80's monster cinema at its finest...

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2016)

I've always been a horror & gore fan since I was a little kid --- Nightmares be damned, I was fascinated by monster movies in particular, and as a result, I was lucky enough to be right in the thick of plethora of horror movies to come from the 80's and early 90's.
While most of those movies are downright laughable & unable to maintain a shred of suspense of disbelief by modern standards, a select few are timeless golden bits of celluloid Cronenberg's 1986 "remake" of The Fly is one such film.
Since my first viewing at the age of 11, it's been a firm go-to horror favorite – justifying a watch at least once every 2-3 years. My most recent being last Friday night, just for kicks. No, it's not without its flaws – the science is too watered down, and one can't help but feel that some of the character development had been relegated to the cutting room floor, along with some of the more grotesque scenes (which are viewable on Youtube) – but its positives far outweigh any criticisms one could levy against it.
We all know the basic premise of the film Scientist develops teleportation device, scientist teleports himself, unwittingly taking a housefly along for the trip, bad things happen.
But Cronenberg takes this premise and supersizes it with equal amounts of heart and gore Jeff Goldblum shines as the geeky and eccentric Seth Brundle, trying to hit on reluctant reporter Veronica (A leggy-redhead-fantasy-inducing Geena Davis) at a science exhibition, claiming to show her something that will change the world if she were to accompany him to his apartment.
The teleportation equipment blows her mind, but we're informed that only inanimate objects can pass through, whereas something goes "wrong" when teleporting flesh We're treated to a taste of gore early on as a baboon is literally turned inside out, and is shown in graphic detail, writhing on the floor in a pool of blood.
One thing leads to another, Seth & Veronica fall in love as she documents his progress, and inspired by their carnal pleasures, he figures out the solution to making the machine teleport living things, teleporting a second baboon perfectly intact.
Reinforcing the notion that alcohol's effect on relaxing one's inhibitions may not be such a hot idea, Seth proceeds to teleport himself, and accidentally takes a housefly along for the ride except, there's no simple swopping of heads in this version.
Seth emerges, feeling like the million dollar man, better, stronger, faster (and smarter) hypothesizing that the process has somehow cleansed him during reconstruction, but all too soon it becomes apparent that this improvement will be all too short-lived..
And this is where the movie really gets going, and doesn't let up Seth's rapid descent into decay and madness is utterly engaging – not only does Cronenberg present it in visual flair, but he also manages to capture the fallout in the relationship perfectly. The chemistry between Goldblum & Davis is palpable (they were also dating at the time), and Veronica's anguish at Seth's degeneration strikes an emotional chord, culminating in a heart-wrenching mercy-kill in the end.
It's one of my all-time favorites it's campy, involving only 3 actual characters (well, 4, if you count the fly) – the rest are just window dressing. It's gory, it's intimate, and it invests you in the characters sufficiently for the ending to be truly tragic.
80's monster cinema at its finest.