Seth Brundle, a brilliant but eccentric scientist attempts to woo investigative journalist Veronica Quaife by offering her a scoop on his latest research in the field of matter transportation, which against all the expectations of the scientific establishment have proved successful. Up to a point. Brundle thinks he has ironed out the last problem when he successfully transports a living creature, but when he attempts to teleport himself a fly enters one of the transmission booths, and Brundle finds he is a changed man.
Amelia: This is my first exposure to the weirdness that is a David Cronenberg film. While Billy has tried for years to convince me to watch Videodrome on the description of James Woods’ VCR-vagina stomach, I have turned him down time and time again. Gee, I wonder why? His selling point was so solid! And so our viewing of The Fly became my first Cronenberg and I think it’s only appropriate that I rattle off some thoughts I had while watching. All in capitals of course. Cronenberg deserves no less.
PERHAPS JEFF GOLDBLUM COULD BLINK!
I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A SCOOP GEENA DAVIS, DON’T GO BACK TO HIS APARTMENT!
THAT BABOON DESERVED BETTER!
NO GEENA DAVIS, DON’T DO THAT!
NO GEENA DAVIS, NO NO NO!
DON’T DO THIS GEENA DAVIS!
HOW INVASIVE IS THIS GYNECOLOGICAL EXAM GOING TO BE?!
OH GOD GEENA DAVIS, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I SAID DON’T DO THIS?!
WOULD A MAGGOT BE AN EASY BIRTH FOR A HUMAN?
ALSO KILL THE MAGGOT BABY!
OH THANK CHRIST IT’S OVER.
All those exclamations aside, The Fly wasn’t even actually that bad. I think next to a VCR-vagina stomach, this might be a little tame.
Billy: Jeff Goldblum is one of my favourite actors. Whether he’s running from dinosaurs, fighting aliens, or even selling computers, he has an unpredictable presence that is just endlessly fascinating to watch. His charm and alienation in The Fly are on equal footing, and I honestly think it’s some of his best work to date. Am I gushing too much? I don’t care. I love how the movie opens with him answering a question, like the movie itself couldn’t wait to get into watching this man, and I can’t 100% tell you if he blinks in this scene at all. We lose some of that as he gets put into more and more practical makeup, but that’s okay, as the body horror Cronenberg is known for takes over in a BIG way and that stripping the character of his humanity is one of the key themes of the film. The casual way his ear falls off his head, and the look of betrayal Goldblum wears for the rest of that scene? Uhhhg. So good. Amelia, just throw a picture of Jeff Goldblum with hearts all around him as the next picture.
Amelia : Oh, like this?
Billy: Hm, perfect. He’s a beautiful man!
Amelia: I swear Billy gets a hard on for Jeff Goldblum whenever he shows up in something we watch. I can’t say I share the same fascination with the man as him. Or the fascination that most of the world has for him it seems. I just think he’s a big unblinking, stuttering weirdo. Either I’m mistaking his charm for ‘weird’ or the rest of the world is mistaking his weird for ‘charm’. I guess here it works for him. An isolated scientist too smart for his own good and not great at portraying these things we humans call emotion. How Geena Davis ever decided she was in love with this guy is beyond me. How she hesitated blowing its fucking head off with a shotgun is even more beyond me!
Billy: I love that David Cronenberg ended up spending more time making a movie Kafka’s Metamorphosis than it was remaking The Fly. It’s genuine body horror with a philosophical bent. The whole monologue about ‘insect politics’ is terrific, and we really get a sense of Brundlefly’s man and insect natures at war with one another as he’s actually trying to warn Geena Davis’ character about the monster he’s about to become. The idea that he’s not becoming a monster, but he’s always been a monster, and he’s just shedding everything about him that wasn’t. I mean, it’s smart. It’s a film that inspires debate and discussion. Vincent Price thinks they went too far, but his movie really didn’t make you think as much as this one did, and as much I love me some Price, Goldblum makes you empathize with the monster a whole lot more here. There’s desperation, mourning, anger and entitlement all mixed together in different scenes. I have to admire them for that.
Amelia: The Fly was another horror movie that I saw parodied over and over again before actually seeing the film. Thanks Treehouse of Horror. No, but I will sincerely thank you for not going down the pregnant-with-a-genetically-modified-baby road. That was the only thing I was truly unprepared for, though I knew something was up when I saw Cronenberg credited as a gynecologist on IMDb. That’s what had me tense the whole way through. Suicide is a trigger for Billy and shit like pregnancy and birth are triggers for me. You think these things would stop us from ever watching any horror movie, but here we are.
My point? I guess the biggest one is that I’m never having a baby because that’s literally my worst fear. Besides the fact that I hate children, statistically, childbirth is the most dangerous thing for a woman to go through short of a Saw puzzle! The body horror shit of Goldblum turning into a fly was nothing for me. Watching him deteriorate until he finally cracks out of his human skin is an absolute cakewalk. But seeing Geena Davis birthing a maggot baby? Or even the complete banal scene of her waiting for a midnight abortion?
Billy: I obviously don’t have the same issues as Amelia, but I agree that birthing sequence is a bit much. Even as a dream sequence, it feels like it gets too far-fetched compared to the rest of the film, actually showing a maggot in place of a human child being born, and it loses my suspension of disbelief. It feels like the creators thought the movie had to beat you over the head with the idea of how horrifying carrying the Brundlefly’s baby would be. It didn’t need that at all. We can see on Geena Davis’ face how horrifying it is from her incredible performance. Is it because they thought it would be tough to empathize with a woman? I guarantee you, women didn’t need that scene.
I think I forgot about it because the end sequence is so absolutely killer. Jeff Goldblum is gone, but still there. The creature effects are so eighties. Nothing drips like it did in movies back then. Not even on a horror movie level, but on a writing level as a scene itself. It completely turns around who you imagine the protagonists and antagonists are of the movie and really gives its actors a challenge to play their characters as fully formed people. You’re actually cheering for the 80s-guy asshole who you hated at the beginning of the film! And when the Brundlefly grabs ahold of the shotgun and places the end on its head, begging for death, it’s heartbreaking. You get to see his complete arc from the monster’s perspective, and it’s really something special.
Spooky Verdict
Amelia: Six and a half man-fly hybrids out of ten
I’m probably never going to watch The Fly again even though I’m giving it a favourable rating. It’s not so much that it scared me so bad I couldn’t go back to it, it’s just another horror movie that’s not my preferred type of horror. This was a monster movie based on science. If you’ve learned anything about me through this series it’s that I love a ghost story above all else. Sorry Brundlefly, you and your insect politics are just not my thing.
Billy: Eight man-fly hybrids out of ten
There are elements in this movie that do put me off. Cronenberg is always a little too sexual in his horror for me to freely recommend it to everyone I meet. Am I saying that because of Amelia’s reaction? Well… maybe. Maybe I respect the people around me enough to take their thoughts and reactions into account. So that is a strike against it. But I just… love this movie… so much. Jeff Goldblum! Geena Goddamn Davis! That… third guy! Unlike Amelia, I’m a sci-fi nut, so the story we get here really appeals to me, and the performances knock it out of the park. And by performance… yeah, I mean Jeff Goldblum’s abs.
