Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: The Fly (1986)

THE FLY (1986)
Director: David Cronenberg
Genre: Body horror/love story

Two things have always bothered me about the “Beauty and the Beast” story:

1) Usually the Beast is redeemed at the end and turns into some sort of handsome prince as though to reward Beauty for being able to love a monster. You can almost imagine Beauty wiping her brow at the end and thinking to herself “Whew! That was close!”

I always thought that the Beast should remain a beast otherwise the whole theme of the story is compromised.

2) As monsters go, the Beast is not usually that terrible to look at. Usually, he is depicted as some sort of leonine or ursine creature. He a beast, yes, but at least he’s a mammal, right? I think most people could fall in love with a sentient mammalian creature under the right circumstances. I always wanted to see a “Beauty and the Beast” story in which the Beast was some sort of horrible disgusting creature. Then Beauty’s love for the beast would mean something.

THE MOVIE:

This brings me to David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, which is not only the ultimate work in the Body Horror subgenre but the most fully realized version of the “Beauty and the Beast” story ever put to film. The movie is famous for its extensive and Oscar-winning make-up, its gore, its good performances, and its overall quality given the subject matter. The Fly is one of the rare genre movies that is so good that it would win a flood of awards if not for the fact that it was a genre movie. If Jeff Goldblum hadn’t been covered in rubber and slime throughout most of the movie, he probably would have won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

This is gross and disturbing and he hasn't even gone through yet.

The Fly is the story of Seth Brundle, a scientist who has invented a set of pods that disintegrate matter, send it through space and restore it to its original form. He meets and falls in love with a journalist named Veronica (Geena Davis) and offers her the opportunity to cover the development of his teleportation pods. While the pods are able to send inanimate objects through space with no problem any living material sent through is horribly scrambled, as in the case of a baboon that is sent through with horrific results. Brundle makes a breakthrough and decides to try the pods out on himself, but unknown to him a fly enters the pod with him and his teleportation device becomes a gene splicer combining his DNA with that of a housefly and for the remainder of the film Brundle goes through a painful and disgusting transformation with his humanity literally sloughing off.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

Brundle goes through about four or five different stages in this movie, all but the last two are accomplished through prosthetic make-up. His transformation is slow and painful and many have speculated that this movie is a metaphor for the effects of AIDS and other degenerative diseases on the human body. Cronenberg has denied this and has stated that the film is a metaphor for the degeneration of aging, which I find hard to believe. The movie is clearly about disease and if you think about when the movie was made, how can it not be a metaphor for AIDS?

Brundle’s ultimate forms are realized through animatronics and are true fly/human hybrids. Having seen some of the concept art on the DVD I actually wish they had gone with some of the more fantastic designs they had available, but part of the movie’s impact is from its adherence to emotional and visual realism.

This scene put me off donuts for a while.

MONSTERS FEATURED:

The Fly features Brundlefly, a pissed off inside-out baboon and Monkey-Cat in the deleted scenes on the anniversary DVD.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

The heartbreaking end of the movie...and Brundlefly demonstrating how a fly eats donuts. I'm not going to forget that any time soon.

DVD AVAILABILITY:

An anniversary edition of this movie was released on DVD in 2006 which features extensive extras including a full-length documentary and deleted scenes, such as the infamous Monkey-Cat scene, which is disturbing in theory but kind of silly to watch. But in any case, it is a very good DVD set.

The movie has also been made available on Blu-Ray, but I don't know exactly what's on it and somehow, I don't know if I really want that extra layer of picture quality in this particular case. The movie is hard enough to watch as it is.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where the District 9 auditions are?"

SEQUELS:

The Fly II (1989)

So there was one sequel and now there is talk of a remake. But here is the twist: rumor has it that the remake will be directed by...David Cronenberg. Can we all have a collective "Whaaaaaaa?"

TRAILER:


SEE ALSO:

The Fly II, Alien 3 (1992), The Host (2006)