The Fly (1986)

[slayrrr666]

“The Fly” is one of the better remakes ever made.

**SPOILERS**

Research scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) invites journalist Veronica Qualfe (Geena Davis) back to his laboratory to see his newest invention, a telepod. Unable to comprehend what she has seen, she leaves after threatening to report what he is really doing. Trying to make peace, he invites her to cover the project for a book proposal, which she hesitantly accepts. As she watches him conduct his activities, he becomes frustrated by his inability to transport living things. Once he has perfected it, he tries it out himself and successfully transports himself across the room. At first he seems fine, but then he suddenly begins to act very strangely. He tests himself and finds that he has been genetically altered with the DNA of a fly. Veronica becomes scared for him and goes to see him, but he has already started the change.

The Good News: What is really nice about this movie is that it starts off fast start and doesn’t slow down. Within the first five minutes we know that Seth has a teleportation machine that works, and that Veronica is interested in reporting the story. This cuts out so much unneeded time had it not been the first thing we see, it might’ve started out a little less interesting. The best part of the film is when he finally starts to change, and we get to see the amazing special effects in the film. At first he looks like a man with a serious skin disease on his face, as the contours and features of his face begin to change. His cheekbones spread out into a thicker ridge and he begins to grow some scales on his face. Soon, it’s his whole body that grows these scales and ridges, and the make-up applied to him is astonishing in its attention to detail and realism. His face is the most expressive, mainly because it’s the one that changes the most. He goes from a normal human to being a fly very slowly, allowing him to transform in intricate detail. The beginning starts off fast and the story gets moving quickly from there. After he transports himself, it gets interesting where we learn of the freaky things he can now do. It’s a nice little clue as to how the change has progressed and what is happening to him. This is where the horror of the film comes from: Seth is undergoing some sort of change and we don’t yet know what it is, but we know it can’t be good, since it is changing him into something else. The chemistry between the two leads is pretty believable, which is generally rare in this type of film.

The Bad News: The main thing about this movie is that it isn’t an all-out film. The last act slows down only slightly, with the revelation that occurs in the last half of the film. It kinds slows down, but the last twenty minutes are pretty exciting. It’s just got a little lag in the action for a few minutes. It kinds ruins the pace with that special revelation, and causes a small lapse in the pace of the film. Also, don’t think of it as a horror film: it’s more of a romantic-drama with science fiction overtones.

The Final Verdict: It’s more Sci-Fi than anything, but it’s still not that bad. A little more action-packed beginning of the third act might make it a faster film, but as it stands, this is good. See it if you enjoy classic special effects in a film or if you like a little more heavy-handed science fiction than normal.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Nudity and violence against animals

[Heineken Skywalker]

Watched it recently as well and it definitely still holds up.
Great performances, which you don't normally find in this kind of movie, and some very cool makeup effects.
A modern horror/sci-fi classic. My favorite Cronenberg flick.
Can't believe they're remaking this one too.

[slayrrr666]

Well, you can tell with the hairstyles that this is very 80s, but agreed, it still looks good. The FX are quite good and the story is a complete departure from the first one. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I'm not really into Cronenberg that much.

[Quorthon]

I don't care if it was the 80's--it's a fantastic movie, a true classic. And generally, remakes shouldn't be considered classics. The re-remake coming out next year will be a travesty and extremely pointless. I'm personally deciding now to boycott the damn thing. There's no way to do it better than Cronenberg.

Even after The Fly, you're still not into Croney, huh Slayrrr?

[slayrrr666]

I'm still not no, but I do think it is a good movie. Probably not a classic, per se, but I'll watch it if nothing else is on. I loved the look of the Fly, and the acting was great, but it's not really a movie I would support at the theaters if it had just came out today. That's my view on it: I was surprised to like it, but not enough to call myself a Cronenberg fan. He's got a good sense of camera placement, but that's not really enough to make me a fan of a director. Even still, I'm not really a Fave Director kind of person. I'm more into genres, but I do know what director will give me something good (IE: Wes Craven will always give me a good horror film, but I don't want to go out and see everything that he has done. "Vampire in New York(?)")

[Quorthon]

Wes Craven, huh? I personally don't think he's done much good for horror in over a decade.

Hell, his name was associated with hypercrap like Dracula 2000, They, and Cursed. (I never saw cursed, but if Bart didn't like it, and he's a Craven fan, then it must really blow.) I never thought Last House on the Left was really all that good as a horror movie... exploitation maybe, but not horror. As it is now, I believe the only movies he was associated with that are really good are Nightmare on Elm Street parts I & 3. Scream 1 wasn't too shabby, and People Under the Stairs was entertaining enough. But, shit, have you ever seen "Chiller?" Wal-Mart $5 bin again, and this one's not worth anything near five bucks. I personally view Craven as a hack--a Pop Horror commodity. Did anyone else notice that he's not even associated with the Masters of Horror? John Carpenter, George Romero--these guys know horror. Wes Craven, hell no. But that's just me.

Now you and Bart can gang up on me and make me feel bad!

[slayrrr666]

Well, I think with Carpenter and Romero being on there, Carpenter is there because his remake of The Fog was big news for horror, and well, Romero because of Land, but had this been done in the late 80s, Craven definitely would've been in the Masters of Horror. He hadn't failed yet (Remember, at that time, he had Hills Had Eyes, Nightmare, Last House, Serpent and Deadly Blessing) so he was still pretty respectable. Good point about People, Q, I really liked it, but to me, everything after Scream has been downhill. I don't even like Scream all that much because it forced horror films to try to cater to a larger audience than just the die-hards, and forced them to become less violent and self-mocking. I hate those films (pick a tone and stick with it/is it a spoof of the series, or is it a genre entry?) so for me, Scream isn't all that good of a movie. But I was referring to his pre-96 films as being a sure-fire bet for good horror.

[Quorthon]

Yeah, I think Craven really lost a lot of steam during the 90's and it's been kind of a steady down-hill slide ever since. Hell, I completely forgot about pretty awful Wishmaster. Brief entertaining gore and that's it. Terrible. I know that fourth one had nothing to do with him, but that was just monstrously bad. Almost entirely in daylight and boring at times. Horror should never be boring! Bleahhh!

Oh, and that Chiller one I mentioned is from the 80's. So was Shocker and Deadly Friend. I guess, to me, Craven was a hit-or-miss filmmaker in the 80's, and now he's just miss-miss-miss.

[slayrrr666]

Hey, don't forget, he did do New Nightmare, one of my favorites, but after that, he hasn't done anything close to what he was doing in the 80s.