Scientist Seth Brundle meets journalist Ronnie Quaife at a party and invites her back to his city flat/science lab to show her his “telepods” (ladies—don’t accept that offer!). Ends up, Brundle’s invention makes teleportation possible and he can zap inanimate objects back and forth. But when trying to teleport living things—let’s just say “inside-out baboon”. After some sexy-time/pillow-talk/steak eating (oh, yeah, Ronnie falls for Seth *real* fast), Brundle has a “eureka” moment and successfully transports a second baboon. Deciding that baboon-two appears to be fine, Brundle chooses to test the machine out on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a house fly is in the pod with him as he zaps. Brundle survives the test but soon after begins developing enhanced abilities, like strength, balance, stamina, and sexy-time tricks. Convinced his telepods “purified” him, he tries to convince Ronnie to go through teleportation. However, she’s increasingly fearful of Brundle’s changes and is unwilling. Brundle eventually realizes what went wrong with the fly and spends his days researching himself, testing his abilities, and continuing his mutation into a gross half-man/half-fly thing. *cue gross scenes of a man disintegrating, vomiting acids, and...a maggot*
“The Fly” is a shock and gag horror film that flirts with having real depth but never quite gets there. I was actually pretty bored at first, as the flat characters lived somewhere between film noir and soap opera. Goldblum is wonderful and Goldblumy, but his character’s take on ‘scientist’ is probably why people don’t trust Dr. Fauci right now. And Geena Davis’s Ronnie goes from irritated and unimpressed to “you’re kinda cute” so let’s have sex *so* fast, the film had to be written by a man. As the fly-transformation began, I thought the “enhanced abilities with negative social/physical side effects” played really well as a metaphor for drug use and addiction. But the film sort of pivots from a character drama to non-stop make-up gags and premises built for shock value. And it worked! I was eating cookies and chose to stop eating cookies because of how gross it was (new diet plan???). Ultimately, “The Fly” works shockingly well for what it is but I’m not sure I’m buzzing back for a rewatch, any time soon.