Jeff Goldblum's Incredible '80s Sci-Fi Body Horror Movie Doesn't Get Enough Love Today

Body horror appears to be back in a big and eye-wateringly painful way. Demi Moore's star vehicle, "The Substance," got plenty of awards attention in 2025, and the latest trailer for "Clayface" proves that even comic book movies are willing to get gross with human anatomy. When looking through these contorting, skin-morphing movies, there's one film that so many body horror entries have since drawn their DNA from, and a classic that, besides defying the laws of science, broke the rules that general movie fandom can't abide seeing broken.

After turning heads (and blowing them up) with the likes of "Videodrome" and "Scanners," director David Cronenberg was proving to be a name in the horror world worth keeping an eye on. That's why when he dared to remake Kurt Neumann's 1958 "The Fly" (adapted from the short story of the same name), it was guaranteed he'd apply a more intense angle to this science-gone-wrong story.

In this case, the poor genius dabbling with things beyond his comprehension was Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle, whose home teleportation experiment sees things go sideways when a housefly joins him on his scientific breakthrough. As a result, Cronenberg didn't just deliver; his remake exceeded the original. Not only did it set a bar for sci-fi horror from then on, it also took from classic staples of the sub-genre before fusing them into one that would become his own, with a lot of credit going towards his two leads being tortured by this nightmarish ordeal.

One thing "The Fly" isn't praised enough for is its love story that shifts to horror, thanks to Goldblum and co-star Geena Davis as journalist Veronica "Ronnie" Quaife. Kicking things off, the pair's meet-cute lulls us into a false sense of security, letting us get swept up in the honeymoon phase before the terror takes hold. From there, the film, and most notably Goldblum's performance, transforms into the horror show it's famous for.

Brundle's eventual obsession with fusing lifeforms takes over, leaving "The Fly" to splice DNA from "The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Frankenstein." To quote Brundle himself, "Yeah, I build bodies. I take them apart and put them back together again." This decline from man to monster obsessed with his creation would also further highlight what would become Cronenberg's tried-and-tested exploration of biomechanics, presented here in incredible sequences that still hold up.

Through Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis' Oscar-winning special effects depicting Brundle's degradation, the man of science adopts an almost cult-like mentality, believing the telepod will rid its passengers of impurity. Meanwhile, he begins to melt things with his own vomit, and his body starts to disintegrate into something else. This kind of degrading upgrade would echo years later in the likes of "Crimes of the Future," which also explored using technology to undergo scientific alterations as a next step in human evolution. The question is whether Cronenberg's masterful handling of sci-fi horror can be replicated in a proposed project that'll be firing up the telepods for a brand-new story.

While Cronenberg might've done a great job in adding a different spin to "The Fly," the efforts to make a new version that could compete with his take have struggled. In 2003, director Todd Lincoln played around with the idea of making another version of "The Fly," only for the project to be squashed.

Six years later, Cronenberg himself revealed he'd written a sequel to his film, which would completely ignore the unsuccessful "The Fly II" from 1989, directed by Walas. That didn't materialize, either. Fast-forward to 2024, and Deadline reported that director, Nikyatu Jusu was penning an all-new version of "The Fly," with rumors since hinting that Adam Driver would be taking over as the good doctor who has a very bad experience.

As usual for any movie project linked to a legacy, there will no doubt be some rendered afraid (perhaps even very afraid) at the prospect of "The Fly" not being left alone, and arguing that Cronenberg's take can't be topped. Even so, the 1986 classic proves that sometimes, putting something fresh through the telepod can lead to great things, even if those things involve Jeff Goldblum throwing up on himself and smiling while he does it.