New Year, New You! Shock Your System with the Grotesque Fairytale of ‘Taxidermia’

Alison Foreman and Christian Zilko
·6 min read
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On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age. 

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing. 

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Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: It’s January! Go Gut Yourself

Greetings and welcome to this, The Month That Sucks.

It’s a shame so many of us turn the start of a new year into an excuse to eviscerate our sense of selves and assume so-called “goals” as our burdensome, boring hobbies first thing post-holiday. And yet, countless self-flagellators like myself buy into the idea of annual resolutions. In an effort to evolve and achieve, be it through a Dry January or some broader personal mission pursued throughout the year, we choose to be approximately zero fun right when the gloomy weather demands cheer most. Trite but true, we did this to ourselves… for some reason.

Still, there’s beauty in ugliness, suffering, and change: something director György Pálfi’s 2006 surrealist horror comedy “Taxidermia” proves out with vomity-slick persuasiveness. Told in three increasingly revolting parts, this Hungarian shocker vacillates between hilarious and melancholic, romantic and repulsive, not story by story, or scene by scene, but line by line — challenging viewers to find perverse joy in some of the most off-putting misadventures in bodily fluids ever submitted for Best International Feature. (The gross-out anthology did not qualify, but if I was granted the ability to time travel, I would return to that Academy voting cycle and ensure its Oscar nomination at any cost.)

We begin at a remote Word War II outpost, where a closeted fetishist (Csaba Czene) lives a pitiful life as an orderly to a high-powered lieutenant (Gábor Máté). There, we’re privy to his disturbing sexual fantasies and witness to what has to be one of the greatest monologues about “cunts” ever delivered. (We also get a peak at a bathtub with a sordid history that could give the “Saltburn” drain a run for its money.)

The second chapter, we meet that man’s adult son… or at least someone we’re lead to believe is that man’s adult son; plenty to unpack with that time jump. Balatony Kálmán (Gergely Trócsányi) is a world-class speed-eater for Hungary, competing opposite his friendly rival/countryman (Zoltán Koppány) and vying for the romantic interest of the women’s champion (Adél Stanczel) during the Cold War. Fast-forward to the more contemporary finale — located at the intersection of Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” and Aronofsky’s “The Whale” — where we’re meeting Kálmán’s son: a wiry taxidermist (Marc Bischoff) caring for his now morbidly obese father and some sensationally mean cats. He’s also harboring an increasing sense of resentment and despair, and an alarming stockpile of butter and chocolate.

Co-written by Pálfi and Zsófia Ruttkay, and adapted from short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy, “Taxidermia” is neither a hopeful movie, nor one that will motivate you towards self-betterment. If anything, its arresting last image (which, fair warning, will burn straight through your eyeballs) suggests the opposite. As the last generation of this patriarchal trauma cycle seems to see it, the calcification of cruelty and unmet desire can only end in further objectification or oblivion; healing is impossible. But Pálfi offers such a poetic and sly presentation of that cynicism that you will get lost in his film’s mesmeric ability to seduce and nauseate in unison. You won’t be able to snack or settle, but the right viewer won’t want to look away either.

Although some visual effects are lacking and the messaging is maybe too Hungarian for some Americans to appreciate (I’m a little lost on some of the “point,” for sure), there is no question this gorgeously creative tribute to grotesqueness will make you feel something as your first Friday midnight movie pick of 2024. It’s chockfull of inventive transitions, memorable imagery, and the kind of body horror that brilliantly connects the needs of our flesh to the pain in our soul. Whether you’re dreaming of sticking your penis through the hole in a barn door, achieving a milestone victory in Hungarian sports eating, or some other third thing related to the title better left unspoiled, any midnight movie fanatic leaning into the promise of a new year or a new you will find a pleasant challenge in “Taxidermia.” —AF

The Aftermath: Tax Day Came Early This Year!

To paraphrase Bob Dylan, all my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime could never do justice to the sheer amount of bodily fluids that are spilled over the course of the 94 minutes of “Taxidermia.” The depraved sex acts, the nauseating slop-eating sequences, the endless vomiting on command (with multiple techniques!), the various injections and ultimate stuffing of two grown men… I wouldn’t know where to begin expressing my thoughts about the film’s actual contents with words.

So, as I sit here reeling in shock from what I just watched, I’ll start with a question I can wrap my head around: Is Arnold Schwarzenegger aware that his photo appears in this movie?

In case you missed it in between all of the binging and purging, there’s a brief scene where Balatony Lajoska works out in a home gym. Naturally, he wears a t-shirt that simply says “Fitness.” The production design is minimal save for a black-and-white photo of Schwarzenegger from his bodybuilding days taped to the wall.

It’s a minor detail, but I can’t stop imagining a scene where Arnold’s manager had to tell him that the $5 royalty that showed up in his bank account was a result of his likeness appearing in a film about the generational trauma that can emerge from decades of pig fucking and speed eating. How on earth do you explain “Taxidermia” to the Governator?

But then again, how do you explain it to anyone? My own shocked reactions aside, “Taxidermia” hit a sweet spot at the intersection of my love of body horror and my fascination with competitive eating. (The sports media industrial complex’s ongoing refusal to acknowledge Joey Chestnut as a generation-defining athlete on par with Jordan or Brady is an error that gets more glaring with each passing year.) The film isn’t for everyone, and perhaps shouldn’t be viewed by any well-adjusted person with a healthy psyche, but those people logged off of IndieWire.com hours ago!

I was delighted by how willing Pálfi was to execute his perverse ideas with such technical precision. I saw close up shots of a lot of images that I never expected or hoped to see in such high resolution. But if watching an impeccably composed image of a pigeon defecating or a single armpit hair is a price that I have to pay to experience such a singular vision, so fucking be it. “Taxidermia” is an IndieWire After Dark movie if there ever was one — and the psychological debt that I owed to Foreman after making her watch “Kuso” is officially paid off. —CZ

Those brave enough to join in on the fun can stream “Taxidermia” with a seven-day trial to Here TV, available through Amazon Prime Video. IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations at 11:59 p.m. ET every Friday. Read more of our deranged suggestions…

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