Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

I am so mad at you, Jeff Goldblum.

This is a very special blog, very much like those very special episodes of your favorite half hour sitcom you watched as a child, where the teen actor in question faces current social issues like bulimia, child abuse, and driving under the influence. Only instead of such youth relevant themes, this post is to bring awareness to the horrorshow that is Jeff Goldblum’s 1986 film “The Fly.”

Yes, I know it’s meant to be a horror movie. I don’t care. It’s disgusting, so don’t watch it. For your own good.

There are those films where you’re sitting there, and you know a ghost or murderer is about to pop up out of a shrubbery at any second. You’re waiting and waiting and the suspense is killing you so you hide your eyes, but you want to know what’s happening so you kind of peek through your fingers. This is not one of those films. Keep the fingers closed. Turn the TV off. In fact, just throw the TV out the window, in case you decide to sleepwalk and turn it back on. Do not take the risk.

Would you like to me elaborate?

The following events occur in this film.

1. Jeff Goldblum vomits acid onto a guy’s hand and foot, melting them off.

2. Geena Davis rips Mr. G’s jaw off, because now he’s a giant fly-man and doesn’t need it anymore.

3. A monkey gets turned inside out, and then explodes. You see everything.

4. Geena Davis, in a nightmare scene, gives birth to a giant maggot.

Are you puking yet?

Let’s talk a little bit about the director/writer, one David Cronenberg. Sound familiar? He’s the brilliant mind behind such unforgettable movie moments as Viggo Mortensen’s naked knife fight in “Eastern Promises,” and a little movie called “M. Butterfly,” where a French diplomat falls in love with a Japanese opera singer, only to find out she’s really a dude. Hooray for the cinema!

The worst part of the film was not any of the previously mentioned gross bits, but when Geena Davis’ character, upon seeing her former boyfriend’s new look, did not run away in terror, but instead chose to give him a nice, heartfelt embrace, burrowing her pretty little face into his slimy neck. In the next scene, she explains to her old boyfriend (who despite some harmless stalking, turns out to be the real hero of the film) that she simply must go back to see SlimyJeffFly again. Yes, Geena. You must go back there. With a pistol.

What was she thinking anyway? Dating a scientist! Who dates a scientist, with their weird inventions, and dark creepy labs and delusions of grandeur. Please! You want a lot of money without a lot of fuss? Fall in love with a dermatologist, not a scientist. Things never end well for scientists in movies. Unless it’s a quirky romp where the scientists invents some sort of serum to make himself more desirable to ladies. Again, this is not one of those movies.

Do yourself a favor, dear bloggy kins. You want horror? Try something not so traumatizing, like Kubrick’s “The Shining,” or maybe a nice, old classic, like “Poltergeist.” That has only one face melting scene, and it happens to a very minor character! Eh? Eh? Sound like fun?

I really should just stick to books for my evening entertainment. I’ve only once ever felt like puking after reading something in a book, and that was Aron Ralston’s memoir “Between a Rock and a Hard Place.” It was the part where he had to saw off his own arm with a pocket knife in order to escape a slow, painful death by dehydration and starvation. As hard as that was to read, though, it was an exceptionally amazing story about the power of the human will to survive. As opposed to “The Fly,” which is about the power of human stupidity and how the lack of quality funding for today’s mad scientists leads to some very poor decision making.