Truly the 1980s were a golden age in many ways—a great economy, a confident Western civilization, and tons of great movies.  Even remakes from the era felt like totally fresh intellectual properties, with screenwriters taking advantage of improved technology to breathe new narrative life into older stories.  But it was also the peak of practical effects, as CGI had not quite reached the point of plausibility (and digital effects from the late 1980s now look quaint and dated).

I would argue, too, that the 1980s represented a golden age for body horror.  Who can forget the grotesque transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London (1981), or the stomach-churning effects in The Thing (1982)?

So it was with 1986’s The Fly, a film that combined the narrative abilities and amazing musical scores so endemic to the 1980s with the most horrifying body horror the decade could muster.  The combination of these elements—combined with great performances from the cast—put The Fly into the national consciousness, all while scaring the living taters out of us.

With that, here is Ponty’s buzzing review of The Fly (1986):

Of all the aspects of movies that is rarely talked about, I feel I should give a shout out to film composition. A great score enhances the experience of a movie. It tells the story in much the same way a symphonic tale would and, if done well, you could listen to the music without the need for visuals and map out the film in your head. I was thinking about this recently as I was listening to Jerry Goldsmith’s stunning composition for Total Recall (1990). From the title track all the way to the end, I can visualise Quaid’s dreams of Mars, his eventual journey there and the things he discovers, about his past and himself. It’s a soundtrack for the imagination, a work of utmost perfection. Do you remember that track where the mutant, Kuato, asks Quaid to ‘open your mind,’ the audience sent into Quaid’s memories, and the music that accompanied it? If you don’t, I’ll remind you. That piece of music still makes me shiver, my spine tingle.

I don’t often bandy around the term genius, mostly because it is levelled at those who don’t warrant it, but in the case of Jerry Goldsmith, the man is a musical genius. Another film composer who can happily take that mantle is the man who masterminded the score for this excellent film, Howard Shore. I’m sure those who have listened to the soundtrack for The Lord of the Rings films would agree with me but he has written compositions that are just as good in my opinion. Take the opening for this film. You hear drama, wonder, mystery, tragedy, you can pretty much gauge in this one piece of music what you might see in the whole of the film.

And what a movie it is. I liked the original but Cronenberg, for me, added a little more depth to it. There’s something more visceral, more emotive in the 80s version and it’s very much played on the surface, making it more immersive. In fact, Audre Myers unwittingly described the process that David Cronenberg undertakes in this movie in a post under one of my most recent reviews:

‘[Y]ou walk along side your reader rather than walking in front of them, pointing at things. It’s quite a talent.’

Cronenberg does exactly that in this film, taking the audience on a journey of discovery.

The Fly (1986) stars Jeff Goldblum as scientist Seth Brundle, whose experiments take a turn for the worse. After a number of successful attempts to teleport objects, he climbs in one of them one drunken evening unaware that he is not alone. What follows isn’t the hammy transformation we see in the original but a fusion of human and fly, Brundle painstakingly chronicling each step of the journey.

His work is followed by scientific journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), but when she becomes romantically involved with Brundle, her interest slowly turns to a mix of fear and revulsion when she notices changes within him; hubris at first, hyperactivity bordering on arrogance and desperation. That’s when Brundle himself begins to alter physically, finally realising that his experiment went horrifically wrong. 

With the aid of Quaife’s letch of an ex-husband, Stathis Borans, comically played by John Getz, Veronica attempts to help Brundle, unaware that he has an ulterior plan for ridding himself of his affliction.

I watched this film for the first time as a teenager and it scared the hell out of me. Nearly 40 years later, it still has the power to do that and it’s just one of the reasons this movie remains a classic.

It’s a story well told, paced beautifully, and very well acted. With Brundle’s work being followed and documented, that worked in perfect tandem with Cronenberg’s direction, allowing him to hold a mirror to the process of the experiments, firstly from Quaife’s perspective and then Brundle’s. But it’s not all about tinker toys and creature effects. There’s a real heart to this movie, as Quaife and Brundle become close, her horror at what is happening to Brundle no barrier to wanting to help him, even as he grows less human. And though Borans provides a comic element in his obsessive behaviour towards Quaife, he shows up to assist Veronica when she needs him, proving that there’s more to him than we first thought.

Goldblum and Davis work well together, the latter especially, in my opinion, pulling out the best work of her career. Though Goldblum can be characteristically and unmistakably himself in virtually every part he takes, his essence comes through his transformation, helping some of film’s disturbing scenes take on an almost comic element. His cataloguing of body parts in the bathroom cabinet and his reaction to his changing physiology make me laugh despite the obvious revulsion. The special and creature effects are pretty compelling and though they were carried out by completely different teams, reminded me a little of The Thing (1982), especially in the infamous arm wrestling scene where Brundle breaks the arm of his competitor.

To me, it didn’t look too dissimilar to the chest opening sequence of The Thing, where the hapless doctor’s arms are taken off as he’s trying to resuscitate a colleague. Visceral, disturbing but visually great.

I also found a similarity in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, where we are treated to Gollum’s story at the beginning. After the brutal murder of his friend, Deagol, a scene which I still consider to be the darkest in the saga, Smeagol, cast out by the Riverfolk, escapes to the mountains and we see his transformation into the creature we know as Gollum. His hair bedraggled, his face gaunt, he doesn’t look too different to Brundle as the physiology of the fly takes its toll; his hair thins, his skin darkens and becomes blotchy, his face starts to hang. It wouldn’t surprise me if the visual effects team behind the Tolkien saga were influenced by the makeup seen in this film.

The Fly has it all for me. A superb story, great acting, and a palpable atmosphere that makes it one of the most memorable tales ever put to celluloid. Cronenberg made some great films before and after this – The Dead Zone, Videodrome, Existenz – but this, in my view, will always be his masterpiece.