Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’ Remains a Masterpiece in Body Horror

the fly 1986
20th Century Fox

Thirty-five years ago, David Cronenberg created a horror masterpiece with The Fly. A re-telling of the classic 1958 Kurt Neumann film of the same name, Cronenberg took every aspect and amplified it to create quite possibly the best body horror film of all time.

Cronenberg’s The Fly featured Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), a brilliant and insatiable scientist who, after six years of dedicated work, has finally cracked the secret to teleportation. In his quest for eventual fame, he shares his project privately with journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), and the two fall in love during her documentation of the ground-breaking process. Unsatisfied with just successfully teleporting inanimate objects, an emotionally unstable Seth gets drunk and decides to fast-forward to human trials, with himself being the test subject. Unbeknownst to him, a fly enters the teleporter with him, combining their molecular structures during the teleportation process. From there on out, Seth’s mind and body slowly start transforming into that of a monstrous fly-human hybrid who now has horrifying intentions for both himself and Veronica.

I’ve seen this film so many times, and it continues to blow me away with every viewing. Cronenberg dances down the emotional spectrum throughout the entire movie. This isn’t just a monster film. Like most of Cronenberg’s films, there are layers upon layers of horror. Completely disregarding the monster aspect, the concept of watching someone you love wither into something unrecognizable is powerfully heartbreaking. Veronica has no control. She can only sit and watch as Seth becomes only a shell of his former self, and we’re all watching powerlessly with her.  This was intentional, of course, as Cronenberg has said that this film was intended to be a metaphor for the impact that terminal diseases have on those diagnosed and those indirectly affected.

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Jeff Goldblum is so freaking good in this film. As an actor who tends to get lost in the iconography of his characters, people sometimes forget what a superb classically trained theater actor Goldblum is. The Fly is essentially a gritty, gothic tragedy, and it’s no surprise how perfect he was for the role. He has this ability to emotionally change from one character to another, sometimes mid-scene, and not subtly either. One second, he is excited, socially awkward, and collected, then instantly turns to this angry, controlling nightmare of a person. His unpredictability raised this film’s intensity to another level, which is only exacerbated by Howard Shore’s booming, seizing score. Fun fact: Michael Keaton was originally offered this role, and though he turned it down, I think he would have done great!

For me, The Fly is the quintessential practical effects horror film. John Carpenter’s The Thing and An American Werewolf in London get thrown in the mix often, but this film’s effects are just so clean. I’ve truly never seen anything like it. From Seth vomiting on his food before digestion (which was made from milk, honey, and eggs, by the way), to Seth popping his swollen pus-filled finger all over his bathroom mirror, to the full-on transformation to insect monster, with goopy pieces of the former Brundle sloshing and hitting the floor with a meaty thwack. Nothing even comes close to the body horror effects in this film. It looks as real as it can get. I remember viewing The Fly while my wife was in the room napping. She woke up during the scene where Geena Davis is giving birth to a massive, wriggling maggot, and my wife shielded her eyes in disgust. The effects were so gross that even the original film’s star, Vincent Price, wrote a letter to Jeff Goldblum telling him he enjoyed the film, but it went too far.

If you’ve never seen Cronenberg’s The Fly, I’m asking, no, begging you to go back and watch a film that, even after more than three decades, remains a masterpiece of practical effects and truly one of the greatest horror films of all time.

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