A lot of genre fans get their feathers ruffled over remakes, especially when the film being remade is a classic. When it was announced that David Cronenberg was going to be updating Kurt Neumann's 1958 Vincent Price vehicle of the same name, people were skeptical for obvious reasons – the original is a very beloved film and a very well made one. Thankfully, Cronenberg knocked this one out of the park and, like John Carpenter's remake of The Thing it stands as not only one of the best horror movies of the 1980s but one of the best remakes of all time. The fine folks over at Fox know this, and have finally opted to give the film's many rabid fans the special edition DVD release we've all been chomping at the bit to get for so long, and thankfully, it doesn't disappoint in the least.

Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is a quirky but brilliant scientist who has created the world's first teleportation system. Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) is a journalist who writes for a scientific journal sent by her boss to meet with Brundle to get the details on his creation. The two meet, they hit it off, and Seth takes her back to his lab which also happens to be his loft/apartment. What Veronica witnesses when they arrive is pretty amazing stuff – Seth is able to put an object in one of the teleportation pods and send it to the other one on the other side of the room by reducing the object to particles and then having the device reassemble it upon arrival. Seth proudly proclaims to her that his invention will change the world and she's pretty hard pressed to disagree with the strange man.

A day after their first meeting, Seth wants to see her again. When they meet he asks her not to publish her findings on his work right away, to hold off a little bit until more work is done. In return for doing this, he'll let her document his progress and use her writing as the basis of a book. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Veronica accepts this proposition and soon Seth explains to her why he wants her to hold off before going public with all of this – the machines cannot teleport living things, only inanimate objects.

Seth continues to work away on his computers and machines, trying to find the right code that will allow him to successfully teleport a living creature and make his creation complete. As Veronica is there, recording each and every detail of the procedures involved in his research, the two start to fall for one another and soon enough they can no longer deny the mutual attraction. This is unfortunate for Veronica, who used to go out with her editor at the journal and who is now growing quite jealous of the time that she's spending with Seth. When Veronica leaves one night to try and smooth things over with her ex, Seth finally cracks the code he's been working on and decides to use himself as a human guinea pig. He steps into the teleportation device, flips the switch, and successful rematerializes on the other side – or so he thinks. What Seth doesn't realize is that a fly got into the pod with him and that upon rematerializing, his DNA was mixed with the fly's DNA and that now he is no longer truly human.

Going into further details about the plot would be a grave injustice to anyone who has not yet seen this masterpiece of modern horror, so let it suffice to say that it gets really, really ugly.

Cronenberg's knack for bringing medical and body horror to life on the silver screen is brought full force to this film. Though he had made more interesting films before this one and has made more polished and more experimental films since, his version of The Fly is such a success on so many levels that it's hard not to instantly identify the director with this film, even if he probably should be better known for Videodrome, Naked Lunch or Shivers.

The focus of the movie is on transformation, not only of Brundle into the Brundlefly but also of the relationship between Seth and Veronica. Two very different dynamics and two very different evolutions to be sure but both are extremely important to the success of the film and without those two key elements it just wouldn't work as well. The transformation into the fly is important for obvious reasons – it provides the horror, the reason for the make up and gore effects, and is the perfect vehicle for Cronenberg's obsession with what the human body can become (see eXistenz for the next step on that journey). The transformation of the relationship between Seth and Veronica, however, is important for very different reasons as it morphs from cold, clinical and professional to passionate and dangerous and romantic. This provides the pathos, it makes you care about the characters and shows that Brundle isn't just a cold machine of a man but a human being – or at least he was. The believability of the relationship between the two characters makes it easy to suspend our disbelief and as such the scary bits are scarier, the gross bits are more grotesque and the tragedy of it all is all the more biting. Goldblum and Davis are perfect as the leads and both really nail their roles. While they've both been very hit or miss in a lot of the projects they'd take on in later years, here they're fantastic and the casting choices, as unorthodox as they may seem, are brilliant.

The Fly isn't all metaphorical scientific melodrama, however – make no mistake this is a horror movie. The effects are excellent in the film, even now almost twenty years after the fact, and the stand out set pieces where Brundlefly has to dissolve some of his food before he can eat it are still incredibly obscene and work beautifully – especially the first time you see the film when you really don't expect those types of things to happen in the movie.

The cinematography does an expert job of capturing the coldness of the loft/lab. The cool steel of the teleportation pods (modeled after the cylinders on Cronenberg's motorcycle) are unfeeling and unsympathetic to anyone or anything. When the fly makes it in and Seth merges with it, you're not surprised as those machines just look mean and nasty and ugly and uncaring. The rest of the film matches this tone from the decay of Seth's body to the cool blackness of the bedroom where he sleeps. The sun doesn't shine in The Fly, it's a dark and gloomy picture – one that, in less capable hands could have really misfired and came off as a joke, but that here stands the test of time as a masterpiece of modern horror.

The DVD

Video:

The 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that Fox has whipped up for this release is very nice indeed. The film has always looked a little dark in spots but that was on purpose and thankfully, that darkness is well preserved on this new DVD. Light scenes show excellent color reproduction while black levels are strong and deep throughout. The level of both foreground and background detail in the widescreen image is exceptional and there are only trace amounts of edge enhancement and line shimmering present. Mpeg compression artifacts are never a problem, and overall things look very nice. There are trace amounts of print damage here and there that show up in the form of the odd speck of dirt or dust but these don't reveal themselves often enough to be a serious concern. Contrast levels are also dead on. Fans should be impressed with how the film has been treated here – it looks fantastic.