THE FLY (1986)

David Cronenberg’s touchstone pic (pre A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) isn’t his best, but it builds effectively on the goofy/iconic 1958 original in not only accidentally commingling man & fly in an experiment gone awry, but in playing out the physical decay as an addiction allegory made concrete. Jeff Goldblum (a real life living frog prince if there ever was one) gives one of the great horror perfs (up with Karloff in THE MUMMY) until he drowns in the gross-out make-up of the third act. In the very small cast, no one else does well (Geena Davis can’t find the right key to play in), and even Cronenberg stumbles badly toward the end with some inert action sequences. (Conversely, Howard Shore’s score sucks right from the start.*) Still, the first hour holds up, helped by a lack of CGI effects which keep the events grounded, and especially Goldblum, who reaches a peak during a wall climbing routine Fred Astaire & Douglas Fairbanks once assayed.
*Apparently, the opera Shore made from the film also sucks from the start. We'll do an update if we get a shot at hearing or seeing it. But that must be a first, film composer turns his own film score into a full fledged opera.