The Fly (1986) Review

After watching the original fly movie we watched the remake, made by David Cronenberg.

This fly movie was made in 1986 and was a remake to the old predecessor made in 1956. Straight away I noticed the change of visual style. I was pleased that the film didn't look old because it helped me really get into it.

 

                                    

                                             1986

                   1958                                                                                                        

Also from quite early on i saw that they made some changes to the story. I.e. In the original the first teleportation experiments were a saucer, a cat and a guinea pig, but in the second they teleported a baboon. In the remake Brundle is not married and he is not geeky, which he is in the original.

I really thought they took this film to another level compared to the first film. The first fly movie was more about emotions with no gore involved, while the second movie was one of Cronenbergs best gore movies. I also think they put a lot more thought into the transformation of Brundle and it shows. Unlike the original they considered the timeframe of the transformation, how he would look at different stages, how a human fly hybrid might actually look etc.

"The poster for The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) used the memorable line "Love Means Never Having To Say You're Ugly". That sentiment is taken to the limit in David Cronenberg's stunning remake of the 1958 sci-fi favourite. His version of The Fly is in a genre of its own - a romantic gorefest and a genuinely touching one at that."

This quote from urbancinefile.com pretty much sums the main factors of the film. It combines gruesome scenes of a man slowly becoming a fly, with a romantic love story which puts the limits of ones love for another to the test together in one film, and makes it work together fantastically! I think in terms of Quaife's role in the film, the moral of this story would be along the lines of "love isnt just what you see on the outside, but its what you see on the inside that counts most".  As for Brundles case i think it was just a common act of fatal imprudence towards Quaife. You see a lot of this in horror films, along with karma coming back to haunt someone.

"Few of The Fly's scares are of the booga-booga variety: On the commentary track, Cronenberg calls the film an "operatic" love story, so the true horror comes from the scientist gradually receding from himself and the woman he loves."

I agree with what is said here. Its not a "booga-booga" type of film at all, there are no mindless acts of violence or killing, unlike Michael Myers Halloween for example (although that still is a pretty good film). The horrors of this film derives from the great depth it has, and also its good storyline.

"The major quarrel that I have with The Fly isn't with its premise or stomach-turning gore. It's that the characters are inconsistent. John Getz as Davis' boyfriend in particular changes from a jealous jerk into a courageous supporter. Davis never has any physical fear of Brundlefly, and she returns to both Getz and Goldblum despite their previously disturbing behavior."

I do not agree with what this reviewer has said. Just because a characters personality in a film may change doesnt necessarily make them "inconsistant". Everyone changes a little bit sometime in their lifes and in terms of the film, if nobody changed then the film wouldnt work. There are countless films where heroes have become villians, good have become bad etc, but most of these changes happen for certain reasons ( e.g. realisation) which are incorporated into the story to actually make a story.
Now lets talk about this point in relation to the fly. Yes John Getz changes from being a jerk to a courageous supporter, but where do you think the drive to become this came from? The same goes with Davis not being scared of Brundlefly, why do you think this is? The answer to both these questions are simple, LOVE. If you watched the film you would know that Brundle wasn't always a fly, he was a normal human being who was in love with Veronica Quaife. Quaife also loved Brundle so although the sight of Brundle being half mutated into a fly may have frightened her a little bit, she wasn't just going to run for the hills and never see him again. This film has been thought of a lot by viewers as a love story with a horrific twist that tests the limits of Quaifes love for Brundle despite whats happened.

As for John Getz im sure its obvious by now why he tries to save Quaifes life, because he loves her. As the saying goes, love makes you do crazy things for that person, so being courageus enough to do what he did (which may have been out of character for him) to save Quaife was an act of love!

At that i will round this off by saying that I really did enjoy this film more then the original. It was well structured, told a good story and had all the horrific effects for it to be classed a horror film.