Mad Max Movies

The introduction to the wacky, sad*stic Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) has him unbothered at a grisly sight when one of his men has been injured by a young Furiosa (Alyla Browne), leaving a deep gash in his throat. The wound is crimson and causing him to choke on the leaking blood. Dementus is more annoyed the man can’t talk, and his lack of humanity continues when he soon tortures Furiosa’s mother by tying her up over a fire. To be part of Dementus’ gang, means new fighters are accepted once they go through a rite of passage that involves motorcycles with chains hooked onto every limb of a prisoner. The best fighters speed off, pulling the prisoner’s body apart in a cloud of dust.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) is the first time viewers enter the world of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who rules over severely malnourished people from the rocky clifftop of the Citadel. He keeps his power over these people by limiting the water he gives. The Immortan’s own body is repulsive, covered in open wounds and boils, but there was little seen of the horrible living conditions at the Citadel, which is given further screentime in Furiosa. “Prisoners” is a better word to describe this population, who live in caves under the Citadel where flies are everywhere due to corpses strung up with maggots on their decaying flesh.

The camera isn’t shy about showing the wriggling critters in open wounds or the flies that the people don’t swat away, having long gotten used to them. When Furiosa ends up in the care of these people, they do mean well, using the maggots to keep the wound of her recently lost arm clean from infection. Even in the harshest of conditions, characters learn how to survive in the world of Mad Max. But the prequel’s increased use of body horror is part of Furiosa’s odyssey in a series of trials she must withstand.

The Pain Furiosa Goes Through Makes Her a Warrior

The intense dedication Furiosa has to stay alive is what makes her a fascinating modern hero. After her arm is injured by the wheels of Dementus’ vehicle, she is captured and forced to watch Jack be tortured. Dementus chooses Furiosa’s injured arm to be tied up to keep her in place, but his satisfaction is short-lived when he sees that Furiosa has escaped after ripping off her lower arm. Unlike the prisoner from earlier whose body is ripped apart under Dementus’ orders, Furiosa does whatever it takes to not let him win. In 1979, Mad Max didn’t show what happened to that man left with a hacksaw; although Furiosa also keeps the violent act off-screen, this time it captures the evidence.

In the horror genre, movies don’t shy away from the harrowing act of mutilation. In the Evil Dead franchise, Ash (Bruce Campbell) and Mia (Jane Levy) have no choice but to amputate themselves so they can get out alive from a cabin infested with demons. In Gerald’s Game (2017), Jessie (Carla Gugino) is handcuffed to a bed and is unable to be freed when her husband suddenly dies. Her only chance of escape is by using a broken glass to deglove her hand, letting her slip out of the cuffs. These shocking moments of body horror don’t hide anything from the viewer, and the graphic content is what makes it belong to a horror movie. While Furiosa is still an action movie, it verges close to becoming a genuine horror film, especially in the ending.

Furiosa seems to get her revenge on Dementus with a bullet to his head, but rumors claim she got revenge in other, more creative ways. And the last rumor may be true. In the Citadel, Dementus’ body is turned into fertile ground to grow a peach tree from the seed her mother gave her years ago. He can’t bring back her mother, but in this scenario, his body offers her a small return to the Green Place. It’s a final moment of body horror that is easily one of the most disturbing in the film due to how oddly beautiful it looks.

George Miller Did Something Different from Most Dystopian Movies

In an interview with Vanity Fair, George Miller sat down to talk about the series. He saw how dystopian stories in movies and TV were overusing a gray color scheme, and he wanted to make his current interpretation of the Wasteland different. The saturated color achieves this, with vibrant orange days in the desert and cool blue nights. This brightness turns the final scene of Dementus into a morbid piece of art, where a human blends with vegetation. In the Mad Max films, the Wasteland is an extreme place where survival means enduring pain and suffering, with hardly much reprieve.

Furiosa puts this front and center more than any of the previous installments of the series. “Out here, everything hurts,” an older and wiser Furiosa (Charlize Theron) says in Fury Road. This prequel explores that statement during the years occupied by Anya Taylor-Joy’s version of the character. There are still action spectacles, but the intensity of this world is dialed up when it goes beyond the casualties of vehicle war machines. Before she destroys the Immortan’s tyranny, Furiosa goes to Hell and back, transforming her damaged body into that of a formidable warrior.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is now in theaters.

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