Cronenberg

One of my favourite directors is David Cronenberg.

I especially love Videodrome, Scanners, Existenz, Dead Zone, Crash, and The Fly. The Fly is my absolute favourite of those films.


If you were born in 1950 you might recall the original version with the infamous scene where the scientist ends up with his head on a fly's body and is about to eaten by a spider and cries out "Help me!" in a tiny voice. But if you're an 80's fanatic like me then you might be more familiar with David Cronenberg's remake. It's like the original one except it's different, Jeff Goldblum doesn't end up with his head on a fly's body oh no- it's much worse he ends up turning into a really grotesque hybrid of human and fly. One crucial element that David Cronenberg never forgets to add in his movies is horrific transformations involving the body changing in really horrible ways (this type of transformation is known as either a Painful Transformation or Transformation Trauma, and is full of Body Horror).



It may have given quite a lot of viewers nightmares and Squicked them out, but it kind of inspired me. The Fly has been satirised numerous times. On one episode of Beetleborgs, Flabber brings a sketch of a teleportation device to life with his magic and gives it a test run, a fly-like monster named Kombat Gnat (who has a lot of razor sharp teeth and the ability to shrink) gets into the machine, their dna gets merged together and Flabber ends up turning into it like Jeff Goldblum in the movie. However he gets turned back to normal in the end.



David's work these days tend to be less viceral but i still like his style nonetheless.



So here's to David Cronenberg, the baron of body horror.