Film

The Fly

Name: The Fly
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction
Released: 1986
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel, Leslie Carlson

Cronenberg's grisly, heartbreaking remake turns a pulpy 1958 premise into one of horror's great tragedies: a brilliant, charming scientist's teleportation experiment fuses him with a housefly, and we watch him rot, mutate and lose himself in real time. It's gloriously gross — practical effects that still make skin crawl — but the real horror is watching someone you love become unrecognisable. Funny, tender, and utterly merciless.

TMDb rating

7.4

If you liked this

Videodrome1983

Cronenberg's own fever dream about flesh, media and mutation — the film that basically invented the vocabulary Goldblum's transformation speaks. Deborah Harry, hallucinatory practical effects, and a plot that gets stranger the longer you sit with it.

But Deliberately opaque and plotless by design — if you need a clear narrative arc, this will frustrate you.

The Thing1982

Carpenter's paranoid Antarctic nightmare shares the same unflinching commitment to practical creature effects and the same horror of not trusting your own body. Bleak, brilliant, endlessly rewatchable.

But Ensemble cast means less emotional intimacy than Brundle's story — this is about mistrust, not love.

The Elephant Man1980

Same tender question underneath the horror: what happens to love and dignity when a body becomes something the world can't look at. Hopkins and Hurt are devastating together.

But No horror-genre thrills at all — this is a quiet, sorrowful drama, not a creature feature.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Eyes Without a Face1960

A scientist obsessively remaking a beloved body through his own guilt and hubris — decades earlier, in black and white, with a sorrow so quiet it aches instead of screams.

Franju's 1960 French horror is the ancestor Cronenberg's film never quite disowns: a father's surgical obsession with restoring his daughter's disfigured face, shot with eerie, poetic calm.

But Subtitled, slow, and almost entirely without gore — its horror lives in mood and image, not spectacle.

Splice2010no page yet

Modern-day scientist-plays-god horror with the same slow-building dread and a similarly doomed, brilliant researcher who can't stop tinkering with what shouldn't be tinkered with.

But Gets deliberately uncomfortable in ways that go beyond body horror into genuinely upsetting territory.

Re-Animator1985

If you loved the gleeful, gory commitment of Brundle's transformation, this is the giddier cousin — practical gore played almost as slapstick, from the same fertile mid-80s horror moment.

But Broader and campier tone — less tragic weight, more midnight-movie mayhem.

Altered States1980no page yet

A scientist experiments on his own body and can't stop, with visuals as startling now as they were then. Same hubris, same inability to leave well enough alone.

But More trippy metaphysics than clear plot — patience for ambiguity required.

From Beyond1986

Same year, same practical-effects gusto, same idea that curiosity about the unseen ends in monstrous consequences. Lovecraft filtered through gleeful 80s excess.

But Thinner characters and a pulpier sensibility — it's here for spectacle, not heartbreak.

Possessor2020

Brandon Cronenberg picking up his father's toolkit: body invasion, identity dissolution, and practical gore rendered in cold, clinical dread.

But Icy and detached where Brundle's story is warm — you may miss the emotional core.

Annihilation2018

A slower, eerier take on the same idea — something alien rewriting a person's biology from the inside, with dread that creeps rather than explodes.

But Ambiguous ending and glacial pace — this asks patience, not jump scares.

Death Becomes Her1992

Same engine — the body betraying its owner through vanity and hubris — run as pitch-black comedy instead of tragedy, with the same era's practical-effects wizardry.

Streep and Hawn rot, snap and disintegrate in gloriously grotesque ways while playing it for huge, wicked laughs — the flip side of body horror's coin.

But If you want Brundle's tragic pathos, this offers none — it's cackling where the other film weeps.

Chernobyl2019

Swap the teleporter for a nuclear reactor and you get the same slow horror of a body breaking down cell by cell from something invisible, and the same tragedy of good intentions gone catastrophically wrong.

This miniseries turns real radiation sickness into some of the most unbearable body horror ever filmed for television — grounded, meticulous, and genuinely haunting.

But It's a true story about a mass-casualty disaster, not a monster movie — the horror comes with real historical weight.