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The original The Fly (1958), starring Vincent Price, is probably best remembered for those haunting ten or twenty seconds at the end while we watch the lead character, his head transferred onto a fly, struggle in a spider's web crying "Help me! Help me!" There was a strong level of unease running through the film concerning the mystery behind the protagonist's cloaked head and gloved hand, which was enough to keep me on my seat, nervous, leading me to a final, almost orgasmic sense of release at the film's hideous outcome. It was better than sex, I tell ya.
This version, however, while no less terrifying, is also a pretty powerful love story, one which effectively complements the horror of the story in a way that allows the horror to play off the romance, and vice versa. There's no one horrifying scene that will stand out in memory after a first viewing of this movie-- director David Cronenberg orchestrates a slow, subtle transition into where the physically repulsive is a perfect illustration of the disintegration of humanity. Stephen King writes about this kind of approach in his Danse Macabre, claiming that outward manifestations of the abnormal in the teenager (zits, pubic hair) are effectively transformed into the monsters we all know and love so much (I Was a Teenaged Werewolf, Night of the Living Dead). I used to have some pisser acne attacks in high school myself, and watching this movie right in the middle of them probably played no small part in the disquiet I felt upon a first viewing, and still feel today when watching it for the umpteenth time.
In Cronenberg's version, Jeff Goldblum plays Seth Brundle, an eccentric, motion-sickness- prone scientist who, after talking up lovely young journalist Veronica Quaffe (Geena Davis), reveals his latest and greatest invention: the telepod. Looking like a hybrid between a microwave oven and a Mos Eisely Canteena bathroom, the machine's true power of teleportation is soon revealed (though much to Brundle's--and our-- disappointment, it doesn't effectively wow Veronica into the sack). Veronica, in tried and true journalistic cutthroat ambition, prepares to sell his story and expose his developing project to the scientific community, but instead agrees to cover his story in an autobiographical vein. Predictably, they fall in love, although theirs is not a typical tale of romance. Veronica first gets attached to Brundle after a baboon literally disintegrates in one of his pods, which seems a bit New Wave to me. Or maybe she's got a thing for animal lovers.
Waiting in the wings, however, is Stafis (John Getz), Veronica's editor and ex-boyfriend, pissed off and looking for a way back into her life. When Veronica has to go over to his office in the middle of the night to smooth over a potential blackmail scheme, Brundle gets pissed off in his own right and, in a fit of drunken bravado, goes through teleportation himself. The catcher: a fly gets in with him and gets mixed up in his DNA code.
Cronenberg knows how to make the metamorphisis convincing. He lays out Brundle's transformation into Brundlefly into a steady decline in skin tone, body mass and overall physical degeneration (here's Pizzaface Brundle! here's Pork Sausage-Stuffed Brundle! here's Nuclear Meltdown Brundle!), but this would not be convincing by itself without Goldblum's stellar performance. His depiction of the reclusive, shy, timid scientist is effective and convincing, which makes his slow transition into the carnivorous, coldhearted Brundlefly chilling and repulsive. I don't know whether Cronenberg directed Goldblum's unsettling little fly mannerisms (the head shudder; the licking of the lips) or whether Goldblum came up with it himself after extensive casting research (maybe he hung around a manure pile for a while doing character studies), but either way, I had nightmares about it for days. I also liked Getz's performance as the jealous boyfriend, although the film doesn't appear to have done wonders for his career.
The film has plenty of physical-horror scenes that some have labeled excessive, but personally, I think it blends beautifully into a dark tragedy genre. Seeing Brundlefly storing the body parts that keep falling off of him in the medicine cabinet would be going too far if we weren't convinced of the genuine desire Brundle has to turn his degeneration into a positive experience. When Brundlefly's plans for Veronica (and the baby he has fathered inside of her) become clear, we sense he's crossed the final threshold of doom, and as the events unravel into the dark, emotionally- packed ending Cronenberg has arranged for us, it is utterly impossible to reconcile the creature Brundle has become with the character we started with. That is the epitome of the heights a horror movie can aspire to, and that's what makes this film a contemporary classic.
--Long
Copyright 2002 Tso Long Productions ©