The Fly (1986)

There was a young man who became a fly, perhaps you'll die

Directed by: David Cronenberg
Cinematography by: Mark Irwin
Country: United States/United Kingdom/Canada
Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi/Drama

One wouldn’t expect a grotesque sci-fi/body-horror film about a scientist viscously mutating into a human-fly hybrid to be described as humanist, but iconic horror director David Cronenberg gifted audiences with one of cinema’s most tragic and empathetic genre pictures with his 1986 remake of The Fly (1958). This is horror that pulls on your heartstrings.

In a star-making performance, Jeff Goldblum plays a quirky, charismatic, and brilliant scientific researcher named Seth Brundle (a protagonist based on the 1957 source material from George Langelaan). With a little outside help from his love interest - a savvy journalist named Veronica Quaife - Brundle cracks the code for teleportation using his patented “telepods,” devices that deconstruct a subject at the molecular level in a transmitter pod and reconstruct them in a receiving pod. However, an intoxicated Brundle makes the heedless decision to test out the machines himself, and what should be one of the most revelatory scientific breakthroughs in the history of mankind becomes an immeasurable tragedy, as a housefly zips into the transmitter telepod with Brundle right before the door closes, subsequently splicing his DNA with that of the fly during reconstruction. The headstrong scientist emerges from the second telepod ostensibly unaffected and in a state of ecstasy that one might imagine after having invented a machine that could advance humanity into a new scientific era, but during the following weeks, Brundle undergoes an inhuman level of torment and torture as the fly’s DNA progressively melds into his own, mutating his flesh and corrupting his mind.

We often fear what we can’t see, but in The Fly, seeing is believing, and the Oscar-winning makeup effects from Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis give this story a gooey tangibility that’s impossible to look away from. Walas’s pedigree especially proceeded him at the time, as he worked with Cronenberg previously on the pulpy cult-favorite Scanners and was partially responsible for the unforgettable face-melting scene at the end of Indiana Jonesand the Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 - not to mention he designed the eponymous critters for the 1984 horror-comedy classic Gremlins - so it’s deserving to say that his achievements were a monumental influence in the 80s and that his expertise was a driving force for the success of this film as well. He also directed the poorly received sequel The Fly II (1989), a film I saw in high school and remember being terrible, but admittedly it did have some wicked practical effects.

Walas and Dupuis did well by Cronenberg in more ways than one by perfecting the Freudian imagery that the transgressive director likes to insert into his films. In one memorable instance where Brundle’s fingernails are falling off, the makeup artists turn the decomposing scientist’s digits into straight-up dick-fingers by making the tips severely swollen, and when Brundle squeezes one of those phallic feelers, white discharge spurts out the end forcefully enough to make Spider-Man jealous (I suppose the two characters would be mortal enemies anyways).

The role of Seth Brundle seems like it was tailor-made for Goldblum whose already eccentric mannerisms get used to ideal effect as he becomes the man-fly, and his articulations and expressions become increasingly more rapid and twitchy like a bug living off sugar, just impatient, shifty-eyed buzzing. The wildly charming romance that blossoms between Goldblum’s protagonist and Geena Davis's Veronica Quaife also makes the ensuing events even more heart-wrenching. The chemistry between the two characters feels genuine, and likely was, as the two would wed the year after this film’s release (which pleases me to no end because they basically have the same hair in this movie and that’s funny), so watching their brewing love affair come to a devastatingly horrific end makes the pain even more visceral. Cronenberg truly makes us feel compassion for these characters and the nightmarish ordeal that unfolds before them, taking us from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.

There’s a point in the film before his bodily changes manifest in a notable way that Brundle believes his excursion through the telepods has made him superhuman, as the DNA-splicing actually did endow him with extraordinary physical abilities. After proving his superiority at a dive bar by snapping an alcoholic Al Borland’s bones in half during an arm-wrestling contest, the swaggering scientist drags a woman back to his home laboratory. On the way back, referring to his brutish strength, the woman asks Brundle “Are you a bodybuilder, or something?”, and in a turn of clever dialogue from Cronenberg and co-writer Charles Edward Pogue, Brundle replies, “Yeah I build bodies. I take them apart and put them back together again.” It’s this type of hubris against the laws of the natural world that often acts as the catalyst for a character’s downfall in science fiction stories. Brundle created technology outside of natural law, and for taking human bodies apart and creating them again from scratch, for playing God, he suffers unholy consequences: a living hell.

The consciousness of it all may be the true horror of the film; to retain your humanity throughout the mutation process; to fear what will happen to you; to fear what you might do to others. Brundle’s slow decay as he thinks that he’s dying from a disease caused by the teleportation, only to begin a revolting transformation into an ungodly monstrosity seems like an unbearable burden for a human to endure with their complete mental faculties in place, especially for a genius scientist who’s not only going to meticulously evaluate every change that occurs but fully comprehend the consequences. Although his sanity does start to wane as he becomes more fly-like. A little over halfway through the film when Brundle is rotting away, he asks Quaife, “Am I dying?”, and the sincerity with which the line is delivered is absolutely devastating. And that’s before Brundle has even realized the full reality of his situation.

The Fly is a decidedly human film for all its insectoid dread, always re-drawing the viewer’s focus back to the emotional trauma of the transformation, the loss of self, the loss of a loved one, after every scare. And the heartbreak and empathy that the terror-stricken Geena Davis displays throughout the film in reaction to Brundle’s metamorphosis help elevate this criterion of horror to a new playing field and transcend the genre entirely, landing The Fly in the Shakespearean annals of history's greatest tragedies.

Distributed by: 20th Century Fox