The Fly (1986)

I would argue that Kurt Neumann’s original film is nothing to shake a stick at. And for that matter, neither is the George Langelaan short story that inspired it. However, 28 years after Neumann’s film, Cronenberg proves that there was a lot more squirm-inducing fun to be had with the story aside from the warnings of playing with science. The fact that the film would be a commercial success for Cronenberg certainly doesn’t hurt its appeal, nor does Jeff Goldblum’s eccentric and excited performance.

While the story may not be his, Cronenberg’s name is all over this film, and I don't just mean in the title. The lone mad scientist protagonist resumes his social and biological reign of terror on himself and the minds of those watching him. In this film, his eagerness costs him his life, and for a while, his appearance. Yet before his ear falls off and he starts ripping off his own fingernails, he perceives the newfound physical advantages as therapeutic and cleansing. But if we have seen a Cronenberg film, we know that things won’t remain so nice for long. The special creature effects have reached a fantastic complexity and grotesquery in this film. What makes them work so well, aside from fan pleasing vomit drop and gravity prone body parts, is their evolution. Unlike the original fly, Seth Brundle doesn’t suddenly appear as half-man and half-fly. His mutations, a cancerous disease, occur in stages that degrade his body almost exponentially.

We know that bodily transformations and assaults are a defining characteristic of Cronenberg films since the beginning, and The Fly proves to be the pinnacle of their employment. The fact that it is a fly becomes relevant, not only because it is someone else’s source story but because of the aversion to creepy crawlies by the general public. If Brundle had slowly turned into a dog it would be much less shocking but certainly just as strange. Bugs would not, even with the brutal death of the fly, disappear from Cronenberg films. Naked Lunch would find a typewriter beetle as a main character and the 2002 film would be called Spider. It is hard to see Cronenberg as anything but the mad scientist behind whose experiments are carried out from behind the camera lens. Much has been discussed in terms of his appearance, his ‘autobiographical’ cameos and characters of curious similarity to the director himself. To me, though, nowhere is this more evident than in The Fly. As a child that also collected bugs and creepy crawling things in my childhood, the fusion of man and fly represents much of what I wish I had come up with.

Additionally, there exists a concept in this film that is vastly disturbing, and I don't mean a human insect hybrid. There is a scene where Brundle transports a piece of steak. The steak appears perfectly normal to the eye, but to the tongue it is a different story. In a world where Photoshop has transformed our evaluations of the legitimacy of images, the steak is an early warning of not being able to trust what we see. However, the steak goes beyond mere image and into the physical. It is a three dimensional object created by a computer from the same particles comprising a real steak. Yet, this piece of meat was reinterpreted by the machine, into something inedible. Like a Photoshopped picture you cannot trust, this is a Photoshopped steak you cannot eat. I fear to think that it is only a matter of time before such technology invades our world.

Thus Cronenberg proves himself a forward thinking and innovative director by breathing new and original life into a tried and true story. His signature brand of gore reached mass audiences and grossed them out. At the same time, his scientific and technological warnings, whether heard or ignored, indicate his social awareness.