The Fly (1986)

The Fly is a 1986 horror film directed by David Cronenberg starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.

Fans of the horror genre will know that remakes rarely outdo originals. I’ll save multiple examples for another time, but one I’ll mention is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The 2003 remake of the Tobe Hooper original turned a terrifying, claustrophobic nightmare ‘what if’ scenario into a run of the mill, forgettable teen slasher flick.

In the capable hands of the bizarre genius who is David Cronenberg, 1986’s The Fly does no such thing. It’s a tight, lean horror film that does exactly what it sets out to do, namely, scare the shit of you and make you want to chuck. Cronenberg, you magnificent bastard.

The film stars Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, and both leads are great, though Davis isn’t asked to do much besides look horrified and cry a lot. She’s very good, but Goldblum gives one of his best performances. And hey, I have to respect an actor who can keep a straight face doing a scene where he screams angrily while wearing a pair of tighty-whities.

The original wasn’t a terrible film, but it was straightforward fifties scifi monster fare. Cronenberg’s version is far darker and more disturbing. The premise is the same: a scientist working on teleportation technology ends up accidentally splicing his DNA with that of a fly.

It’s there the similarities end. Cronenberg has a thing for deformity and sexuality, and both are on fine display here. Where the original made use of creature effects by having the protagonist literally spliced with a fly (he ends up with a fly’s head and front leg in place of his own), Cronenberg treats this incarnation more like a disease – Goldblum’s been spliced with a fly at a genetic level, and his body slowly begins to mutate into something that is neither human nor insect. His body doesn’t know what to do, so it begins to sort of break down on a molecular level.

And the sexuality is pure Cronenberg weirdness. A side effect of the gene splicing is that Goldblum has gained superhuman strength and endurance, so can suddenly fuck for days on end. When Geena Davis can’t keep up, he abandons her in pursuit of someone who can, leaving her with a bizarre rant about how the teleportation (he hasn’t realised, at this point, that he is half-insect) has somehow ‘cleansed’ his DNA, making him a perfect human being. He’s full of hyperactive energy and can’t see that he’s behaving abnormally. Goldblum plays the scene perfectly; he’s like a rabid junkie who hasn’t yet realised that taking massive amounts of methamphetamine has a downside.

What makes The Fly work so well is that in addition to being a great horror film and nicely done gorefest, it is at its core a tragic love story. Davis sells this aspect of the film really well – even as she sees Goldblum deteriorate before her eyes, she still cares for him, and he for her – I love the moment when he tells her to leave and never come back, because he’ll hurt her if she stays. He knows his mind is devolving into insect as much as his body and he can’t predict what he’ll eventually become. But he never becomes a straight out monster. He retains his humanity right to the end. Even when he kills someone toward the end, he does it not out of malice but because the guy gets in the way of his last-ditch, desperate attempt to splice himself back to humanity (he’s realised that his teleporter pods are capable of gene splicing, so in desperation thinks that if he splices himself with enough human DNA he can somehow make himself normal again).

Cronenberg amusingly refers to The Fly as his take on a romantic comedy. Whether you see it as a straight horror or a deeper tale, the film works because it puts a fully developed story and great characters first and the splatter second. It’s a great example of how to do a remake well.