Jeff Goldblum absolutely makes the remake worth watching, even if it's gory and depressing. I think it's perhaps the most undersung/underappreciated horror roles ever.

Both him and Geena were awsome in that. The first half plays almost like a geektastic romantic comedy, and then it gets icky and very very sad (or is that sad and very very icky?).

If they did it now, it'd be all CGI.

With Cronenberg, you never know. He believes in texture when he does those sorts of effects. Though he made some stellar (as in almost undetectable) use of CGI in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, so who knows.

P-C, in interviews Cronenberg did around the release of The Fly he talked a lot about his father's death from cancer, and that it was (for him) a metaphor about loving somebody who's physically falling apart in horriffic ways.

Yeah, I read about the metaphor, and I felt smart for getting that from the movie.

I expected Ronnie to recoil in horror the first time she sees Brundle as he's begun to change.

Instead, she hugs him.

Instead, she hugs him.

When I saw that in the theater back in the day, this got almost as much of an audibly revolted response as some of the later, seriously gross stuff. Granted, the sounds of revulsion were pretty much nonstop for the last 10 minutes of the movie, so that had it beat for duration.

He was so freaked out and scared that all he could do was lay on the horn until his mother came out of the house and to rescue him.

This is adorable! I remember when I saw the Blair Witch Project with 2 friends (GF wasn't interested) and had to drive home alone, I had to stop for gas and was totally freaked out. It was late and no one was around. I iz a scaredy-kat!

I've told my mom's awesome moviegoing story here, I'm sure. (She and other student nurses were staying in a motel in Kalamazoo and decided to see the latest Hitchcock--yes, Psycho. Some refused to take a shower at all afterward, but she had her best friend stand guard at the closed door, just in case Norman Bates showed up.)

GC, that was me after the Exorcist. I went to a midnight showing with some friends. After I dropped them off I think I drove the rest of the way home with my head half turned around to watch the back of the car (it was a station wagon.) I remember reading the book, and it was a big fat one, in one night because it was so scary I wanted to finish it and just get it over with.

Mr & Mrs Smith is on TV. I love Brad Pitt's flailing skillz

Oddly, Sail, I just finished re-reading The Exorcist (though I've never seen the movie). It came across as more mournful than horrifying, maybe because I kept seeing Father Damien as the main character. Also, treating possession as analogous to puberty creates some new possible interpretations.

Also, treating possession as analogous to puberty creates some new possible interpretations.

I have to admit, at the time I read it, this thought didn't even occur to me despite puberty being something I was not much removed from, if out of it yet (I was 18 at the time.) The treatment isn't much different from BtVS and the "high school is hell" metaphor. Not surprising others might find teenagers freakish when that's how we felt ourselves at the time.