When it comes to body horror, it doesn’t get much better than David Cronenberg. The auteur’s films are equally impressive for their surprising tenderness as they are for their cringe-inducing effects. Cronenberg’s The Fly may be the best example of that juxtaposition: the 1986 film is as tragic as it is terrifying, rendering an outlandish (even silly) premise to devastating effect. In anyone else’s hands, the story of a man who accidentally becomes bonded with a common housefly could have easily been reduced to a farce. But Cronenberg takes his subject matter seriously, twisting a traditional creature feature into a tragic tale of mortality.
Cronenberg’s iteration of The Fly was not the first; nor was it the last — but generations of horror fans now recognize it as the definitive version of this story. The film presents a major challenge for anyone hoping to follow in Cronenberg’s footsteps, but as Hollywood continues its mad scramble for viable intellectual property, The Fly is getting the franchise treatment.
