10 Movie Moments That Should Make You Look Away (But Totally Gripped You)

7. The Final Transformation - The Fly (1986)

A little bit of a throwback, but an undoubtedly deserving entry on this list nonetheless. The Fly is one of the most iconic films in the body horror genre and for good reason. It’s the kind of film that truly induces nausea because the grimmest scenes are so well realised; this is of course down to the film’s director David Cronenberg, the master of grotesque practical effects and one of the genre’s pioneers.

In the film’s dramatic finale, Jeff Goldblum’s Seth Brundle has lost nearly all humanity, both physically and morally, he’s a hideously deformed mess who loses his mind and ends up endangering the life of his love Ronnie (Geena Davis) and their unborn child. In an ensuing struggle, Ronnie accidentally knocks off Seth’s jaw which triggers his disgusting final transformation – a vile fly-humanoid beast that literally bursts out of what remained of Seth’s human body.

The film concludes with Ronnie taking a shotgun and tragically blowing Seth’s mutated head off after he silently asks to be put out of his misery. The build-up to this climax is both ghastly and heart-breaking but transfixes the viewers’ eyes nonetheless.