Disclaimer: Please consider where you are mentally and emotionally right now. The following article addresses and elaborates on the subject of abortion, sexual assault, and death.

Horror movies have an interesting habit of embodying contemporary societal fears, whether they are the vampire films of the ‘90s, alien invasion films of the ‘80s, or zombie flicks in the 2000s. The 2020s is no exception either, as our current focal point of terror is far and away forced birth and a lack of reproductive freedoms. 

Vampires, aliens, and diseases are all cinematic mainstays, but the patterns in which these characters surge in popularity for years at a time give us an eerie glimpse at the geopolitical state of our world at a given moment. Domestic unrest in 2016 led to a swath of home invasion films like “Green Room”, “Don’t Breathe”, and “The Purge: Election Year”, while the most researched part of this phenomenon is the surge of zombie films at the turn of the century.

2000 through 2010 saw the release of “28 Days Later”, “Dawn of the Dead”, and “Zombieland”; first glance may tell us that our cinematic landscape follows a shifting fad culture, but a zoom outwards tells a more nuanced take on our fear of mobs of undead, since the post-911 global attitude was marked by xenophobic unrest, distrust of government, and increased fear of widespread disease.

Fast forward to modern day horror, and you’ll find it through the lens of the repeal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which made waves across the country, sparking activists to denounce the decision as a landmark sabotaging of bodily autonomy and government overreach. 

“Beetlejuice 2”, “Eden”, and “Apartment 7A”  have audiences connecting the dots of iconic and terrifying pregnancy scenes, remarking that these scenes are not merely portraying a fear of birth and child-rearing, but specifically the fear of forced birth and stripping women and trans men of bodily autonomy.

The effects of repealing Roe v. Wade were almost instantaneous. As one of the least protective states in the U.S., Texas, was home to Samantha Casiano, who in 2023 had no choice but to give birth to a baby with a fatal birth defect, who died a few hours later. Casiano was twenty weeks into her pregnancy when she discovered her baby had anencephaly, to which the doctors informed her they could not perform an abortion, but instead offered her funeral home information.

Casiano, along with countless other Texans, was denied a safe abortion and instead was forced to endure the trauma of carrying out a dangerous pregnancy, risking her own life, and witnessing the death of her own child.

Examining the real life testimonies of those impacted by forced birth does reveal that this round of horror films are not as hyperbolic as some would assume. The trauma involved in carrying through with a dangerous pregnancy is unimaginable, even before one considers that these pregnancies are often caused non-consensually, a fact that the horror movies of the 2020s do not shy away from.

In the middle of “The First Omen”, a pregnant woman is restrained while she is forced to birth an unholy creature, while “Immaculate’s” main character is forcefully impregnated, leading to her painful birthing process being perhaps the most horrific and tense scene of the movie. “Cuckoo” includes a creature implanting eggs in human women who then have to raise the offspring as their own. 

“Alien: Romulus” is not the first entry of the Alien franchise to contain parallels to birth, as even the first installment’s most famous scene shows a creature bursting from a main character’s ribcage, though it is worth mentioning that the two most recent Alien films portray the act happening in a medical setting and coming out of a woman’s stomach instead of her chest.

It’s not possible for art to be created in a vacuum; it has always been formed by the world and society surrounding it, in some way or another. This dramatic spike in horror cinema showing us stories of non-consensual birth in such a short period of time is no coincidence, and gives our national community an opportunity to hear these stories that need to be told.

Cam Lyons has been an editor for the Thunderword since 2023. Their short story blog, “Loser Pulp“, is released twice a month.