The Best Transformation Horror Movies

Key Takeaways

• The Fly
  showcases a disturbing transformation of a scientist into a monstrous creature, ruled by primal impulses.
• Men
  presents a surreal and gory transformation sequence involving a man giving birth to identical versions of himself.
• An American Werewolf In London
  features award-winning effects portraying a horrifying werewolf transformation sequence.

The world of horror cinema is massive and can be separated into plenty of individual genres. Most horror fans love a spread of these different categories, be they body horror films, paranormal or possession films, or even the campy world of slasher flicks. Transformation horror films have a lot in common with body horror, as an audience watches a character becoming something else and losing their humanity.

Whether this is conveyed through incredible acting, superb practical effects, or strange and surreal sequences, these transformations can make or break a horror film. Here are the eight best transformation horror movies, ranked by their terrifying transformations.

8 The Fly

Genetic Mutation Leads To Humanoid Fly

• Directed: David Cronenberg
• Released: August 15, 1986

Jeff Goldblum’s performance as Seth Brundle in The Fly will always be remembered as a hard-to-watch transformation horror staple. When Brundle experiments with teleportation and accidentally fuses his genetics with an insect, the scientist begins to change. The first changes are small, affecting his behavior and giving him newfound energy, but Brundle quickly realizes something is wrong when he starts to lose parts of his body.

By the end, the transformation has taken on its own personality, ruled by primal impulses. The creature, which calls itself Brundle-Fly, vomits to predigest its food and eventually is unrecognizable as a human being. Cronenberg’s film features one of the best transformations ever put on screen.

7 Men

Metaphor Turned Monster

• Directed: Alex Garland
• Released: May 20, 2022

The creepy British folk horror Men follows a woman, played by Jessie Buckley, who is retreating to the countryside after her husband’s death. The film is surreal and creepy, but viewers will most likely be confused and observant of the men in the film, many of whom look very similar. Rory Kinnear plays nearly all of the men in the nearby village, and this eerie similarity between all the people, both the kind and compassionate and the sinister, comes to a head quickly when wounds from one character appear on others.

The transformation sequence brings the bloody naked man to Buckley’s feet where he balloons into a sudden pregnancy and then births a new version of himself from his back. The sequence is gory and disgusting, and the new version of the man is identical and continues to give birth to another version of himself. For any horror fans looking for something meaningful and horrific, Men is well worth a watch.

6 Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Man Becomes Metal With Violent Results

• Directed: Shinya Tsukamoto
• Released: July 1, 1989

A beloved horror movie all over the world, Tsukamoto’s first feature-length movie, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, is an exploration of humanity and technology and the way that the two interact. A normal man in Japan begins to find metal wounds all over himself after a car accident. The man slowly becomes more metallic, with technology taking over his body and entering his brain.

The transformation is horrifying for the man, even as he learns that he is telepathically connected to another creature like him. The visuals and practical effects, as well as the sharp sound design, make the whole film feel uncomfortable and brutal. Here, the transformation is made so much worse by the victim’s own reaction to it, as he loses himself in paranoia and nightmares.

5 An American Werewolf In London

Award-Winning Special Effects

• Directed: John Landis
• Released: April 21, 1981

John Landis’ body horror classic, An American Werewolf In London, is one of the most fully realized werewolf transformation films for horror fans to sink their teeth into. A pair of American tourists visit the British countryside when they are attacked by a feral animal. One dies and will continue to haunt his friend in progressing states of decomposition as the film continues. The other survives and takes on the curse of the Wolfman.

David, played by David Naughton, slowly realizes what he has become, refusing to believe it until he becomes the monster in a horrifying transformation sequence. Flesh stretches and tears and nails burst from his finger violently. The award-winning effects in the film bring the horror to the screen, and the bloody killings of David’s victims return to haunt him along with his friend in gory and sympathetic scenes.

4 Slither

Small Town Alien Evolution

• Directed: James Gunn
• Released: March 31, 2006

James Gunn’s directorial debut, Slither, is the story of a parasitic alien that crashes on Earth. When the entity infects an ordinary man, he begins to change. He sprouts tentacles, his face sags into a secondary mouth with more bestial teeth. His hair thins and his skin becomes raw and red.

The transformation is awful to behold, but the sticky, icky fun of the huge mutant person infesting a small town with his larvae, as well as the swelling flesh of his wife, is silly, over the top, and brings a lightheartedness to the proceedings. It’s a great body horror and transformation flick.

3 Tusk

Psycho Surgeon Makes His Own Walrus

• Directed: Kevin Smith
• Released: September 19, 2014

While there are a whole host of films that focus on a deranged surgeon creating monsters, perhaps the strangest and most captivating is Kevin Smith’s Tusk. When a podcaster looking for a story ends up speaking to a retired sailor, Justin Long’s character Wallace is drugged and wakes to find that he has been changed. Slowly, over the course of the film, Wallace finds his body changing at the hands of the crazed sailor who survived a shipwreck because he was helped by a walrus.

The sailor obsessively turns Wallace into a human walrus, amputating his legs and using the bones to form tusks, ensuring that Wallace will be able to survive his transformation. The sailor tries to train the victim to act like a wild animal, making the changes to his form revolting, comedic, and dark.

2 The Exorcist

Transformation Forced By A Demon

• Directed: William Friedkin
• Released: December 26, 1973

One of the most infamous horror films of all time, with urban myths about fainting and vomiting in the audience when the film was released, is a transformation film about a young girl possessed by a demon. The Exorcist was incredibly influential, but part of the horror comes from the changes happening to Regan which cannot be explained by any of the medical professionals or psychologists who examined her.

When the church is brought in to perform an exorcism, Regan’s skin begins to peel away in bleeding sores. Mutilating her own body, twisting her neck in a full circle, vomiting strange fluids, and moving unnaturally, the demon that inhabits the girl wants to transform her into something horrific.

1 The Substance

Age Is The Monster

• Directed: Coralie Fargeat
• Released: September 20, 2024

One of the most incredible films in recent memory is a transformation film that features Demi Moore as an actress who is falling out of public favor as she ages. When she loses her role on the TV show she has worked on for years, she decides to take an underground drug that produces a newer, younger version of herself.

For fans of transformation films, the slow effects that the substance has on Moore’s character are creative and creepy. If the rules of the strange chemical are not followed exactly, horrific side effects occur. Demi Moore finds parts of her body aging rapidly, loses fingernails and teeth, and ends the film as a strange crone-like creature. The final transformation, a combination of Elisabeth (Demi Moore) and Sue (Margaret Qualley), has to be seen to be believed.