“What am I working on? I’m working on something that will change the world and human life as we know it!” announces Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) in the opening lines of this 1986 remake of a not very good 1958 film. Sure, he wants to get science reporter Geena Davis in the sack, but he means it too. Not that David Cronenberg shows much interest in teleportation — Brundle’s hokey (but spectacular!) invention. Nor does he hang his scientist for Frankensteinian hubris. Rather, this is a film about fusion. Fusion between man and insect, of course; but also the emotional and physical fusion that can occur between man and woman, liberating and painful as that may be.
The playful, quirky chemistry established between Goldblum and Davis (they married soon after) ensures that this gothic horror is heartbreaking as well as stomach churning, though the special effects by Chris Walas remain staggering even today. It may not be the most respectable movie from the man most consider Canada’s greatest filmmaker, but this is surely the most moving.
VIFF+ Premium member Michael Misfeld picked this one, and quoted the movie’s famous tag-line: “Be Afraid… Be Very Afraid!”
Content Considerations: Graphic violence
Wildly imaginative, gut-wrenchingly scarifying and profoundly primal (not to mention funny), David Cronenberg’s The Fly is a movie that whacks you in the solar plexus and leaves you gasping.
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
A gross-your-eyes-out horror movie that is also the year’s most poignant romance.
Richard Corliss, Time
David Cronenberg
Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz
Canada
1986
English
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Credits
Producer
Stuart Cornfeld
Screenwriter
Charles Edward Pogue, David Cronenberg
Cinematography
Mark Irwin
Editor
Ronald Sanders
Original Music
Howard Shore
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