A quick note: “body horror” doesn’t necessarily have to involve fear or revulsion. The term includes a general fascination or obsession with the body and its functions, the “horror” denoting aspects that polite society would otherwise stray away from. As such, “Love Lies Bleeding” makes its intentions clear right from the start, as it introduces Lou (Kristen Stewart) cleaning the filthy excrement-filled toilets at the gym she operates with a matter-of-fact frankness. It’s 1989, and the denizens of Lou’s podunk Texas town all live their lives with what seems like a permanent sheen of sweat layered over their skin. Lou’s sister, Beth (Jena Malone) is clearly being abused by her loser husband JJ (Dave Franco), and her father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), is the public owner of the gym and gun club and private owner of a gun-running crime cabal. Half of the town’s population sport mullets (including Lou), and just about every member of the gym she works at is a misogynistic gun-toting dudebro, a huge bummer for an out-and-proud lesbian like Lou.
That all changes the day that Jackie (Katy O’Brian) hitches into town. If Lou and the townies are emblematic of the stagnation of America as they parasitically feed off of each other while spouting hollow epithets of greatness, Jackie is a shining, perfectly coiffed, stunningly muscle-bound anthropomorphic American Dream. A runaway from her religiously strict small town, Jackie is adept at chasing her own dream by any means necessary, at first sleeping with JJ to get a job at Lou Sr.’s gun range, then chatting up Lou herself as the two fall in love at first sight. Jackie needs to get to Las Vegas to compete in a bodybuilding tournament as step one of her path to becoming a trainer in California, and soon enough, Lou becomes part of her vision board, the two genuinely falling in love with one another.
The inevitable complications arise: Lou gets Jackie hooked on illegal steroid shots, injections that seem to be having a very Incredible Hulk-like effect on Jackie’s body as well as her mind. Lou’s also terrified to attempt to get out from under the thumb of her oppressive and violent father, and can’t abide leaving Beth behind with the abusive JJ. After a moment of violence, Lou and Jackie become criminals and hatch a plan to get out of town. Needless to say, things only get messier (literally and figuratively) from there.