
The Fly. 1986. USA. Directed by David Cronenberg. Screenplay by Charles Edward Pogue and Cronenberg, based on novel by George Langelaan. With Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz. 35mm. 96 min.
By the late 1980s, David Cronenberg had no further need to prove himself as a horror master. Nonetheless, his second go-round working for a major Hollywood studio (after 1983’s The Dead Zone) represents an unmistakable leveling-up. From his very first scene, Jeff Goldblum, as yuppie scientist Seth Brundle, taps into his signature cerebral smarm. Yet Brundle’s arrogant fixation on his teleportation technology goes south when a housefly is caught in his “telepod,” causing Brundle’s DNA to commingle with the pesky insect’s. Cronenberg’s The Fly turns the goofy premise of the 1958 Vincent Price version (“Help meeeeee!”) into something deadly serious, thanks in large part to multilayered performances from Goldblum and Geena Davis as his beleaguered love interest. But what makes the film indelible is the truly disgusting prosthetic effects designed by VFX master Chris Walas (who would return to work on Cronenberg’s 1991 adaptation of Naked Lunch). As Brundle succumbs to his addictive new powers and rapid physical transformation, Cronenberg and cowriter Charles Edward Pogue trade the drive-in campiness of the original for, of all things, a slow-burning romantic tragedy.