The Fly is a sci-fi body horror film directed by one of the masters of the body horror genre, David Cronenberg, and released in 1986. It is a remake of the 1958 film, although this version really dials the grotesqueness of the protagonist’s transformation into the fly-human hybrid up to one hundred and eleven.
The Fly stars Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle, the eccentric scientist whose experiment into teleportation goes wrong and mutates him beyond belief. The film also stars Geena Davis as Ronnie Quaife, Brundle’s romantic interest, and John Getz as Stathis Borans, the film’s antagonist of sorts.
Everybody who has even an inkling of pop culture knowledge knows the basic plot of The Fly: man becomes fly. Everybody who has even an inkling of pop culture knowledge also knows just how disgusting the practical effects in this film are: extremely. Therefore, I am not going to spend too much time on the plot. It’s pretty straightforward. I want to talk mainly about the characters and the different ways the film successfully makes us, the audience, feel both disgust and fear.
I’ll start with Seth Brundle. Brundle is a strange character who elicits a range of responses, not many of them positive. For starters, there is always an element of “grossness” about him, even when he isn’t slowly mutating into an insect. This is achieved in a variety of ways. There is the obvious physical stuff: the fact that he lives in a decrepit lab and how it looks like he never changes his clothes. Then there is this kind of weird energy that he radiates, thanks to Jeff Goldblum’s brilliant performance. There is always something vaguely “off” about this guy, and it only proceeds to get worse as the film progresses. Then there is the fact that Brundle never really feels like a truly sympathetic character. Even though he suffers this horrible mutation and loses everyone and everything that he loves, the audience never thinks “oh poor Brundle.” This is in part due to the villainous acts that Brundle commits when he is the Brundlefly, but it’s also because what happened to him is entirely his own fault, and it is borne of his own hubris. Seth Brundle is Icarus – he gets his wings when his teleporter successfully transports an ape, but he flies too close to the sun when he refuses to wait to see what happens to the ape and rushes in to transporting himself. His arrogance is his downfall.
Finally, there is just a singularness about Jeff Goldblum’s performance in The Fly. He imbues Brundle with all of these strange little mannerisms, like talking a bit too fast or being really twitchy. As Brundle begins to devolve into the Brundlefly it is Goldblum who makes this transformation seem like a legitimate thing that could happen. He sells all of the really odd – and sometimes just plain goofy – things that Brundlefly has to do. For example, there is one scene where Ronnie awakes to find Brundle casually doing some gymnastics in the lab, making the most of his newfound strength and agility. He is completely straight-faced and neither of the characters comment on what he is doing at all – it’s really bizarre. But Goldblum sells this. He just has the right energy to pull this kind of stuff off. When I rewatched this film the other night with my partner, we discussed what the film would be like if there was a different actor playing Brundle. I used the example of my boy Timmy Chalamet. Chalamet has the same charisma as Goldblum, but he just doesn’t have the same odd energy as Goldblum. I think as an audience we would actually be more sympathetic if Chalamet mutated into a fly, because there would be more abject “horror” to witnessing someone we cared for more, someone who seems more innocent suffering such a fate, but I also don’t think it would be as believable. Goldblum’s Brundle doesn’t really generate any sympathy and that is the point. In a way we are uneasy of him before the transformation even begins, but the transformation that he undergoes seems like a totally believable thing that could happen to him.
Another thing that generates fear and disgust is obviously the transformation sequence itself. The practical effects are awful in the best possible way. They stand up brilliantly today and because they are real effects they feel realer when watching the film. It seems like there is some element of Goldblum’s flesh peeling off, even if it is just prosthetics. That being said, the film is definitely best experienced if you have only a very vague idea of what the transformation sequence is going to look like – don’t look anything up online before seeing the film first. I went into the film completely blind the first time I watched it – I had only ever heard of The Fly in theory, and had never seen any of the effects. That meant that the first time I watched the film I was disgusted by what I saw, and that’s the whole point. The finale involving Brundlefly and a teleporter pod stuck in my mind for a long time after my initial viewing. The second time I watched it I still thought everything looked great, because it does, but my response to most of the transformation was not as strong, because I already knew what to expect. My mind had actually built up the final teleportation sequence to be much worse than it actually was, and I was a little disappointed when I rewatched it only to find the horror of that scene was nowhere near as much as I had imagined. So, do yourself a favour and don’t look up anything online before you watch it!
Finally, we need to talk about Ronnie, Geena Davis’ character in The Fly. What happens to her throughout the course of the film is nearly as terrifying as what happens to Brundle himself. I do have to talk about major plot points here to break down why her character’s journey is so scary, so consider yourself warned. Everything scary and awful that happens to Ronnie is thanks to the men in her life. Her boss, Stathis Borans, is also her ex-boyfriend. He treats her absolutely despicably. He still has a key to her apartment (I don’t know why she wouldn’t have immediately taken that back when they broke up, but oh well) and he uses it to enter her place unannounced. At one point in the film she comes home to find him having a shower at her place! IMAGINE HOW TERRIFYING THAT WOULD BE! He also harrasses Ronnie constantly, and stalks her when she begins a relationship with Seth, culminating in him yelling at her in a department store. Worst of all Stathis often pressures her for sex, at one point even proposing that they have sex together for “stress relief”. The film tries to redeem him at the end by having him try to save Ronnie, but there’s no point – he’s an awful, awful person and Brundlefly should have just killed him off.
The other significant man in Ronnie’s life is obviously Seth Brundle. At first he doesn’t seem so bad, but as the film continues he becomes just as bad as Stathis. Brundle is ridiculously jealous of Stathis. This is one of the motivating factors for him to try the teleporter on himself, because he is in a drunken stupor of jealousy believing that Ronnie is still sleeping with Stathis. After Brundle teleports himself he tries to force Ronnie to do the same, to which she vehemently refuses. Ronnie is repeatedly put in situations where it seems like she has scarily little control over the outcome. She becomes pregnant with Brundle’s child but is unable to successfully obtain an abortion, as Brundle kidnaps her before the procedure can be completed. She is then trapped by Brundle in the teleporter and only escapes because Stathis saves her. And, as mentioned before, she doesn’t even seem to be able to stop Stathis breaking into her private apartment whenever he feels like it. This lack of control that Ronnie has over the awful things that keep happening to her shows to us that you don’t just need to be mutating into a hideous insect-human to be suffering something horrific. It’s a shame then that Geena Davis’ acting throughout the film is incredibly wooden because Ronnie has a story to tell that is equally as terrifying as Brundle’s.
So, with all that said, should you watch The Fly? Yes. Even if you aren’t into body horror, the film has a story that goes beyond just shock-value. It’s got a brilliant performance from Jeff Goldblum and some of the best practical effects ever seen in a film. Just do yourself a favour and don’t watch it whilst eating dinner…
BEST BITS
– Every outfit that Ronnie wears is an 80s fashion dream.
– The practical effects, especially the corrosive digestive enzyme. Blegh!
WORST BITS
– The pacing at the start of the film sucks. It spends too long trying to sell us on a love story between two people who weirdly enough have no chemistry at all even though they were married in real life.
FINAL RATING: 7/10
