CRONENBERG'S "FLY" TRANSFORMATIVE

          Drink deep of the plasma pool.

          The year is 1986: Jeff Goldblum is known as the geeky guy from The Big Chill (1983) and the nerdy guy from TV's short-lived "Tenspeed and Brown Shoe" (1980). When suddenly, BAM, The Fly.

          It was part of a trend of re-makes of classic 1950s sci-fi: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), Invaders From Mars (1986), all of which are color versions of B-movies boasting decades of special effects advances. But The Fly also hearkens to the classic inspirations of "body horror" from an additional thirty years prior, notably the silent horror films of Lon Chaney.

          Goldblum stars as Seth Brundle, sort of a less-public Tesla with a charged libido who wants to share the wonder of his new invention, but isn't quite ready to tell the world. The result is he takes a journalist named Veronica (Davis), whom he meets at a party, back to his laboratory to witness a demonstration of his teleportation pods.

          Similar to Chaney as Erik in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Seth Brundle plays piano in his dungeon-like lab, and would influence the career of his love-interest, with whom there is another potential suitor.

          The Raoul of The Fly is the editor of the science magazine Veronica writes for. An obsessively jealous former boyfriend, Stathis Borans (Getz) showers in Veronica's apartment when she's not there, stalks her around town, and conducts reprisals as her editor when rebuked.

          Whereas Chaney's roles reflected the aftermath of WWI, Goldblum's character may be seen as a product of the War On Drugs. At first his emergence from teleportation is fun. Then fun with problems. And then just problems.

          His teleportation pods have a hard time reintegrating animate life. Failed attempts graphically displayed account for a large part of the film's charm. As does Brundle's gradual transformation from quirky, bug-eyed, harmlessly mad scientist to full on unrecognizable monster.

          Brundle's biggest problem is accidentally teleporting himself...with a fly that wandered into the pod. Major oops.

          Fay Wray's unforgettable scene with Lionel Atwell in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), another darkly stylish gem, clearly influenced Cronenberg.

          Incredibly, Howard Shore's underappreciated score grabs the audience from the instantly moody notes and tells the tragic tale during the opening credits.

          Goldblum and Davis are perfectly cast. Dating each other at the time may account for some of that success.

          As a weakness to the film, there is a scene where Brundle is so far advanced in his transformation that there is just no way Veronica would possibly want to hug him. And that does take audiences a little bit out of the story. But most of the time, great pains taken toward believability pay off handsomely. All pre-CG, too.

          It was shot in Cronenberg's native Canada. That's Canadian boxing legend George Chuvalo in the bar room arm wrestling scene.

          On the uncanny strength of this breakthrough starring performance, Goldblum became the perfect choice to play the Chaos Theory expert in Jurassic Park (1993), which opened the giant doors to his name being associated with summer blockbuster success.

          Freely available online.

THE FLY

Starring Jeff Goldblum,

Geena Davis,

John Getz,

Joy Boushel,

George Chuvalo

Directed by David Cronenberg

Written by David Cronenberg, Charles Edward Pogue

Based on a story by George Langelaan

Runtime 96 minutes

Rated R

Stewart Kirby writes for

THE INDEPENDENT

and

TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE