Artist The Fly (1986)
The use of offscreen violence tends to get a lot of respect, under the thinking that a lack of explicitness leaves more to the imagination. But there's something to be said for onscreen violence, especially in a film like David Cronenberg's The Fly, surely among the most disgusting films ever made by a major studio. For a film about a half-man/half-insect, few of The Fly's scares are of the booga-booga variety: Cronenberg has called the film an “operatic” love story, so the true horror comes from the scientist (Jeff Goldblum) who falls in love with a journalist (Geena Davis), but gradually recedes from himself and her as his body deteriorates.
Updated 01/13/2010
