The Fly

Cronenberg’s tragicomic gross-out remake of the 1958 Vincent Price original goes to extremes unusual for a major studio release. Jeff Goldblum plays the charmingly off-kilter scientist Seth Brundle whose experiment backfires, turning him into a six foot, four inch insect; “Brundlefly”. Goldblum’s low key humor and close-to-the-vest performance, along with the empathetic screenplay (echoing the mordant comedy of Kafka’s Metamorphosis), anchors the film in the workaday world, even as the movie becomes increasingly, almost absurdly, repulsive. The brilliantly icky make-up effects, by Cronenberg’s partner-in-slime, Chris Walas, took the Academy Award.