10. THE FLY (1986)
Horror movies, contrary to the claims of highfalutin critics like us, don’t necessarily have to be about anything. If they’re scary and well-made and don’t insult your intelligence, just being a good horror movie is enough. But when they are about something, especially in the hands of a storyteller of the depth and intelligence of David Cronenberg, they transcend genre and become something truly special. Cronenberg took a popular pulp story by George Langelaan, which had been filmed once before as a pretty straightforward monster movie in the 1950s, and remade it as a terrific modern-day horror flick, complete with terrifically suspenseful moments and plenty of nauseating fluids for the grindhouse crowd – but he also infused it with a powerful undercurrent of extremely personal terror. The Fly, carried on the hair-sprouting, wing-bearing back of Jeff Goldblum’s greatest performance, is one of the finest movies ever made about the betrayal of the body: in the story of a scientist who is transformed into an insect-like creature, Cronenberg manages to isolate not only the horror, but also the loneliness, the helplessness, and the frustration of the sick and the dying. When Brundlefly is finally dispatched at the movie’s end, the pervasive feeling isn’t one of revenge, or relief – it’s one of terrible sadness.
Read More...