The Fly (1986) - Will's Review

Not that long ago, I said that I enjoyed Cronenberg's more liner work, and The Fly is the perfect example of Cronenberg at his strange, but lucid, best.

The story of Seth Brindle, who invents a teleportation device, only to have his DNA changed when a stray fly gets into his teleportation pod during a test. At first the effects are positive; Brindle becomes strong and agile, but as the transition progresses he slowly becomes a terrible insectoid beast.

Jeff Goldblume's portrayal of Brindle is a revelation; at first he is one of the most true to life portrayals of an awkward, single-minded scientist ever committed to film, he then becomes an increasingly arrogant (almost too believable) alpha male as his super human strength kicks in and the animalistic nature of his new DNA takes over, then he becomes increasingly twitchy in a manner which is outright eerily in the way it genuinely mimics a real fly. Finally, even through heavy markup, he truly sells the idea of a man trapped in a changing body and mind he wants no part of.

Cronenberg (who also co-wrote the screenplay), of course, finds plenty of room to play with body-horror here; an element almost absent from the both the1958 original and the short story on which it is based (in the original the scientist emerges from the pod with the head and hand of a fly fully formed, and suffers no further physical changes).

The make-up and creature FX are amazing, as the movie descends further into the Body Horror genre the director loves so much, and it's another example of one of those great 80's movies that simply couldn't be remade in the cold age of digital effects; there is simply no substitute for the feel of latex and slime.

I'm not going to bang on any more about this one, as it's already a bonafide classic, and if you haven't seen it; you should!