My Life In Horror 1986 – The Fly

Along with Little Shop of Horror (read review by clicking HERE!) The Fly was voted with it as the second film from 1986 that I should watch and review. I’ve always loved The Fly movie, I’ve watched it loads of times from when I was a kid wanting to see all the gore to closer to the present day where I saw it as more than just a film with some gory scenes. I guess the question as with all movies from the 80’s is, do they stand the test of time?

Director – David Cronenberg

Writers – Charles Edward Pogue and David Cronenberg

Stars – Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz

Run Time – 96 minutes

Budget – $15 million estimated

Tagline – Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Trivia – After watching some of his early films, director Martin Scorsese asked to meet David Cronenberg. Upon meeting him, Scorsese said he looked like a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. This inspired Cronenberg to give himself a cameo as a doctor.

Trivia – The infamous cat-monkey scene where Brundlefly fuses a cat and the remaining baboon and then beats it to death with a lead pipe was cut following a Toronto screening. According to producer Stuart Cornfeld the audience felt that there was no turning back for Seth and they lost all sympathy for his plight, which caused the rest of the film to not play as well. In Cornfeld’s own words: “If you beat an animal to death, even a monkey-cat, your audience is not gonna be interested in your problems anymore”

Seth Brundle played by Jeff Goldblum is a weird, eccentric, scientist/inventor. His latest project is a set of pods that can analysis data, disintegrate it, transmit it across space and make it reappear in the second pod. Bartok Industries fund all his research and during a party thrown by the company Brundle meets reporter Veronica Quaife played by Geena Davis.

She falls for his eccentric behaviour and he invites her to see his latest invention. She agrees and is so impressed she wants to let the world know but Brundle isn’t so keen just yet. Especially as his pods cannot teleport living things. She begins to spend more and more time with him at his apartment and it ends with the two falling for each other.

During their time together an off hand comment by Veronica makes Brundle realise what is wrong. He tries to teleport an animal with the idea fresh in his mind but it fails, however a second attempt is successful.

Eventually Brundle discovers a potential cover to a magazine and he believes that Veronica has gone against his wishes, not only that but he believes she’s gone running back to her ex-boyfriend. With this in mind Brundle gets drunk and decides to teleport himself and this is where the film really picks up, the moment you’ve been waiting for since the film first started rolling.

During the teleportation a fly flies into the pod with him, the computer analysis’s both creatures DNA, the outcome? A mix of human and fly. The change begins to happen, Brundle slowly but surely becomes more fly than man he tries and tries to cure himself but nothing works.

The way Brundle changes and changes into what is known as BrundleFly is fantastic to watch. His body and mind evolve to a point where he starts to go after and hurt those that are truly close to him. Now it’s a case of if Veronica can survive when BrundleFly takes her hostage, will he remember who he truly is?

The Good

• Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis play their characters brilliantly.
• A simple yet terrifying story of change, the overall idea is a good one and is executed as well as it possibly could have been.
• The gore! There’s some pretty gory scenes in this from animals turning inside out to BrundleFly being sick on things to part of his body falling off.
• The effects, let me be clear I feel that CGI does have a place in movies I’m not totally against it. I mean if Guardians of the Galaxy or the new Planet of the Apes didn’t have CGI they would be pretty bad. That said in horror I love me some practical effects I feel they perform better over time than CGI. The effects and make up in this film are brilliant and still look good now.
• The link to a sequel.
• The final “battle” if that’s what you can call it.

The Bad

• Could do with a few more characters, no one really does much outside of the main two and Veronica’s ex.
• I’d have liked to see some more time with Brundle developing his telepods.
• Jeff Goldblum’s hair.

There’s not a great deal wrong with this film, in fact I can only mention those three things by becoming massively critical. None of them distract from what is a great film, the acting, story, gore is pretty spot on and it flows really well. The sequel isn’t a bad movie but it fails to live up to this film, as far as someone turning into a monster goes this movie is right towards the top of the pile.

Overall Rating – 8.5/10

Other films in the My Life In Horror series of blog reviews are…….

1986 – Little Shop of Horrors

1985 – Demons

1985 – Fright Night

1984 – Firestarter

1984 – A Nightmare on Elm Street

1983 – Christine

1983 – Videodrome

1982 – Swamp Thing

1982 – Poltergeist

1981 – The Beyond

1981 – An American Werewolf In London