It's hard to swat a fly...when you love it.

As I've said many times before, there's something to be said for turning a genre piece inside out, refining its more tactile elements to a mirror shine. David Cronenberg's The Fly is one of the best possible examples of this. If I were to give you a plot synopsis (which I will), and you were unfamiliar with the story, you could easily mistake it for any number of cheap 80's creature features.

Driven scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) has made something great: a teleportation device. He shows it to a female reporter, Veronica (Geena Davis), who begins to document his struggles with the machine. As their romantic relationship begins to take form, so does the machine. One night, Seth impulsively decides to test it on himself. Little does he know that a fly has made its way into the teleportation pod with him. He teleports to the other side of the room and fuses himself with the fly. At first, Seth feels great. He has more energy than he thought possible and is developing almost superhuman strength. Slowly, though, the effects become more perverse. As the fly begins to take over his body, he fights for control of his mind.

This is the best work Jeff Goldblum has ever done. This continues a long line of actors doing not only the best work of their career, but work miles above anything their previous or subsequent work suggested them capable of, in a David Cronenberg film. For example, James Woods, Jeremy Irons, Christoper Walken, Viggo Mortenson, etc., etc.

He has the awkward passion of Brundle, the anger and malice of the fly, and the tragedy of Brundlefly from the first moment you see him to the last, under literal pounds of makeup, acting with only his eyes. If there is proof of a flaw in the Academy Awards process, exhibit A would be Jeff Goldblum's lack of a nomination, and subsequent win, for this film. In fact, exhibit A would be the fact that it took until 2007 for an actor in a Cronenberg film to get a nomination.

And that Cronenberg himself has never been nominated.

David Cronenberg cut his teeth on horror films in his younger days, and he seems to have a true passion for them. He is clearly a Goremonger, but no Goremonger before Cronenberg has been able to tap into our fears of mutation and bodily disfigurement the way Cronenberg does (for the best example of this, see Dead Ringers, one of THE BEST films ever made--as in, top 10 best films ever sort of Best Films Ever). This is the first time I've seen this film since I was thirteen years old, when I had nightmares for days. Up to that point, I had never felt violated by a film; clearly I had never seen a Cronenberg film. No one has ever, and I doubt anyone will ever, harness horror the same way Cronenberg has. He is the god of the genre, and anyone who disputes that can get bent.

And my GOD does this film make a case for practical effects over CGI. There is no way in the name of all the pretty demons of Hell that CGI could make anything this grotesque without it becoming completely synthetic. That we can still see Jeff Goldblum's features and that the fly seems to be growing out of Brundle's own skin instead of changing his skin into its own is the sort of visceral horror that no amount of money spent on any amount of computer generated imagery could ever duplicate.

It's a great thing when your only complaint about a movie is that it isn't long enough, but that's the only negative thing I can say about it. It's a visceral cross-section of man, insect and machine (made literal in the final moments of the film). It's a monster movie only Cronenberg could turn into a tragedy, and there will never again be anything like it.

11/10