10 Body Horror Movies That Broke All The Rules
7. The Fly (1986)
David Cronenberg's The Fly may have arrived several years after The Thing, but its astoundingly grotesque practical effects nevertheless stunned in no-less disarming fashion.
Furthermore, The Fly is one of the few body horror films to ever receive major awards recognition for its effects work, artists Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis ultimately winning Best Makeup Oscars for their sublime efforts.
The film chronicles the transformation of brilliant scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), who over the course of the story mutates into a human-fly hybrid creature after a failed experiment fuses his DNA with said insect.
The jaw-dropping makeup effects spare no horrid detail of Brundle's transformation, from initially subtle facial discolouration to, eventually, becoming an unrecognisable, monstrous abomination.
But what really takes The Fly to the next level isn't merely the robust effects, but the unexpected emotion of Cronenberg's movie.
Brundle's loss of humanity throughout is genuinely depressing, compounded by his desperation to prevent his partner Ronnie (Geena Davis) from aborting the child they conceived together - the last remnant of his humanity.
The tragedy reaches its heartbreaking apex in the film's brutal final moments, when "Brundlefly" instructs Ronnie to blow his head off with a shotgun, which she tearfully does.
As much as body horror is often used for gnarly gross-out thrills, it's rare to see revolting bodily transformation put to such affecting ends.