Back In The Day: The 10 Best Horror Movies From The 80s

4) The Fly (1986)

David Cronenberg’s remake of the 1958 classic is a deft balance of mad scientist gothic chills and jaw-droppingly gruesome body horror, with a surprisingly touching love story mixed in for good measure.

Self-involved scientist Seth Brundle (played superbly by the charismatic Jeff Goldblum) invents a “telepod” that can teleport matter from one pod to another instantaneously. Unfortunately, during a live specimen test – where Brundle himself steps up to the task – the experiment goes horribly awry as the procedure suffers from a literal fly in the ointment.

Before the teleportation process begins, an unsuspecting bluebottle fly crawls into the teleporter and winds up fusing the two of them together. At first, Brundle seems perfectly fine, however, it soon becomes clear that his genetic makeup has been altered and intermixed with that of a common housefly. Yikes.

This is a true horror classic that smuggles in a poignant, heartbreaking romance between its pulsating and disturbing horrific imagery that really helps elevate it beyond its source material and fellow genre kinship.