Having broken through into the mainstream with one of his most sick and personal films 'The Fly', Cronenberg didn't squander the opportunity, making this wildly unhealthy melodrama with a bigger budget, a genuinely great star (Jeremy Irons), and a determination not to compromise.

Irons plays twin gynaecologists, Elliot and Beverley Mantle (rendered together onscreen with quite stunning special effects), gradually spinning out of mental control through drug abuse and madness when Bev falls for an actress (Genevieve Bujold), and realises for the first time in their lives that he wants to exclude Elliot from an aspect of his life.

So far, it could be a soap opera, but the horrifying collapse into insanity goes very far indeed, and while for a Cronenberg film, it's exceptionally restrained, there are enough sick and twisted ideas to fill a dozen wild movies (you will never quite forget the tools that one twin hopes to use on his patients). Alongside Cronenberg's usual obsessions (death, mental collapse, the corruption and mutation of the body), there's a marvellous satire on the business of men dominating a fundamentally female branch of medicine, and a startlingly good pair of performances from Irons as both twins which should have, but didn't, win him an Oscar.