If you just watched The Odyssey and are still thinking about that scene in Circe’s cabin, you’re not alone. It’s already being called one of the most disturbing sequences Christopher Nolan has ever put on screen, and it’s all rooted in one of the oldest tricks in Greek mythology.
The transformation isn’t a Nolan invention. It’s straight out of Homer, though the movie pushes the body horror of it much further than the source material ever did.
Critics are describing the sequence as body horror on the level of Pinocchio’s donkey scene or An American Werewolf in London, with the men’s hair, faces, and cries slowly warping into something animal before your eyes. So where does this myth actually come from, and why does Circe do it?
The Myth Behind Circe’s Curse
In Homer’s original text, Circe is a minor goddess and sorceress who lives alone on the island of Aeaea. When Odysseus’s (played by Matt Damon) crew stumbles onto her home, she welcomes them with a feast and a drink laced with drugs. The moment they finish eating, she taps each man with her wand and turns them into pigs, trapping them in her sty while their minds stay human.
Odysseus only avoids the same fate because the god Hermes warns him beforehand and gives him a protective herb called moly. Armed with it, he resists Circe’s magic, forces her to reverse the curse on his men, and ends up staying on her island for a full year before continuing home.
It’s one of the most famous stretches of the entire Odyssey, and it’s the reason Circe has been shorthand for dangerous, seductive power for nearly 3,000 years.
READ MORE: Why Does One Cyclops Curse Odysseus for 10 Years? ‘The Odyssey’s Poseidon Feud Explained
Why Christopher Nolan’s Circe Turns Men Into Pigs
The film keeps the bones of that myth but reframes the motive. Samantha Morton’s Circe doesn’t just curse the men for sport. She justifies the transformation as simply revealing what the men really are underneath, turning the scene into commentary rather than just a monster-of-the-week moment.
That reframing lines up with how Morton is playing the character overall. Reviewers have described her performance as a radical, almost feminist read on Circe, someone who genuinely believes the pig form is the men’s true nature rather than a punishment. It’s a colder, more purposeful version of the sorceress than most adaptations bother with.
The practical effects work is doing a lot of the heavy lifting, too. The entire cabin transformation sequence was achieved using intricate animatronics and prosthetics rather than CGI, making the body horror feel incredibly grounded and visceral.
The scene isn’t just a detour. It’s one of the clearest moments in the film where Odysseus is forced to confront what ten years of war have actually done to his men, and by extension, to himself. Circe’s curse works because it exposes something that was already there.
The Odyssey is in theaters now.
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