The Fly (1986) is a sci-fi horror classic written and directed by David Cronenberg. It stars a young and charming Jeff Goldblum as the eccentric scientist Seth Brundle and Geena Davis as the journalist Veronica Quaife who becomes romantically entangled with him. After meeting at a conference, Seth brings Veronica to his workshop where he reveals to her the most incredible invention since the wheel: Teleportation. Though it doesn’t yet work on living things, it is still an immense achievement for humankind, and Seth wants Veronica to write a book on the creation and completion of this machine. When it does finally work, Seth immediately tests it on himself.
However, something else went through the machine with him. Seth Brundle has accidentally genetically spliced himself together with a house fly. Unaware at first, Seth attributes his newfound agility and strength to the act of teleportation itself. He thinks that by teleportation, the computer has reformed him into the perfect version of himself. As the changes progress he faces the terrifying truth that his fundamental parts have been irreversibly altered, and there is no stopping the horrors yet to come.
As the “disease” progresses, he becomes a lumpy, sticky mess of flesh and can barely keep himself intact. His fingernails swell and fall out, his teeth become sharp and point inward before he loses them as well, and his face goes from tan to spots of gray to the red of raw skin. Thick hairs unevenly dot his body, and his eyes bug out of the rest of his head. We get to see this transformation slowly and up close, just as he does in the mirror.
He becomes resigned to his fate, believing that the disease will kill him. He begins to document his symptoms for the sake of science, saving discarded pieces of himself in the medicine cabinet. He even gives himself a new name, “Brundlefly,” expressing that he is not Seth Brundle anymore but the child of Seth and the fly. The changes aren’t just to his body, but to his mind as well, and he warns Veronica that she is in danger if she comes to visit again.
By the end of the film, his brain is corrupted. Brundlefly tries to fuse himself and Veronica in order to make himself more human. She escapes the teleporter at the last minute, and he is instead fused to the teleporter’s broken parts. In unimaginable pain, he crawls over to Veronica, and begs her to end his life. She obliges, and the film ends with Veronica mourning over the unrecognizable body of her lover.
The Fly is a wonderful microcosm of horror in the 80’s. Rule one: if it exists, pour slime on it. Not the ASMR kind of slime either, this is more like Nickelodeon levels of goop. Every surface absolutely must be covered in some sort of sticky, wet, or otherwise foul substance. While it is graphic, the plain blood-and-guts gore isn’t realistic enough to be truly sickening. The truly vomit-inducing scenes are of the slow, painful transformation of a human into an insect. (80’s horror also may include but is not limited to: plot-relevant sex scenes, outdated views on women, a surface level understanding of computers and science, and an abundance of cigarettes.)
There are some things you should know if you are planning to watch this movie. While it is a dream sequence, there is a depiction of giving birth to vaguely human-sized maggot. There is also talk of abortion through the last act of the movie. There are also some brief but fully on-screen depictions of explicit animal abuse against a monkey, which likely also counts as body horror. If you can stomach all of this, The Fly is truly worth the watch for any horror fan.
