The Fly (1986)

[little ghost]

The Fly (1986)

imdb.com rating: 7.5/10

arrow in the head rating: 8/10

my personal rating: 7/10

The next film I will be critiquing is David Cronenberg's The Fly. The film with the trademark teleporting pods that appear to be steel hives. So the film starts as an unknown research scientist who can teleport non-living objects through his pods. He is in the development stage of testing his pods on living organisms, he first has an unsuccessful experiment with a baboon. Just after this he tries a second experiment with another baboon and this time it does work. I'll come back to this. Seth (Goldblum) has the bravery to invite a stranger to his lab, which conveniently is also his flat where he lives. He soons finds out the attractive woman he invited into his research lab, Veronica (Geena Davis) is actually a writer. So after meeting her again he decides to ask her to his flat and at night he comes up with the plan it's a good time to test a human subject, so he puts himself into a pod to experiment. As Seth hops in the pod you see there's no panic button of any kind in case there is a problem to stop the process, basically you are screwed if someone or something jumps inside with you. The container pod counts down from 2:00 minutes so if a spider, butterfly, bee, dog, cat, or even a fly get stuck in there without an outside operator running the machine you become spliced.

The film has a mix of sci-fi, horror, and love-romance elements to it. I would of preferred a little more sci-fi in the second half of the film, but I guess the studios felt the special effects crew would use this time to showcase their skills. We get to see an adult man fully transform into a half fly-half man hybrid. The score is very good here as it doesn't take away from the film's suspense, it seems like every horror film from the past 10 years needs loud music piped-in every scene to produce a cheap, jump scare. Seth goes mad booming women as soon as he finds out he has unique abilities. There is a solid portion of blood and gore featured; a bloody mess of a baboon, a broken wrist, teeth and an ear falling off, acid cutting a man's hand and foot off, and a fly-human transformation. A con for me is while the audience does get a visual transformation it's only to showcase neat make-up and special effects, I wanted to feel a more realistic, emotional pain. I couldn't get over the fact near the last twenty minutes or so he is transformed into a complete mess, mutant like, and no one thinks to call a doctor or CDC for help? In the very end when Stathis (Getz) is missing a hand and a foot, he seems too functional and pain-free for a person missing limbs. Does anyone feel pain or torture in this film? The final scene has our heroine shoot the creature in its head and seconds later a quick, abrupt flash to credits. I heard there's a sequel out there to this, however I believe I'll pass.

EDIT

[koolmike]

Great film. J Goldblum was spectacular as was G Davis.

Pretty good review.

[hacknslash]

Geena Davis was yummy back in the day ala "Earth Girls are Easy"and she was extra hot in "the Long Kiss Goodnight " Oh and the Maggot scene in "the Fly". Gotta love Cronenberg

[Necromancer]

Definitely an improvement from the 1956 film of the same title, although I love both of them for different reasons. Nice review

[strtfghtr]

I guess the studios felt the special effects crew would use this time to showcase their skills.

A con for me is while the audience does get a visual transformation it's only to showcase neat make-up and special effects, I wanted to feel a more realistic, emotional pain.

I have to say I'm a little surprised you thought this. Cronenberg is literally one of the last directors I would think of that would let something happen in one of his movies "because the studio wanted it." As for the emotional pain I always though Goldblum's performance was incredible, maybe his best. His typical manic behavior that you would seen in other movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, becomes steadily heightened until he is almost no longer himself even before the final transformations. This is balanced with Gina Davis' change in her behavior after the "loss" of her lover when he becomes a screaming maniac.

I tend to think this movie is one of the best achievements of the horror genre since has fantastic acting, great direction, and phenomenal special effects.

Now the sequel on the other hand, that movie is almost entirely "just about the effects" and offers little to no emotional connection for me.

[DMHead777]

My second favorite horror remake, next to The Thing and maybe one of my favorite horror films. I think Goldblum's acting is amazing in this film and I love Geena Davis. The sequel was decent at best, but I still didn't mind it too much. I'd probably give it a high 8/10 because I thought the acting mixed with the effects were too awesome to pass up.

[CountOrlok]

I love The Fly II. It's a sequel that almost matches the first, like Aliens or 28 Weeks Later.

[little ghost]

I have to say I'm a little surprised you thought this. Cronenberg is literally one of the last directors I would think of that would let something happen in one of his movies "because the studio wanted it." As for the emotional pain I always though Goldblum's performance was incredible, maybe his best. His typical manic behavior that you would seen in other movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, becomes steadily heightened until he is almost no longer himself even before the final transformations. This is balanced with Gina Davis' change in her behavior after the "loss" of her lover when he becomes a screaming maniac.

I tend to think this movie is one of the best achievements of the horror genre since has fantastic acting, great direction, and phenomenal special effects.

Now the sequel on the other hand, that movie is almost entirely "just about the effects" and offers little to no emotional connection for me.

I was being too harsh on this film. The Fly's a monster movie, just not a scary movie. But not all horror is scary.

I just watched Cube (1997) tonight for the first time in years and it did not hold up nearly as well as I remembered. Nostalgia is a bitch. I actually was more impressed with The Fly's special effects a whole decade earlier. There were a couple scenes in Cube when the CGI looked copied from a made-for-TV movie.

[strtfghtr]

Yeah Cube was pretty early for CGI and with a relatively low budget for it to look decent compared to CGI now. I still like Cube but the acting isn't what it should be for a character driven movie like that.

[CountOrlok]

The acting wasn't that bad. I've seen tons worse. I liked David Hewlett and Nicole De Boer. Besides, it was a low budget movie, I don't expect oscar worthy acting and state of the art special effects. The idea were cool enough to carry the movie, despite its limitations.

As for The Fly - excellent series, including The Fly and Return of the Fly with Vincent Price.