I first encountered Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID) in 2005, watching "Nip/Tuck" 's episode BEN WHITE-a morbidly fascinating introduction to a disorder most people have never heard of.
Overshadowed by more familiar conversations about body image, BID-the desire to amputate a healthy limb or pursue disability-is a deeply unsettling reality that taps into my deepest fears.
While some exploit mental health terms for attention, BID is no exaggeration. It exists, and it lives.
My fascination with the subject gives me anxiety, yet I keep digging. For me, it isn't about judgment-it's about comprehension. And that matters with topics that unsettle us, because our instinct as human beings is to preserve health and wholeness at all costs.
This is where my boundaries with horror lie. Gore rarely shakes me. What lingers is psychological terror-the masks people wear, the truths they bury.
Sometimes I even relate too much to the act of pretending everything is fine, hiding the truth to avoid burdening others or escaping judgment. That, more than blood or violence, is what stays with me.
Which brings me to Viljar Boe's latest film. After his eerie 2022 feature "Good Boy," he returns with another story designed to disturb.
Scandinavia seems determined to traumatize us with horrors that feel all too real-like a 1950s family advert masking atrocious realities beneath the perfect smile.
The film opens with Amir (Freddy Singh), and from the first frame we witness both his pain and his obsession. Retreating into his studio home, he finds a strange relief drawing himself wheelchair-bound, with one leg tucked beneath him as if already inhabiting the body he envisions.
It all unfolds under the shadow of a countdown: 25 days until the accident.
Amir becomes transfixed by a television interview with a young woman who longs to be blind and lives as though she already is. While his girlfriend Kim questions the girl's behavior, Amir sees a mirror.
Soon he contacts her, finding someone with whom he can finally share his secret. Meanwhile, he receives a vague job offer from an old friend, Jonas.
Each of these characters reflects a different side of Amir: Kim offers patience but grows weary of his secrecy; Jonas provides endless chances even as Amir becomes more distracted and aggressive; while Rikke-the blind girl-seems to understand him, though she too is not what she pretends to be.
It's here that the film fully confronts the very anxieties I mentioned earlier.
Boe handles the subject with clinical precision. The cinematography is cold, detached, almost surgical. Dialogue is clipped, and interactions are restrained.
The atmosphere mirrors Amir's fractured psyche. There's no sensationalism, no heavy exposition-just the raw turmoil of a man convinced his body does not belong to him.
As viewers, we oscillate between empathy for Amir and unease at his choices. The film ultimately asks: how well do we really feel safe with the people closest to us-our partners, our friends, our colleagues?
For me, it cut even deeper. Living with a chronic illness, I found myself connecting to Amir in an unexpected way. He longs to be disabled; I long to have my body functioning back at its best.
Neither desire is truly attainable without drastic measures. That contrast made the film resonate all the more strongly.
Like "Good Boy," Boe isn't chasing shock value. His aim is confrontation: to force us to look at uncomfortable realities that feel closer to truth than fiction.
"Above the Knee" may not be the definitive exploration of the subject, but it's a compelling and deeply uncomfortable watch.
For me, the horror wasn't in the blood or the shadows-it was in the masks, the secrets, and the quiet, unshakable thought that the body itself can become the greatest prison.
