A masterpiece of horror that is not better than the original, just different

Rating: 9/10 (20 July 2017)

When I first heard they were remaking "The Fly" over 30 years ago I rolled my 20-something eyes and figured this would be some inferior remake with lots of gore. I was half right. There is lots of gore, but there is so much more going on. The first half is basically a sci fi/romance combo. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), a rather socially backwards genius of a scientist meets science journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) at a press event she is covering. He takes her back to his warehouse apartment/laboratory and demos the teleportation device he has been working on. His problem - he can transport inanimate objects but nothing living. Later he comes to her office and proposes that they collaborate. He wants her to document his work in progress.
All of this time together leads to a romance that is good for both of them. Seth gets a taste of "the flesh" as he calls it, and Veronica loses the cynicism she has developed about love. You see, Veronica's boss, Stathis Borans (John Getz), is an ex-lover of Veronica's who is trying to get her back. Today we'd call the guy a stalker. Why would you continue to work for a stalker? That is never explained. He lets himself into her apartment to take a shower, shows up in a store when she is buying Seth a new jacket, and sends her insulting fake magazine covers he has made up concerning Seth and herself.
One night Seth figures out that Veronica has had an affair with Borans, and he gets drunk in his despair, thinking that maybe the affair is ongoing. Since Seth has the romantic experience of an eighth grader, this is understandable. But then the tragic drunken decision to go ahead and transport himself as the first human experiment. Except something tags along - a fly.
Unlike the 1958 film, there is no half fly-half human something that emerges from the pod. Instead, at first, Brundle doesn't know what has happened, and he emerges looking exactly the same as before he was transported. He even seems better for it - stronger, quicker reflexes, more stamina, and this pesky desire for sugary foods. Instead the transformation is gradual, heartbreaking even, as a man finds he is losing himself. Veronica turns to Borans for help, who truly does try to help in this unbelievable situation.
Yet Stathis is not the hero. Brundle is definitely the hero, albeit a tragic one. For the most part the horror of the movie doesn't come from seeing "BrundleFly" terrorize other people. Instead it comes from empathizing with him as we see the gruesome transformation he undergoes as he loses everything he cares about. Goldblum and Davis give fantastic performances and get you invested in their relationship really quickly. Watching it all get destroyed is heartbreaking. They were actually a couple at the time this film was made, and their chemistry is palpable.
Highly recommended as everything about it holds up today. I should know since I watched it again last night when I woke up at 2AM when it showed up on one of the Encore cable channels. The tragedy and the horror of it all kept me up until dawn.
One more thing - director David Cronenberg does a cameo as a gynecologist. His 1988 film "Dead Ringers" was about two gynecologists. Does Cronenberg have a thing for gynecology? Just wondering.