Every Friday Chris hand-selects a streaming recommendation for your weekend.
This Week’s Featured Flick
The Fly on HBO Go
THE TRAILER
THE DETAILS
DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg
WRITER: Charles Edward Pogue, David Cronenberg
CAST: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz
GENRE: Horror
RUNTIME: 96 min
YEAR: 1986
THE PLOT (via Letterboxd)
When Seth Brundle makes a huge scientific and technological breakthrough in teleportation, he decides to test it on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a common housefly manages to get inside the device and the two become one.
THE REASON
October is nearly over and I have yet to recommend a straight horror film. Allow me to amend that by featuring one of my favorites. As long-time listeners of the podcast may know I love a good David Cronenberg movie. And while I appreciated this year’s Maps to the Stars more than Hunter did, it’s the Canadian auteur’s body-horror pictures that really hit the real sweet spot for me. His marriage of gore with painstakingly detailed practical visual effects is always a delightful, squirm-inducing mess, and The Fly is the pinnacle of that unholy union.
As body parts slowly melt off his body the adorable, beefy scientist, Seth Brundle (Goldblum) transforms before our eyes into the grotesque and terrifying — though somehow lovable — “Brundlefly”.
Come for the buckets of puss and dismembered fingernails. Stay for the surprisingly effective tragic love story between Brundle and Veronica Quaife (Davis). Watch it now on HBO Go.
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