By the time he got around to The Fly, Cronenberg had developed a theology of flesh. A real, rigorous philosophy regarding the body as both identity and prison. The body isn’t a vehicle for the self; the body is the self. When it changes, you change. When it fails, you fail. The ghost in the machine isn’t there, it’s just the machine.

This isn’t a comfortable idea. Enormous cultural energy is spent on the notion that our “true selves” are somehow separable from our physical form. That a person stuck in a degenerating body remains, basically, themselves. It’s a nice and consoling fiction. Cronenberg, bless his cold, Canadian heart, doesn’t do consolations.

Seth Brundle does more than acquire fly characteristics, he becomes enthusiastic about them. He can climb walls and ceilings, he can eat by vomiting up enzymes onto his food and drinking the results. He has superhuman strength. For a while, and this is the most disturbing move, it seems like maybe this will be good. Brundle is energised and focused. Physically speaking, he is the best version of himself. He knows it, he loves it, and he pushes away the woman who loves him because she can’t keep up with his incredible new metabolism.