The Fly (1986)

It was nice reading the reviews for this film as so many people picked up the real elements of this movie and not just about the horror.

This movie, as most great movies, is a subtle love story, where someone realises they are a burden and maybe even a danger to them, and so make the ultimate sacrifice.

Cronenberg is probably my favourite director as he is able to take unusual film idea and turn it into something intense and believable. As he has evolved he has improved his writing and as a results the stories have become more hidden and more intelligent.

I think the Fly, Deadzone and Videodrome are his best work. His more recent films, Crash and the Naked Lunch have impressed me with his ambition and ability to try something new, but have failed as entertainment.

I can't really put my finger on how Cronenberg is able to create the intensity and atmosphere that he does, even with very obscure subjects, but I would love to see him try some less obscure subjects and make films of the caliber of the Fly again.

Highly recommend – 9/10

Fmovies: I think that this is a grossly underrated film - a noteworthy landmark in modern horror. I would expect nothing less than excellent from my favourite director Cronenberg, and this doesn't disappoint. Goldblum's performance is particularly good as the nervy scientist Brundle, but I think the main reason for the film's achievement is its structure - very subtle, very well made. Most of the action takes place in the last third of the picture, but there is a great suspense building up to that point. And the special effects are jaw-dropping - Brundle's hideous transformation is reminiscent of Lynch's 'The Elephant Man'. This film has a reputation for being unnecessarily gory, which is actually not at all true. It is a very intelligent picture, about love and other issues as much as horror, and a must-see for anyone.

Why is it this film that will always be his REAL 'breakout', and not any of the others before or since? The truth is, beneath all the biological yucks and makeup (there is plenty of both) lies a strong emotional core. Goldblum is enthusiastically likable as scientist Seth Brundle, and Geena Davis is just how Geena Davis seems to be in real life... sweet. It is how the events change both characters EMOTIONALLY, not physically, that inspires the true horror.

The blending of both the above elements makes this remake appeal simultaneously to the 'gross out' crowd, and those in the mood for a more cerebral horror experience. A concept of B-movie stature, electrified by the skills of A-list talent.

The Fly fmovies. Just last week, in one of my Screen Analysis tutorials, our tutor good-naturedly decided that if we were going to be film students we needed to be exposed to disturbing things. What he showed us was an excerpt from an expressionist French film made in the late 20's, the name escapes me. Before we had reached the climactic scene, every one in the class had already guessed it, as we had seen images so far of a man purposely sharpening a razor blade, and then approaching a complacent woman in a chair and holding wide open one of her eyes. At this point one of the girls in the room rather loudly asked of the tutor, jokingly but in something of a shaky voice, "Why are you doing this?"

This question, I think, could well be the definitive mark of really effective horror, and it was certainly in the back of my mind nearly all of last night as I was watching David Cronenberg's "The Fly" for the first time. True horror films, by their nature, should strive to get their audience to ask this question, because it means that they are transcending the illusion of moving pictures and becoming a film – suspending disbelief and getting under your skin. Effectiveness aside, however, I believe that the mark of exceptional horror is when the question stems from a concern for the characters' wellbeing, and not your own. With both these thoughts in mind, I suspect that "The Fly" could well be the second best horror film of all time (behind Kubrick's "The Shining", which, I admit, got to first place by completely different criteria. Such is life, I'm afraid).

Remade from a 1958 concept starring Vincent Price (and later popularized by "The Simpsons"), the film follows a pretty archetypical horror premise: science gone (of course) horribly wrong. In this case, Jeff Goldblum (in his tour-de-force performance) plays Seth Brundle, an independent scientific visionary who has been slowly designing a device that will "change the world as we know it" – a Teleporter. When he shows his invention to romantic interest Veronica (Geena Davis), it is not quite ready to handle living tissue (demonstrated on screen in the first instance of quite confronting gore), but as the two grow a relationship and fall in love, the wrinkles in the technology are ironed out and so Brundle takes one small step for man and tests the machine on himself. Unfortunately, in the process of teleportation, his DNA is mixed up with that of a common housefly, and although not immediately transformed, as in the original, the two species soon begin to genetically merge and transform Brundle into a creature that has never existed before – and for damned good reasons.

Cronenberg, of course, never shortchanges his audience with graphic gore, and even viewed with the critical eye of Generation Y, the film's mid-eighties effects are still quite sickening, none more so than Goldblum's slow physical transformation. What makes this whole affair really outstanding, however, is his psychological transformation: the truly disturbing thing is how front and centre the humanity of these characters and their world is kept. Davis and Goldblum are the heroes in this regard – their chemistry is palpable, and her affection for him struggling against her disgust at what he is becoming, coupled with his own struggle to keep the fly in check, create the kind of riveting discomfort usually only commanded by train-wrecks.

I was, in fact, quite strongly reminded of Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film-a

Truly great – but very nasty – update of the classic 1958 sci-fi film with both Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis in the roles of their lives. Technically, this is a remake, but with a genius like David Cronenberg in the director's chair, it's obvious that this isn't anything like the uninspired and irritating remakes that are being released nowadays ("The Amityville Horror", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"…). Cronenberg's interpretation of this ultimate terror-tale differs greatly from the original. In fact, the only resemblance is the basic premise of a fusion between an obsessive scientist and an ordinary housefly. Goldblum is terrifically cast as the brilliant, but slightly confused mastermind Seth Brudle, whose lifework are "telepods"; funny looking machines capable of transmitting matter through space. Journalist Davis, with whom he has a romantic adventure, closely observes the progress of his work but when he teapot's himself through space, the catastrophe happens. Mentally as well as physically, Brudle undergoes a horrible transformation into a fly and it cannot be stopped. "The Fly" is a very devastating film. Powerful enough, but not exactly pleasant to look at. Like only the greatest directors can pull this off, Cronenberg overwhelms the audience with a sublime mixture drama, misery and repulsiveness. You feel as helpless as the characters themselves and you painfully wait for the unhappy ending to come! The screenplay is filled with genuine metaphors and the romance between Goldblum and Davis is beautifully illustrated. The special effects, mainly created by Chris Walas (who went on directing the 1989-sequel) are definitely still staggering and they don't look the least bit dated by today's standards.

The Fly is more than a horror movie it's a statement of the eighties. I remeber seeing this film for the first time when I was five years old and telling my friends about the gore scenes but as I got older and viewed the film again I realzied how much of a tragic love story the film was. Jeff Goldblum gave an Oscar worthy performanc of ill fated scinenits Seth Brundle and Genna Davis gave an equally good performance as his love interest. The special effects were very good for the eighties and the film does have some scary moments. If you've never seen the film you should.