Papparazi wait intently to see if Lindsay Lohan is wearing panties today as she exits the pod.
David Cronenberg, (along with perhaps David Lynch) was the guy that introduced me to what I see as almost mainstream weirdness. What I mean by that is that they both made films that 90% of normal moviegoers wouldn’t ever watch, but they unlike many smaller underground directors their stuff actually got a tiny bit of media attention and normally a video release.
I am talking about the 90s folks, where – before downloads, Ebay and cult DVD stores – you got to select only from the 4 or 5 hundred videos in the store, and nothing else. And when I say 4 or 5 hundred videos, I mean it. I have done a mental breakdown of my hometown video shop and figure there couldn’t have been much more than that at any stage, even when renting was at its peak.
Also when you take into account the fact that after a couple years of renting videos you’ve seen pretty much everything worthwhile (or even with an interesting cover) there you’re left with only the new releases and trawling yet again through the weeklies in the vain hope of uncovering a hidden gem. If anyone wonders why nerds and geeks are so widespread (I personally hope I am more a geek but I am not sure), try to limit what someone can watch for many years, give them no other outlet and watch them move to the niche areas just to find something new.
Something new for me was kung fu films, horror flicks and offbeat indie things. While I eventually left the indie films behind and moved on from kung fu as Jackie Chan grew more rickety I still love good horror movies and watch them regularly regardless of quality. Others latched on to whatever niche they found that gelled with them, often in areas they never would have looked at except for the simple fact that a lack of variety drove them there.
Nowadays when alternative is the new mainstream, and you have punks that won’t get tattoos for fear of ruining their “real” job after music, no-one has to look for the new scene as it is shoved in our faces months in advance. And why?, because the media is so desperate to be the first to trumpet the new Borat, or predict the unexpected success of new The Sixth Sense clone, or tell us how Watchmen was “unfilmable” (not to mention largely unwatchable), or how no-one saw The Dark Knight coming. (Seriously WHAT? I think anyone who saw the Batman Begins reboot knew the next would be at least very good. I was looking forward to it for months and I know many others were, perhaps the media didn’t see it coming as they didn’t want to risk looking like fools by talking up a new comic book movie?)
So that’s about 500 words before I even say “so I watched The Fly recently”…
Well I did.
The Fly is definitely Cronenberg’s most “normal” film until this decade when he has churned out a few of what might best be described as “dark” pictures like Eastern Promises and A History of Violence, (sorry about the “ everywhere but Cronenberg is a very “ guy).
Put simply, a scientist played by Jeff Goldblum has a mishap which results in him gradually turning into a chicken… or a fly, I can’t remember.
(A great choice too with Goldblum, he has the buggy eyes, slightly pushed forward moth and big lips that just scream 1% off-normal. Strangely enough that description also aptly fits his co-star Geena Davis, you can see her teeth even when her mouth is closed.)
No point rehashing the plot now that I’ve told you what happens, suffice to say that Goldblum is pretty cool in this and doesn’t over-ham when he might easily have chosen to do so given the subject matter.
Goldblum is Seth Brundle, the scientist in question who chats reporter Veronica (Geena Davis) up by bragging about his teleporter, which to her surprise actually works, except when it comes to living tissue.
Early experiments left me asking just where do you get not one, but 2 baboons no questions asked?
Rather than let Veronica go public with the early news Seth convinces her to stay with him and write a book detailing the events, right up until Seth actually teleports himself.
The monkey in the wrench is that Veronica’s ex-man and ex-editor Stathis (sp?), is a sleazy ‘n’ low guy who suspects a scoop is up and stalks Veronica in the hope of either uncovering the story or at least nailing her again.
Seth mistakenly assumes that Veronica and Stathis are back “on”, and he has a few too many drinks and thinks “screw it, let’s go”, only an innocent widdle house fwy gets into the teleporter pod with him, (well if it didn’t it wouldn’t have been much of a movie).
The results are pretty obvious from here and Cronenberg and Goldblum go to town on the insect traits and characteristics, with some remarkable effective makeup and perspective-skewing camerawork adding to the film.
Seth enjoys the early stages of super strength and agility, especially prior to Veronica realising exactly what she is banging! However his constant need to feed and huge mood swings warn him that all is not going well, this is only more evident as stuff starts to ooze out of him and bits start to fall off him.
Of course being that Seth is mostly fly (and not in the rapper way), and the fact that it is a Cronenberg film tells us a couple things, all will not end well, and the conniving bad guy Stathis is going to get well fucked up.
And does he ever.
The Fly is a good old fashioned horror flick relying on makeup, a sense of foreboding and a few set pieces with a bit of gore thrown in for good measure, all justified by the source material being influenced by his ruthless buggy side.
The finale is a little schlocky but I guess necessarily so, you don’t kill a 6 ft fly with a rolled up newspaper after all…
Final Rating – 7 / 10. Definitely worth a look and has held up pretty well over the last 2o+ years, even if Geena Davis hasn’t.
