“The Fly” still penetrates beyond society’s veil of the flesh

Cronenberg’s definitive 1986 body horror film screens at UW Cinematheque on October 28.

Cinematic body horror didn’t originate with David Cronenberg’s adaptation of George Langelaan’s short story, The Fly (1986). But why does it feel like that’s the case? The experience of Cronenberg’s most well-known film is unshakably visceral, in its symphonic mutation of melodrama and the Hollywood monster movie.

When I happened upon uncensored clips of its skin-crawling makeup and “creature” effects on Jeff Goldblum (by Chicago’s Chris Wallas and Stephan Dupuis) as a pre-teen boy, the interminable dread of bodily disintegration seemed all too real. It was the first film to expose me to and emotionally articulate dysmorphia—scraping through all the plasticized and homogenized ideas of beauty and innocence that network television had implanted in my mind. (Its poster tagline of “Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.” was nothing except accurate.)

Over time, the film wound its way into my long-term memory as the quintessential example of the power of practical effects. Coupled with a David Cronenberg’s darkly funny, chamber drama-inspired screenwriting, retooled from a draft by Charles Edward Pogue, The Fly reached its potential of being one of the most affectingly poignant and horrifying films ever realized. A 35mm print arrives in Madison on Halloween weekend, screening at UW Cinematheque on Saturday, October 28, at 7 p.m.

The effects are astonishing(ly hideous) in themselves, but they achieve something rare in that the pustules, tumors, fluids, and gore not only evoke terror but sincere pity as they are fleshed out in Goldblum’s neurotic, vulnerable performance. He plays Seth Brundle, a reclusive scientist secretly assembling teleportation pods for Bartok Science Industries. Unnoticed at a Toronto meet-the-press event and dying to share his work, he bends the ear of an “unsuspecting” journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis). The two become romantically and tragically entangled in his quest to perfect the technology by teaching his computer system about teleporting organic matter (“the flesh,” a redolent theme as carnal as it is cerebral in Cronenberg’s 1980s period).

As Cronenberg navigates their once symbiotic affair, he finds the purest conflict of “man versus self” in the fatal flaw of imagination. Brundle spurs himself into all-consuming jealousy (of Quaife’s invasive ex-boyfriend Stathis Borans, played by John Getz) much as he’s capable of life-changing invention. Drunkenly headstrong, Brundle impulsively decides to dive into the metaphorical plasma pool and test his theory, teleporting himself, but unbeknownst that a housefly has buzzed into his telepod. His computer, drunk on his own programming about the flesh, gene-splices them. In a departure from Kurt Neumann’s 1958 adaptation of The Fly, the change doesn’t manifest instantaneously. Rather, it first manically alters Brundle’s psychology, sexual prowess, and appetite for granulated sugar before it begins to debilitate him. It “shows itself as a bizarre form of cancer,” physically transforming him into a “185-pound fly,” he jests to Quaife, at one point, during one of her check-ins.

In The Fly‘s final act, Cronenberg’s compound eye fragments and refracts elements of the monster movie in moments of human desperation, rather than drawing on the cheap provocation of classics like Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954). Incredibly, The Fly retains its wit amid the true horror of one’s molecular decay and decimation. That’s perhaps the rarest achievement in any media that clearly intends to stun and repulse with its imagery. The most quiet and brutal example comes in the form of Brundle’s oft-quoted, quaking monologue about insect politics. Broaching the subject like a stand-up comic, he poses the question to Quaife, who’s on the verge of tears at the thought of telling him she’s pregnant with his child. After cracking a toothless smile under his molting skin and lumpy protuberances, Brundle attempts to articulate how he’d like to become the first insect politician, “but…I’m afraid. […] I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over…and the insect is awake.”

Such intense emotion and intellect wells in these stammered words, as Brundle clings to some belief that he can survive in his current state despite the reality that his human intuition has nearly been ravaged, rendering the aspiration impossible. The same goes for attempting to purge the housefly DNA from his body, and his plea for Quaife to have his baby, as he sees it as the only remnant left of his former, normal self. Wisely, Cronenberg lends Quaife’s character more agency than any other film of this ilk, which Davis further expresses in a dual resoluteness and sensitivity when Quaife is faced with an impossible scenario.

It’s interesting to think about what The Fly would resemble if it were remade yet again in the modern CGI-heavy landscape. Earlier this year, there were some rumors buzzing (ahem) about a new version by J.D. Dillard, starring Zendaya as the Brundle analog, but production has yet to reveal any conceptual renderings or an outline. One can hope it will boldly reshape the idea of body horror for post-millennial generations. Despite being the second screen version of the story, Cronenberg’s is the one that has endured as the definitive, thanks to its piercing story and devastating, indelible images that seem to contain the totality of its (sub)genre. And even considering its heightened nods to genre forms, it manages to harness something convincingly ubiquitous about humanity’s capacity for creation and destruction.