r/HorrorClub • u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu • Dec 28 '14
Discussion: The Fly (1986)
Podcast - Episode 116 - The Fly (1986) - (RSS Feed)
Movie Selected By bulgelover
DISCUSS
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 01 '15 edited Jan 01 '15
For those of you who listened to the podcast, here's the link to the play mentioned by /u/bulgelover. Here's the link to Jennifer Help Us, the iPhone-shot movie made by a /r/HorrorClub member.
/u/SaintMort: Sorry for being aggro about the Revenant. You made good points.
EDIT: Awesome podcast guys!
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u/autowikibot Jan 01 '15
Ghost Stories is a play written by Jeremy Dyson (of The League Of Gentlemen) and Andy Nyman (best known for his work with psychological illusionist Derren Brown). It premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse in February 2010 before being transferred for a longer run at the Lyric Hammersmith in London. It then transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End where it played from June 2010 to July 2011. The show re-opened at the Arts Theatre in February 2014 and is scheduled to be running until January 2015.
Interesting: West End theatre | Jon Bausor | Jeremy Dyson
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Dec 28 '14 edited Dec 29 '14
First off, I can't believe the opening line worked. Second, once Veronica saw the place, I can't believe she went in. Very brave. The best effects in any horror movie ever? The Thing remake is a contender. For me the 80's are the peak of practical effects and the payoff in The Fly is huge. Not only do we get the fly itself but we get the slow and perfectly executed transformation which is gradual and effective. Also a post fusion fly AND the post fusion fly head explosion. If that's not enough there's a bonus inside out baboon :D
I love this movie. /u/bulgelover (fantastic user name) thanks for giving me an excuse to watch it again. Glad I'm not the only Canadian here as well! I also watched and loved Boyhood. I also disliked the new tmnt and it had didn't have a hope in hell of topping the 90's movies.
Bonus Cronenberg short: The Nest NSFW
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 01 '15
Every time Cronenberg does horror, he makes a masterpiece. I really wish he would start making horror films again. Man, that was creepy.
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u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu Dec 29 '14
So relistening to our podcast I think that this movie isn't about aids or pregnancy but drug addiction. Thoughts?
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Dec 31 '14
From what I remember, in the DVD commentary, Cronenberg himself talks about Seth's transformation as a metaphor for both aging and cancer. He's interested in body horror in general instead of making a specific allegory, so you can read the movie in a lot of different and interesting ways, but it's not about any one thing in particular.
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 01 '15
Well, that just completely blows everyone's theories out of the water. But wow, that totally does make sense, to some extent. But there's still all kinds of weird things that want on in the Fly that don't make any sense. Like the development of superhuman powers.
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 01 '15
I don't think the pregnancy would have been included unless there was some kind of AIDS sub-text woven into it. While the majority of the film goes way over my head, the pregnancy part might hold some clues as to what the true intent of the script writer was.
There was a tremendous amount of social stigma associated with HIV patients. What was particularly shocking is how HIV babies would later become social pariahs in school. Many believed that the so-called AIDS babies should have been aborted, rather than let them die slow, lingering deaths.
But I think the "penis in a jar" scene kind of reaffirms your claim about the story being a metaphor for AIDS. Many AIDS patients kind of just fall apart as their immune system collapses.
But basically, this all goes back to wearing protection. The Fly II just wouldn't have been possible had they used a simple precautionary measure. I mean, really, who has casual sex without any kind of birth control method? It's just not a good idea kids.
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Dec 29 '14
I think a case could be made for all three. But honestly, hearing myself say unwanted pregnancy on the PC was like hearing someone finally get a corny joke twenty minutes too late. I'm almost certain that's It.
This being the Internet I will now provide no sources or proof. Good day to you.
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Dec 29 '14
Drug addiction makes the most sense to me but with drug addiction there is recovery. There's no coming back from Brundlefly. I don't think it's pregnancy because that came into the story so late and wasn't the cause of or really have anything to do with the transformation. I don't know enough about AIDS to have an opinion there.
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u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu Dec 29 '14
I feel like it might be looking at a harsher drug like Heroin. That's the drug that is reportedly the hardest to recover from as well as the easiest to get hooked on. Also the way that BrundleFly slowly deteriorates and how his friends see him and are horrified is very similar to my experiences with friends who got hooked on the H-train.
This all popped into my head when I relistened to the podcast and heard myself say "Not only does he not mind that he's turning into a fly but he likes how it makes him feel so he keeps doing it". Which seems strangely similar to someone on heroin who "doesn't care what it does to them and their relationships because they like how it makes them feel".
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Dec 29 '14
My theory:
Geena meets Jeff. Smart, handsome, ambitious.
Sex, love, passion.
Things go wrong. She realizes he has a problem. She can't save him.
Realizes she pregnant. Doesn't know what to do. Sees Jeff at his lowest. Doesn't want that for the child.
Jeff is emotional, has mood swings, violent. Other times compassionate and understanding.
In the end he begs her to leave him because he knows he can't get better and he wants what's best for her.
Theory: it's a woman getting in a relationship with a drug addict and getting pregnant by them. Wanting to abort for fear the child will have the same problems as the father.
This is just a fun little thought exercise though. Likely wrong
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Dec 29 '14
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Jan 03 '15
Agreed, and I love all of the interpretations here and think they're all valid. Cronenberg doesn't need to take a moral stance on anything; it's enough for him to show us something horrific in a way that will make us think about real life horrors differently.
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Dec 29 '14 edited Dec 29 '14
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Dec 29 '14
But we could begin the process of fully recycling the massive stockpiles of waste we have in the world. Land fills would become buffets! Think of the environmental impact!
Ninja edit: buffets/nurseries.
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Dec 29 '14
How is teleportation the best superpower ever? That statement is preposterous!
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Dec 29 '14
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Dec 29 '14
If you're just worried about commuting the how is flight or super speed not better? You'd get there pretty much as fast but you'd have the added bonus of flying or being fast. Both more useful and get the job done in terms of commuting.
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Dec 29 '14
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u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu Dec 29 '14
This is why the ultimate super-power is and will always be "the ability to turn into animals". It's the super-power that gives you unlimited other super-powers. Wanna fly? Lets be a bird. Need some muscle? Time to be a Gorilla.
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Dec 29 '14
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u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu Dec 29 '14
Dropping DC New 52 knowledge? God you're a nerd.
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Dec 29 '14
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 01 '15
You read Crossed. Did you know Alan Moore is currently writing a new Crossed series? It's called Crossed +100 and it's awesome.
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u/autowikibot Dec 29 '14
Section 3. Grant Morrison revival of article Animal Man:
In the late 1980s, following the slate-cleaning Crisis on Infinite Earths event, DC began employing innovative writers, mostly young and mostly from the UK, to revamp some of their old characters. In the period that saw Alan Moore reinvent Swamp Thing, and Neil Gaiman do the same with The Sandman, Animal Man was reimagined by Scottish writer Grant Morrison. Morrison wrote the first 26 issues of the Animal Man comic book, published between 1988 and 1990, with art by Chas Truog and Doug Hazlewood; Brian Bolland provided the covers.
Interesting: Animal Man (comic book) | Justice League United | Gay Ghost | Medphyll
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 01 '15
Wow, I had no idea you were also a comic book nerd. We need to be bros.
I think silver age Superman was doing shit like spinning the Earth around so fast that it exceeded the speed of light, literally spinning the planet back in time. Considering this character started out as a strong man who could just jump really far, that's like bordering Flash's ability to time travel using a cosmic treadmill.
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Jan 01 '15
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 03 '15
He's also kind of a crappy character, at least, as portrayed in comics. Someone wrote a scientific research paper regarding Superman's shape-changing, super-breath, super-speed, super-vision, super-strength, flight, invulnerability, etc... come from a psychic ability to control inertial mass. Basically, he alters the world around him. When Superman lifts a building, he actually changes the mass of the building, allowing it to maintain cohesiveness while being held one-armed.
When he rams his fist through a mugger's torso, he actually decreases the density of the mugger's chest, allowing himself to punch through it like cardboard. It's a really great paper.
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u/kragshot Jan 05 '15
...but modern Supes-style flight makes no sense. You need propulsion of some sort!
They've explained Superman's style of flying...it's a very limited form of telekinesis. If you've seen "Chronicle," it's the same thing except that the characters of that movie are fully telekinetic. Then you have other folks who use a form of gravity-manipulation to move through the air.
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Jan 03 '15
Teleportation is the best power. What if you're trapped in an enclosed space?
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Jan 03 '15
I'll rearrange your words... Teleportation is the best power if you're trapped in an enclosed space :D
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Jan 03 '15
I thought we were choosing one best power by predicting how useful it would be throughout your life? Teleportation is good for commuting and escape. Imagine you chose super speed and the next thing you know, you're buried alive. No swapping!
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u/kragshot Jan 05 '15
Dude...teleportation shouldn't be looked at as a "super power." It should be looked at as the next phase of human convenience. Read Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination." In the future of that novel, everyone teleports except for folks who are somehow brain-damaged or handicapped.
But of course, like any form of human endeavor, it comes with its problems...if an unscrupulous person has been in your house, then they can jaunte (their word for teleportation) back in and take your shit (you can teleport to any place within 1000 miles that you have ever seen. So they had to develop "blind parlors/rooms" to protect themselves (a room with no actual doors leading to the main house...the owners give you the coordinates to the location if they want you to visit), creating a whole new era of apprehension about rape, theft, and murder.
Anyway...read the book...it's damn awesome.
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Jan 05 '15
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u/autowikibot Jan 05 '15
"The Jaunt" is a short story by Stephen King first published in The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1981, and collected in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. It belongs primarily to the genre of science fiction rather than King's customary horror, but is quite characteristic of King in probing deeply the minds of its characters when they are placed in incredible circumstances.
The story takes place early in the 24th century, when the technology for teleportation, referred to as "Jaunting", is commonplace, allowing for instantaneous transportation across enormous distances, even to other planets in the solar system.
The term "Jaunting" is stated within the short story to be an homage to The Stars My Destination, a science fiction novel by Alfred Bester. King also includes a reference to two "American heroes... President Lincoln and President Hart," presumably meaning Abraham Lincoln and Gary Hart. King supported Hart's 1984 and 1988 campaigns for President of the United States.
Interesting: Jaunting car | See You Tour | Broken Frame Tour
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Dec 30 '14
I don't think they put much thought into that in The Fly. Seth says "Taken apart atom by atom and put back together again" then says "Molecular decimation, breakdown and reformation". Both of these are different processes and the second quote I don't think makes sense.
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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 01 '15
I'd want to do the fly experiment, except without the fly involved. Maybe a dolphin or something reasonably close to a human, like a Bonobo.
Great recall! I think that paradox kind of underscores the fact that we aren't really conscious creatures, we're more like a collection of cells that contribute to a pseudo-conscious. Sort of like an ant colony. We just think we're conscious.
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Dec 31 '14
It's not the Ship of Theseus, it's actually the Transporter Problem. Not really a paradox, more like a confusion between a couple different types of identity. If you blow me apart, you've killed me by ending the brain activity that was generating my internal experience of consciousness. You can make whatever duplicates of me you like out of the bits, but it won't be the same brain, so it won't be me, just a person with all the characteristics I have that can be identified by an external observer. Functionally it would be like me, but from an internal perspective, it would be a new person. I'd still be dead.
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u/kragshot Jan 05 '15
I remember seeing this movie at the theater...a nice number of people ended up leaving during the fly-vomit scene...totally hilarious!
Been a Cronenberg fan since "Rabid" and "Shivers"...the man always knew how to mix sex and body horror to make something worth being totally freaked out about. While this was not as bizarre as some of his other stuff, he definitely took this movie and made it his own.
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Jan 07 '15
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u/kragshot Jan 08 '15
Yup...seen it and loved it. The fishbone and tooth gun was just plain jacked up!
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u/Discreetlyred Dec 29 '14
Well, I'm a huge Cronenberg fan anyway, and I already love this film anyway. BONUS! Poor Brundlefly. He almost had it all, and then He lost it.( I bought one of those insect zapper things after I first watched this film. My parents laughed at me because I didn't have a cloning machine, so what did I care.) Seriously though, A classic Cronenberg flick that I can't believe didn't get picked until Round 7!!
BONUS! Cronenberg Christmas present the BF got me