I checked out David Cronenberg's 1986 film, "The FLy" from the library this weekend. I was browsing through the DVD section, and I saw it there, beckoning. I have seen it before, but not in YEARS. I wanted to see if it held up, and if this movie was still as good as I remembered.
I was not disappointed at all. I started out kind of half-watching the movie while I was working on drawings and drinking some beers, and I got quickly sucked in. Jeff Goldblum's performance was great. He looked so young, too! Geena Davis was also good, and I forgot it was she that played his love interest. I always remember Geen David as a Blonde, especially after that awful baseball movie with Tom Hanks and Madonna. Does that movie really exist? Am I imagining things? Anyway, I digress...
This movie is pure brilliance by Cronenberg. One thing about the movie I think that really works is the telepods. Those things are very insect-like and almost Giger-esque. Even to this day I think they are amazing set pieces. They are unsettling to behold, and there is no way in hell I would step into those things to be cut up molecule by molecule and spit back out into another one.
The transformation of Brundle into "Brundlefly" totally grossed me out as a kid. Watching it now, the special effects look very 80's but were very fun to watch. I love the scene when "brundlefly" sheds his last vestiges of rotting human skin to become this very large fly creature. My only disappointment, and I don't know if this is special effects related or deign related, is that the fly did not have larger, segmented fly-like eyes. One of the great things about the 1958 film was the scene in which we actually see the world through the Fly's eyes. It would have been neat to see that here as well.
This is such a wonderful movie about the horrific transformation. I don't know the entire origin of this or the 1958 film, but I wonder if Ovid's "Metamorphisis" was at all an inspiration.
This is one of the movies that would also be great as a re-make. In fact, I saw on
IMDB that there is a "The Fly 2006" in the works. It would be cool to see a very detailed digital transformation into a fly. I would like to see something very fly-like and precise. I would also throw in some references to Ovid and Beelzebub.
I will probably be obsessed with insect-like characters with large beady eyes for a while.
bzzzt.