Is That Your Penis In A Jar? (The Fly [1986] (DVD))

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Product:	The Fly [1986] (DVD)
Date:	15/04/06 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Horrific, compelling, tragic drama

Disadvantages: Not for the queasy of stomach

When journalist Veronica Quaife meets Seth Brundle at a science reception, she is immediately intrigued by the charming and eccentric man. Lured by the promise of an invention that will literally change the world, Quaife goes with Brundle to a disused warehouse, where Brundle lives and works. Shortly after arriving he takes her into the main laboratory where his invention - the telepod - resides. Initially unimpressed by what she believes to be a magic trick, Quaife is soon convinced otherwise and realises that Brundle has actually managed to develop a system that can teleport matter from one location to another. Believing that she may have stumbled across the story of a lifetime, Quaife befriends the scientist. Their friendship blossoms into a passionate affair as they both become increasingly motivated to enhance the process to transport living matter.

After some initial failures, Brundle finally perfects the process and teleports a monkey from one pod to the other without harming the animal. The only remaining task to complete is to successfully transport a human safely from one pod to the other and, alone one evening, Brundle is no longer able to stop himself from volunteering as a human guinea pig. As he closes the door to the telepod, nervous with the anticipation of what is about to happen to him, Brundle fails to notice that a fly has managed to get into the chamber with him. The system activates; the process is complete; and Seth Brundle is transported from one telepod to another. But what happened to the fly?

David Cronenberg's 1986 schlock-fest has become something of a horror classic. A remake of the 1950s B-movie classic, in the late eighties, Cronenberg's vision shocked and enthralled cinema audiences. Even today, the film remains sharply effective, striking an almost perfect balance between drama and horror - and turning a few stomachs along the way.

Whether you have seen the film or not, you will almost certainly be aware of the story but the film still has to be seen to be believed. Whilst we may all be familiar with the irritating, buzzing little critters, this film completely changed the way that people saw the creatures. If they disliked them before, they now found them completely repellent, thanks to Cronenberg's masterfully unpleasant storytelling. Seth Brundle's transformation from human to human / fly hybrid is rapid and unsettling both mentally and physically. Initially believing himself to be cleansed and invigorated, he soon realises the error of his ways as his skins starts to bubble and burst and bits of his body fall off by the hour. More famously - or should that be infamously - are Brundle's new found fly-like abilities. He can climb walls and suspend from ceilings; he sprouts tough insect-hairs and more unpleasantly, he finds that he has to digest food in a completely new way. It's pretty grim stuff, and Cronenberg doesn't waste a single opportunity to shock the audience. It is worth bearing in mind that although the film's events are now widely known and discussed, when cinema audiences first watched this film it was a complete unknown. Imagine the reaction when the audience saw Brundle's body start to disintegrate and watched him vomit digestive acid onto his food to help him digest it. The film's obvious 18-certificate is quite clearly still very appropriate.

Even now, 19 years after the film was first released, it is startling effective. Unable to rely on computer-generated magic and trickery, the Brundlefly (as he becomes known in the film) is created almost entirely from make-up, costumery and models. In virtually every single scene featuring the Brundlefly, his transformation has progressed slightly further, and you do start to wonder what will happen next. Some of the more extensive make-up literally took four or five hours at a time to apply and the attention to detail is evident throughout. His mind is, not surprisingly, rather affected by the whole piece and what starts out as mild eccentricity (he keeps his discarded body parts in jars in the bathroom out of scientific curiosity) soon turns to complete insanity. Yet all throughout, Brundle is able to speak and articulate his thoughts, eventually discussing with Quaife the fact that insects do not have politics and warning her that she should stop coming to see him, if only to look after herself. Surprisingly, he seldom comes across as a genuinely bad person. What happened to him happens as an accident and throughout the picture he is largely concerned only with investigating - and eventually preserving - his humanity, as opposed to selfish aims of power or greed. Nonetheless, as he gradually becomes more and more disfigured it is hard to see him as anything other than a monster, as he clearly has become.

In The Fly, quite what the moral of the tale is never really that clear. Given that the story revolves around a genuinely brilliant person, who simply makes an honest mistake, it is never really a good versus evil kind of story. It isn't really a morality tale either, in that Cronenberg doesn't create a tale that would act as a warning to anyone who would mess with nature, for it is nature who, ironically, messes with Brundle. For me, it all feels rather like a classic romantic tragedy, rather like The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Brundlefly is largely helpless and misunderstood rather than being inherently evil, and even when he does start to act in a more malevolent manner, he rationalises this against the insect part of his make-up rather than the human. Quaife is never really able to stop loving him and as the film lurches towards its terrible climax, this becomes more and more tragic. The Fly is not exactly a happy little tale.

The cast is very small. This is essentially a story about three people. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum at his eccentric best) is a compelling character, driven by nothing other than scientific curiosity and a desire to learn. His realisation of the predicament is, perhaps, slower than you would expect but the impact is still the same and as he descends further into The Brundlefly, Goldblum truly wrestles with the character's humanity. Geena Davis (Veronica Quaife) is a classic tragic heroine, never exhibiting any real strength, but providing the perfect "pure" antidote to the horror of the genetic misfit that is the Brundlefly. Davis is never an actress who commands attention, but she does work pretty well in this particular film. The third part of the menage a trois - Stathis Boranz, played by John Getz - is something of an enigma as his part in the proceedings is not always as straight-forward as you might imagine. Sneering, cold and calculating he shows several different sides throughout the film and is an interesting example to help pitch human nature against insect nature.

Another thing that I like about The Fly, much like any other "classic" film is that the more you watch it or read about it, the more "factoids" you discover. I'd spotted that David Cronenberg had a brief cameo himself (as Quaife's gynaecologist) but I didn't realise that the very famous tag line "Be Afraid… Be Very Afraid" is actually a quote from one of the characters in the film. Various scenes were scripted but never actually made - one of which sounds as though it would have made for particularly repulsive viewing. Lots of different people were initially associated with the project and it was only for various reasons - some of them personally tragic to those involved - that David Cronenberg finally took it on. If you're a film nerd (like me) then The Fly should keep you going for weeks.

The Fly is a very good horror film. I didn't actually find it particularly frightening, given only that it is, of course, rather fantastical. But it is truly horrifying. Few audience members could fail to wince or grimace at certain parts of the film, several of which have become iconic moments. You should watch this film, if only to be very clearly instructed as to what that fly is doing when it lands on your freshly-made sandwich. Picnics will never be the same again…..

Highly recommended

Summary: Groundbreaking 80s schlock horror that still bites