The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)

So this was an interesting pick, I’ve seen a couple of David Cronenberg films, two of which I consider masterpieces, namely Videodrome (1983) and Naked Lunch (1991), so I was interested in watching more of his films. This one I wasn’t to certain about, but I remember seeing an episode of The Simpsons which parodied this film, or rather, parodied the original The Fly (Kurt Neumann, 1958). I’ve not seen the original, but due to that episode I kind of knew the premise. But I was surprised, and I believe people who have seen the original will also be surprised, for this is a very unique film and David Cronenberg makes it his very own.

A slightly eccentric scientist invites a woman home to show her a project he has been working on for quite some time; a machine that will transport things from one chamber to another. She’s a journalist and decides to cover his research. Then they fall in love. One of the great things about The Fly is that it leads you to think it adheres to a lot of the 80’s clichés, but as the film unravels itself it also starts to shed the clichés, and I believe they were carefully planted by Cronenberg, because this is something beyond all those other 80’s films that we are way too familiar with. In speaking of genres, this is a horror film, but it does go beyond the genre, and is much harder to place. In many ways it’s also a tragic love story, as the protagonist starts morphing into something alien. It has some intense psychological moments, and the characters have to deal with what happens to the protagonist. Actually, there are only three characters in the film, two men and a woman, creating a sort of love triangle. By far, the two men are more interesting characters, especially the antagonist, who somehow during the film morphs out of his cliché role and turns into a much more rounded and sympathetic character. The acting on the part of the actors is all good, but Jeff Goldblum is really great in this, adding so much texture and character to his role. John Getz and Geena Davis are good, but it’s Jeff Goldblum who steals the show here. As his character go through the different stages of metamorphosis, so does his acting change, and it is great to see how he keeps up with the changes in his characters, and makes the protagonist almost seem like a new person.

The film is very tragic at times, portraying the desperation of the protagonist in a very sympathetic way. While staying true to many of the rules of the horror genre, the film is still very much leaning towards its own thing rather than being an exercise in genre. At its core it is a film about the love between the two characters, and how the woman reacts when the protagonist starts his disturbing transformation. The art design is great, particularly the single last stage of the metamorphosis is fantastic, and manages to look truly sad and scary at the same time. But all the stages are good, and the crew really went into detail to make the transformation seem organic. The cinematography lends a very dark and creepy style to the film, it always seems like some danger is lurking, but this is something that is often prevalent in Cronenberg films. The music should be mentioned, adding a great soundtrack to the film and giving the emotional climaxes some more weight. The pace of the film is perhaps a bit slower than most horror films, but does well to build tension, which all the aforementioned elements also add to.

So in many ways I was surprised by this film. I thought it might be a slightly interesting standard horror film, but it goes beyond the definition of the genre. The films striking feature is the sub-text of the love story and the themes of disintegration and loss of a loved one. The whole concept comes together very well. It is not as majestic as Videodrome or Naked Lunch, the film doesn’t have the scope I believe, it still is a fairly basic picture. But at that it is a very good and unique one.