#47: THE FLY

The original 1958 film came up with a great idea, but a dude with a labcoat and a giant fly-head was hardly the scariest looking thing around.  30 years later when David Cronenberg remade THE FLY, it was a thing of beauty.  Expert direction, a sophisticated script, and an Oscar caliber (though Oscar ignored) performance by Jeff Goldblum finally made a good thinking man's horror film, that didn't skip on the thrills and shock.

Goldblum played Seth Brundle, a scientist who has been experimenting with teleportation.  After a housefly accidentally ends up in the same chamber, the DNA from the two are merged into one.   Though he looks just fine at first, he slowly begins to exhibit fly traits that start taking him over (yet for some reason he never has cravings for dog shit).

He eats tons of sugar, and to test out his new found strength he gets in an armwrestling match at a bar, and snaps the poor jerk's arm in half.  Soon he turns into an out and out monster that seems like a FLY that would be living in HR Giger's house.

There was a sequel, the cleverly titled FLY II (which really should have been called SON OF THE FLY), with Eric Stoltz as Brundle's son.  It's watchable, but nowhere near the movie the first one was.

THE FLY has some truly horrific moments.  Like when Martin has to throw up on a donut before he eats it, or when Geena Davis has a dream that she gives birth to a maggot baby. 

Hell, if she would have given birth to a maggot baby every week on her crappy TV show, it might not get canceled.

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