This post is part of a series called "31 Days of Horror", thirty-one important horror films over the course of a month. Click The Fly (1986): Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz. Directed by David Cronenberg, Screenplay by Charles Edward Pogue, based on the story by George Langelaan.
A third remake on this list, but, really, the granddaddy of all re-imaginings. The original 1958 film, a classic in it’s own right, based on the George Langelaan short story about a scientist who creates a disintegrator-reintegrator device and is accidentally crossed with a housefly in the process, takes the result quite literally: a man with the head and arm of a fly (and a fly with the head and arm of a man). David Cronenberg’s version, from a script by Charles Edward Pogue, looks at the process a little more realistically, but still asks the same central question: how long can you continue to love someone who is turning into a monster?
I was in my third year of film school when “The Fly” came out. Being a horror fan, and a film fan, Cronenberg hit the best of both worlds for me. At a time when horror films were evolving into something new, something not all that scary, just wisecracking monsters dispensing not very realistic gore, Cronenberg stuck with the story, as if the horror was just one element out of many, and it works beautifully.
I think it’s still one of Cronenberg’s finest films (”Dead Ringers” and “Dead Zone” being others), and, despite some good lines in “Juassic Park” one of Jeff Goldblum’s best roles (he certainly has more screen time here than he has in any other film). Right up to the very end, when Brundle is more monster than man, you can still see the humanity in him.
“The Fly” also marks the beginning of a long-running professional relationship between Cronenberg and composer Howard Shore (”Lord of the Rings”). I consider the scores for both “The Fly” and “Dead Ringers” two of the best soundtracks ever scored for a notion picture. In fact, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that Shore has even turned the score into an opera. Not bad for a modest little Canadian horror film.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Get it at Amazon.com:
The Fly (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
[No related posts]
