Bounding Into Halloween Night 11: ‘The Fly’ & ‘The Blob’
Tonight is a special edition of Bounding Into Halloween that teleports us back to the decade of decadence for two sci-fi/horror gems that not only re-define the word “abomination”, but also stand as prime examples of what it looks like when modern updates are done right, as not only are they remakes of a 1950s horror movie, but they pull off the incredible rarity of surpassing them.
If anyone hasn’t seen them, I’m excited for you, and I offer only one word of advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid…
Credit: https://youtu.be/_KMfjj-z0yQ?si=x4_28DOKPEph7twd
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The Fly (1986)
From the reigning king of Body Horror cinema David Cronenberg comes the 1986 masterpiece The Fly.
A remake of the campier (but still decent) movie of the same name from 1958, and the 2nd adaptation of the still creepy 1957 short story by George Langlaan, rather than being located in Montreal, Quebec like the original movie (with its cast of English speaking actors who don’t even have a French accent!), King David moves the story to his own backyard of Toronto. A place where American sounding voices in a movie is a little more believable…
While at a Bartok Industries press event, Particle Magazine journalist Ronnie Quaife (Geena Davis) runs into awkward scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), who claims to be working on something that will “change the world as we know it” (but hey, so is everyone else in that room).
She can tell that Seth doesn’t get out very much, but still agrees to drive to this dude’s loft to see if he’s legit, and upon agreeing to accompany him immediately begins secretly recording everything that is said.
Ronnie gets to Seth’s place before he barfs in her car from motion sickness, and he shows her his designer phone booths! These ‘phone booths’ are actually called ‘Teleporter Pods’ (or just Telepods from now on), which disintegrates matter in one Telepod, transmits it across space, and then reintegrates it into the other Telepod.
She lets him test the process out on one of her stockings and witnesses for herself that the Telepods work. He’s helping build this for Bartok, but they leave him alone to do his thing. However, her cover is ultimately blown when the long forgotten recorder goes off in her bag – and when it is, she’s out of that loft faster than you can say “cheeseburger”, and runs straight to her boss/ex-lover, Stathis Borans (John Getz) with the story.
Sadly for her, he’s not buying it. He thinks she got hoodwinked by a “nightclub routine” and writes it off (but definitely not her).
From there, Seth shows up to tell Ronnie that the Telepods aren’t ready yet, as they can move inanimate matter but not living flesh (just ask the baboon!), and he promises to let Ronnie track his progress for the story if she agrees to hold off until all the kinks are worked out. She agrees, and it doesn’t take long before their relationship abandons anything even associated with professionalism (but Seth most definitely gets a better understanding of the flesh in the process). After Stathis finds out about this, he acts even less professional.
Eventually, with Ronnie watching on, Seth finally cracks the code on living matter. As the two celebrate, Stathis The Stalker plays the petty card by deciding to publish the story prematurely. In turn, Ronnie rushes to the office to stop it, and leaves Seth to drink alone without knowing what’s going on.
While she’s gone, Seth makes up his drunken mind to go through the Telepods himself – but he doesn’t notice the housefly that follows him inside. After going through, he initially doesn’t notice any difference, but this doesn’t last long. First, he gains a ton of new strength he never had before and the athletic agility of an Olympian. Seth has dived into the plasma pool, and penetrated beyond the straight line of society’s sick, grave fear of the flesh and become a body builder – in the sense that he builds bodies, takes them apart, and puts them back together again. That is until his own body starts to fall apart.
It turns out that the computer got confused during the teleportation and spliced Seth’s DNA with that of the fly’s, in doing so creating a new hybrid called “Brundle Fly”. Seth goes from looked like a sculpted man to a sculpted man who was put in the microwave for an hour, with his ear falling off and his stomach only being able to digest food that he barfs on first. As his body continues to mutate, he eventually gains the ability to crawl across the walls. Whatever disease afflicted him was one with a purpose, and as his humanity continues to slip away, so does his human mind. Seth finally comes to the realization that he’s an insect who dreamt he was a man, and loved it, but now the dream was over, and the insect has awakened…
Cronenberg brought his gore mastery into a most fitting story that’s very operatic in structure, all helped by the fact that he had a big studio budget behind him. However,, these extra funds eally paid off in the end when make-up artists Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis won the much deserved Oscar for Best Makeup at the 59th Academy Awards.
Further, the great maestro Howard Shore delivers yet another amazing score and collaboration (of many) with Cronenberg, Geena Davis is perfect as a horrified and powerless (at least until the end) onlooker to the terror unfolding around her without having much control – it’s enough to make anyone overlook her character’s hilarious last name – and even Getz is amusing as the jealous ex who still pines for Ronnie but eventually gets over himself to do the right thing (even though it costs him a literal arm and a leg).
But of course, The one who steals the entire show is the man behind the eccentric genius who falls in love, and goes through a truly transformative experience, Jeff Goldblum. He expertly portrays a metamorphosis of many cycles that are more each more bizarre than the last, and he adapts to them without flaw – even when he’s in a painful-looking rubber suit with a mouthful of prosthetics, Goldblum crushes every scene.
The Fly is one of the best films of the 1980s, and (in my expert opinion) David Cronenberg’s greatest work. Teleport over to Prime, and see for yourself.
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The Blob (1988)
That last one is a such a good movie, and it’s so very disgusting. I hope you enjoyed it because we’re about to get even nastier!
Fr our next film, director Chuck Russell (Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Mask) puts a gory spin on his remake of the 1955 movie of the same name – except this one doesn’t have Steve McQueen running away from Jello, or any of that campy fluff.
Where The Fly was more of a graphic opera, this is a graphic B movie with a sick sense of humor. If the last feature didn’t make you empty your stomach contents, remember that there’s always room for Jello!
When a meteorite crashes in a field near the fictional town of Arborville, California, a homeless old man (Billy Beck) tracks it down, only to discovers a jelly-like substance (aka Daaaa Blob!) in the smokey space rock. This intelligent fellow decides to poke it with a long stick, and in return the substance starts to crawls down the stick before finally attaching itself to his hand. The shock, and the sudden burning pain causes the derelict to panic and run out into the middle of the road, where he almost gets flattened by three high school students. This would be the popular girl Meg (Shawnee Smith), her jock boyfriend Paul (Donovan Leitch), and that leaves Matt Dillon’s little brother, Kevin, to play biker rebel Brain Flagg (no relation to the walking dude, Randall). They take the old man to the hospital, and the delinquent Flagg takes off before the cops arrive to ask questions.
The doctors elect to amputate the funky arm, but the Blob ends up consuming the homeless man and taking out Paul (in a very cool scene) before oozing out of the hospital and continuing to grow in size. Meg tries to warn the authorities about this new threat, but that doesn’t go well, and when she links back up with Flagg at a diner, he doesn’t believe it either.
However, that quickly changes when he sees the dishwasher get pulled into a sink drain (in another cool scene). They flee the diner (leaving a poor waitress to get phonebooth’d), and head to the police station. Will cops be of any any help?
Of course not! In fact, they find out that the whole town has been quarantined.
From there, they head to the site where the meteor landed and find a bunch of government scientists who claim that the Blob is an alien. Which turns out to be a lie, as not only is the creature from earth, but it’s a failed germ warfare experiment from the Cold War era that was shot into space and eventually made its way back home (The state’s gonna state). In response, the teens ditch the useless fools in hazmat gear and focus more on trying to save the town from a Blob that’s continuing to eat and grow.
Coming out at a time when horror was on top of the market and film companies had the technology to take something that’s a bit dated and turn it into a hardcore nightmare – that’s usually the point of remaking a scary movie, but I digress – The Blob might not be a cinematic triumph like The Fly, but it’s still an awesome movie – a little campy, but also full of great moments and unseeable images.
Witness for yourself for free on Pluto, and find out why you don’t poke a meteorite!
NEXT: Bounding Into Halloween Night 8: ‘Inside’ & ‘Rosemary’s Baby’
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