8 Horror Movies With Incredible Hidden Messages You Totally Missed
1. The Fly - Disease And Old Age
Jeff Goldblum in the 1987 iteration of The Fly is some pure movie magic. A scientist that accidentally combines his genetic makeup with that of a housefly, he slowly becomes something between the two as the film progresses, wanting to transform his girlfriend into the same kind of monster so they can experience being together on a whole new level. Oioi.
That he gets all gross and icky throughout the movie isn't just Cronenberg playing up to his favourite body horror conventions though, as it actually represents the fear of getting older. Goldblum devolves, rather graphically, from a strapping young chap that's full of fly goodness into a horrible, wrinkly, disgusting mess as the genes take a further hold on him, going through what's essentially the ageing process at break neck (or break arm) speed, to everyone else's horror.
Cronenberg depicts this state with such disgust as it's a reflection on the inevitability of decay we will all go through. Goldblum is basically a walking corpse before he becomes the gross little fly man that sheds his prior body, playing on the ingrained fear we're all born with of growing old, decaying in our own bodies, and eventually dying. Gross stuff.