The Fly (1985)

hot scientist Jeff Goldblum seduces cool journalist Geena Davis. But in a botched attempt to send himself in his teleportation device, Jeff Goldblum turns into a fly, literally. Meanwhile Geena Davis’s psychotic ex-boyfriend won’t leave her alone. Soon she becomes pregnant. She wants an abortion: what if she gives birth to a monster? The transformation of Jeff Goldblum into a giant human fly is as visceral and gross as you can imagine. Cronenberg’s principal obsession at this time is the body turned inside out and the images here are second to none: this is premier gross-out Cronenberg of the first order; the mutant body parts have a sculptural quality. As a document of hand-made cinema The Fly is as exquisite as it is excruciating. Likewise, the film is a mad attempt to excruciate neo-Darwinian biology in favor of the endosymbiont theory of creatures; we are deep in the heretical territory of Lynn Margulis and Donna Haraway. “I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man,” mutant Jeff explains with poignant ickyness. We can identify with him.