4. The Fly (1986) – Disease
David Cronenberg’s The Fly is considered a horror classic, and for good reason: its awe-inspiring effects combined with Jeff Goldblum’s exceptional performance make it one of the most iconic horror movies of all time. Telling the story of Seth Brundle, a brilliant but eccentric scientist, The Fly chronicles an experiment gone awry and Brundle’s slow transformation into a human-fly hybrid creature. The Fly is a body horror classic, but it’s also widely accepted that it’s a film about disease, particularly terminal illnesses such as AIDS or cancer, and also about the general process of aging.
Brundle’s transformation is the centerpoint of The Fly, and that transformation is the key to understanding the film’s deeper meaning. Cronenberg himself considers the film an examination of disease and aging, particularly as it pertains to the transformation of one’s body into something unrecognizable and the horror that comes with watching those changes. As Cronenberg is considered the master of body horror, this is unsurprising.
Many consider The Fly to be specifically about the AIDS epidemic that was at the cultural fore at the time of its release, and though Cronenberg supports that reading of the film, he considers the movie in more general terms. He explained that “if you, or your lover, has AIDS, you watch that film and of course you’ll see AIDS in it, but you don’t have to have that experience to respond emotionally to the movie and I think that’s really its power.” The Fly is truthfully a powerful metaphor for the changes (both natural and unnatural) that the human body can undergo, and that’s a large part of what makes it such a significant piece of cinema.