Category: 31 Days of Horror

Each October, I watch and review 31 horror movies during 31 Days of Horror Cinema at the expense of my mental well being.

31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: The Fly (1986)

Post author By jdp
Post date October 20, 2016
5 Comments on 31 Days of Horror: The Fly (1986)

the fly 1988

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Shame:
Never seen THE FLY (1986). CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! Jeff Goldblum. Cronenberg. Oozy goo. THE FLY!

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade – 1980’s
Original and Remake

The Advance Word: OMFG LIKE THE BEST F’ING MOVIE EVER. I’m substituting hyperbole for an honest appraisal of my expectations here. I do so because I scanned the @Letterboxd reviews and that’s pretty much what they said. Allow some wiggle room for paraphrasing.

#13. The Fly (1986)

I feel cheated out of a review because I literally just wrote a review about The Fly. Okay, so that was the 1958 version, but I could copy and paste some of that review into this space and nobody would notice because: #1. You likely didn’t read that review anyway, so it’d be new to you. I’m under no delusions that anyone’s reading all these and #2. Many of the same thoughts apply. Check back in with me when I hit review #20 and I guarantee you’ll just see cribbed bits of all sorts of old thoughts. Maybe just some emoticons and stick figures.

In my writeup for The Fly (1958) I suggested that the film wasn’t so much a horror film as it was a domestic melodrama. A glossy color-saturated Douglas Sirk special, except with a man-fly and a fly-man clouding the homely drama. David Cronenberg, while updating The Fly for 1986 has carried over some melodrama, not so much the DeLuxe Color. He does, however, wrap the melodrama up in a far more unsettling monster movie. Stay tuned for oozy goo, partially-digested bloody stumps, amazing practical creature effects and an even more affecting human narrative.

I don’t mean to suggest that The Fly (1958) lacked a human center. Poor Patricia Owens suffered plenty, but because of the film’s melodramatic artificiality I felt more disconnected from the drama. I observed and studied The Fly (1958) from a greater emotional distance. Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) grabbed me by the shirt collar, shoved my head in the fly excrement and said “sniff it.” It’s gross, but whatever. There’s a ton of gross stuff in The Fly. Super cool, gross stuff…

the fly 1986

The core story remains in tact. A scientist with dreams of matter transportation participates in the scientific method and shatters the life of the woman who loves him. The major narrative shift takes place in the nature of the relationship between scientist and woman. In 1958, the couple lived in wedded bliss before the ill-fated experiment. In 1986, David Cronenberg makes his Fly movie about new love. Jeff Goldblum’s Seth Brundle meets Geena Davis’ journalist at an industry party and brings her back to his place to “show off his experiments.” To him, this means sex. To her, this means she’s supposed to write about his experiments. Yadda yadda yadda he turns a baboon inside out and impregnates her with Brundlefly sperm.

But let’s rewind for a minute.

The Fly (1986) changes the nature of the human/fly transformation. Rather than an immediate change into Hedison-Head Fly and Fly-Head Hedison, Seth Brundle gradually turns into one “Brundlefly.” I suggested that the immediate change and desperate search for the Hedison-Head Fly mirrored the diagnosis of a terminal illness and the subsequent struggle for acceptance. Seth’s gradual metamorphosis (the process of metamorphism is also suggested by the cocoon-like pods that Brundle uses for his transference) from confident human, to superfly human to grotesque monster seems more like the emotional rollercoaster of new love. The journey from flirtation to new love to ghastly, horrible fly monster, aka the cessation of love/romance as brought about by the real world drama that tears people apart.

the fly 1986

You can lump terminal illness into that morass of metaphor as well, should you so desire. I’m focusing on how/why Cronenberg shifted the dramatic center. Certainly, the 1950’s would have foregrounded the significance of love/marriage versus the casual sex and far more liberal cinematic norms of the 1980’s. But even this isn’t quite enough to write off the subtext Cronenberg aimed to hammer home.

New love comes with certain passions. This allowed the Goldblum/Davis coupling to amplify the heat and all-consuming passions. But what happens when that love goes sour? What happens when the all-consuming passions fade away and you must face the real human? I think Cronenberg created this monster movie as a way to explore obsession. The violent spark of love and sex, and ultimately the monsters beneath.

Like this guy:

the fly 1986

The monstrous elements of The Fly (1986) obscure the fact that the film retains the same female-oriented focus. By employing pregnancy and abortion as a dramatic element, Cronenberg also shifts the focus away from the “mad scientist” angle. As Seth becomes consumed by the fly DNA, he remains a tragic figure, just like Hedison in 1958. Hedison, however, retained his humanity despite a fly head an appendage. When Seth gives way to the Brundlefly, there’s very little left of the man or his compassion. The Brundlefly becomes driven by the need to improve his shattered DNA. The horrors become imposed solely on Davis’ journalist. She must fight off his attempts to merge with her DNA. She must come to terms with the unwanted Brundlefly baby inside her. (That maggot birth scene hallucinion!)

That makes Cronenberg’s The Fly… a woman’s film, too? Indeed, sirs and madams. It’s just a woman’s film wrapped inside a killer monster flick. Neumann’s 1958 The Fly snuck a monster film inside overt melodrama. Two sides of the same coin. Both films offer unique cinematic pleasures of discovery and quirks of narrative focus. Unique approaches to the monster movie tropes. Watching the films back to back, revealed many ways in which the films inform interpretations of each other.

Give it a try. Note the specific changes Cronenberg makes. Having The Fly (1986) as a companion piece to The Fly (1958) shifted the way I viewed the original. There’s a thesis to write here. Others have probably done so. I’m not in the thesis writing business; I’m in the 31 Days of Horror writing business. And business is booming.

Final Thoughts:

Even though I have a 5-star graphic (or more accurately a 5-Hz graphic), I don’t give them out. Silly, huh? To me a 5-Hz rating is only earned over time, tested and proven with multiple rewatches. Since this is my first viewing of The Fly (1986) consider this 4 1/2-Hz rating my highest recommendation. The Fly (1986) is Cronenberg’s masterpiece. I agree with all the Internet hyperbole. An accessible monstrosity featuring top-notch creature effects, a perfect amount of oozy-goo and depth of character and real humanity. Also Jeff Goldblum wearing a baboon.

the fly jeff goldblum baboon

30Hz Movie Rating:

30hzrating41-2

Blu-ray Verdict: I wasn’t overly impressed with the transfer on this Blu-ray, but I watched this immediately after being blown away by the quality of The Fly (1958). The blacks lacked depth in certain scenes. That said, the extras on this Fox release more than make up for an average technical presentation.

Availability: The Fly (1986) is available on Amazon for a bargain basement price.

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Earlier 2016 31 Days of Horror entries: #1. Vampyros Lesbos / #2. A Chinese Ghost Story / #3. The Haunting of Morella / #4. Delirium (1972) / #5. A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin / #6. She-Wolf of London / #7. Son of Frankenstein / #8. Killerfish / #9. The Bride of Re-Animator / #10. A Bay of Blood / #11. The Seventh Victim / #12. The Fly (1958)

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Tags #31daysofhorror, 31 days of horror, 31daysofhorror 2016, brundlefly, horror shame-a-thon, jeff goldblum baboon, the fly, the fly 1986, the fly jeff goldblum

31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: The Fly (1958)

Post author By jdp
Post date October 19, 2016
6 Comments on 31 Days of Horror: The Fly (1958)

the fly 1958 31 days of horror

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Shame:
Long overdue rewatch of The Fly (1958), a film I’ve owned on Blu-ray for a couple years.

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade – 1950’s
Before 1970
Original and Remake

The Advance Word: Well, I’ve seen The Fly before. That’s the advance word. I remembered the “HELP ME!” finale and nothing more.

#12. The Fly (1958)

Fatigue has set in. I’ve watched 17 horror movies. I’ve written 11 reviews. It’s the 19th of October. I need to become a mindless word factory. I need to stop proof-reading. Prepare for half-assed horror movie bl-gging.

I watched The Fly (1958) at a young age. Deep in the throws of my first Vincent Price binge, I remember being annoyed that he played a totally normal dude. More vividly I remember being unnerved by the finale. I don’t believe I’m spoiling anything here — but when the fly with the David Hedison head is ensnared in a web and about to get eaten by a spider and it screams “Help me!” that’s the kind of thing that’ll mess a kid up for a few weeks.

It’s not because of the iconic high-pitch “Help me!” scream or the fact the insect had the head of Felix Leiter, but because this conclusion ran horrifically contrary to my expectations. This moment requires a last minute twist, a dab of deux ex machina, an 11th-hour salvation for our main character. Or at least salvation for our main character’s head (more on this in a minute). The boy tells Francois (Vincent Price) he’s just seen the fly with the white head in the garden, about to get eaten. Alas! We expect liberation. We expect Francois, the lone voice of reasonable doubt and scientific reason in this film, to save Hedison-Head Fly. Francois brings the investigator (Herbert Marshall) to see Hedison-Head Fly. Hooray!

THEN HERBERT MARSHALL CRUSHES HEDISON-HEAD FLY WITH A F’ING ROCK.

Exactly, Patricia Owens. I can help but get upset when my worldview becomes fractured.

The jarring conclusion to this film shatters worldviews. These old horror films generally conclude abruptly and without much resolution, but they conclude with the vanquish of evil (if only temporary) and the resurrection of hope. (I’m generalizing a great deal — but you get what you pay for.) All we have here is some solace that our heroine will be exonerated for the murder of her husband and not committed to the loony bin. That’s it. A fatherless child and a widow branded as the woman who killed her husband.

That’s the twist — not a narrative twist — but a thematic twist on convention. The focus of The Fly (1958) turns out to be the female lead, not the mad scientist that turns into the titular fly. Which leads me directly to my next point. The Fly isn’t a horror movie at all… you know, beside the whole man turning into a ghastly fly part… it’s a domestic melodrama about unconditional love and terminal illness, a theme that Cronenberg also embraces in the 1986 remake.

Consider the composition and color of the following two images.

the fly 1958

the fly 1958)

Top: As Helen (Patricia Owens) recalls the time she had a 100% human husband, the DeLuxe Color pops (even though I’ve read that this color process doesn’t generally hold up as well over time). Husband and wife engage is idle sentimental chatter about forever love and embrace frequently. Below: When Fly-Head husband reveals himself (and his ersatz terminal illness), Patricia faints from the shock. Her scientist husband Andre (David Hedison) embraces her despite his deformed visage. Patricia repeatedly returns to face the horror of a Fly-Head husband. Love attempting to overcome all obstacles. Director Kurt Neumann mutes the color palette after the mutation.

While I watched The Fly (1958) I couldn’t help but think back to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Curiously enough — in both form and function. It’s an imperfect comparison but one that lingered throughout my viewing of The Fly. In All That Heaven Allows, Jane Wyman’s character Cary feels forced away from her lover Ron (Rock Hudson) due to societal norms. The older woman and the younger man. After Ron suffers a life-threatening accident, she returns to him, thus accepting their “imperfect” coupling. Granted, Rock Hudson is 100% beefcake and 0% fly… but nonetheless the age difference and the tragic injury remain obstacles that must be overcome.

Absorb Sirk’s use of color and composition below and then compare 1954’s All That Heaven Allows to the above images from The Fly (1958). It’s certainly not out of the question that Kurt Neumann absorbed and regurgitated (flies do that, you know) some of Sirk’s melodramatic mastery into his own film. Just because Neumann directed 68 B-pictures in his 29 year career, doesn’t mean he didn’t appreciate a masterwork of Technicolor cinema when he saw it.

all that heaven allows

The narrative construct of The Fly (1958) also supports the “woman’s film” thesis. The film opens with Helen (Patricia Owens) already having killed her husband in a mechanical press. She has not been officially accused of the murder, because skeptics believe her incapable of having done the deed. She displays stoic placidity, claiming above all that she’d done the right thing, that her husband had found a better place as a result of her actions. The film then peels back the layers on the murder over the next 80 minutes.

The scientific process tucked into the middle portion of the film, places Andre as a secondary character — yet we adhere to the cinematically-ingrained notion of the mad scientist as primary. Scientific method catalyzes the film and transforms Andre, but the emotional center remains Patricia. She becomes the character unto which the psychological horrors occur. She tears herself apart attempting to catch the Hedison-Head Fly so her husband can attempt to reassemble his DNA, just as Fly-Head Hedison devotes every waking hour working on that cure. Their efforts and their mania represent a futile search for a cure to his terminal disease.

Despite Patricia’s devotion she can’t bare to see what her husband has become. She stares into the face of a fly, ergo her already dead husband. The ultimate loss of her husband already presumed. The film’s narrative and Patricia’s growing desperation rely on a glimmer of hope for propulsion. Patricia’s greatest and final act of love occurs when she grants her husband’s final wish and destroys him in the press. True love, diagnosis, denial, death, and ultimate acceptance.

Final Thoughts:

My final thought is that I’m tired and I want to go to bed, but I’m here finishing this writeup about how I saw more than a dash of Douglas Sirk in The Fly (1958). It’s a fine film. One that’s oddly paced and incongruous with the horror genre with which it is mostly associated.

One final element to ponder. Since Fly-Head Hedison proved functional as a scientist, that means that Fly-Head retained the intelligence of the man. Yet Hedison-Head Fly screamed “Help me!” thereby suggesting an understanding of human language and therefore also human intelligence. If Fly-Head Hedison and Hedison-Head Fly were of rival intelligence, why didn’t Hedison-Head Fly just land of Fly-Head Hedison’s shoulder and say “You complete me”?

hedison head fly - you complete me

30Hz Movie Rating:

DVD Verdict: Filmed in DeLuxe Color and CinemaScope, The Fly (1958) looks nearly pristine. I noticed no film blemishes. The transfer respects both the grays and blacks of the muted color sequences and the bright, vivid colors noted above. Grain has been maintained. 20th Century Fox generally does a solid job with their catalog titles. I wish they’d do more.

Availability: The Fly (1958) is available on Amazon for a bargain basement price.

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Tags #31daysofhorror, 31 days of horror, 31daysofhorror 2016, douglas sirk the fly, horror shame-a-thon, the fly, the fly 1958, the fly technicolor

31 Days of Horror Cinema

31 Days of Horror: The Seventh Victim

Post author By jdp
Post date October 14, 2016
6 Comments on 31 Days of Horror: The Seventh Victim

seventh victim 31 days of horror

31+ Days of Horror. 33 Horror Movies. 33 Reviews. Hooptober Challenges and Bonus Tasks.
View my 2016 Cinema Shame/Hoop-Tober Watch Pile Shame-a-thon Statement here.

Nature of Shame:
Shame comes in all varieties. The Seventh Victim doubles up the shame.

Hoop-tober Challenge Checklist:
Decade – 1940’s
Before 1970

The Advance Word: Val Lewton knew how to produce a horror movie. The Seventh Victim was one of those horror movies.

#11. The Seventh Victim

Cinema Shame comes in all varieties. We’ve investigated the first two garden varieties with this Shame-a-thon.

I’ve never seen Evil Dead 2-variety SHAME! (Substitute your own unseen classic film.)
Watch-Pile SHAME! (I’ve owned this movie for years and never cracked the seal.)

And now I’d like to introduce another brand of Shame:

Lived on my DVR for eternity SHAME.

I recorded The Seventh Victim on my DVR last October during TCM’s volley of Halloween horror offerings. For more than a year this brooding Lewton-produced film about Greenwich Village satanists has resided on my DVR, unwatched. Oh look it’s airing on TCM again on October 22nd. Set your DVRs!

Sometime during my viewing of The Seventh Victim, I realized I even owned the movie as part of the Val Lewton box set! I didn’t need to DVR it in the first place. DOUBLE SHAME.

seventh victim title card

I’ve dabbled in Lewton’s productions, but I’ve never made a study of them. I’ve considered starting a focused Filmmaker Shame! series. I believe that some oeuvres are best appreciated en masse. There’s wisdom to be gained through more intense scrutiny of larger bodies of work. For another day, perhaps. I’ve got a CinemaShame/Hoop-Tober Watch-Pile Shame-a-thon to complete.

I have, however, spent due time with the three Lewton/Tourneur films that kickstarted Val Lewton’s production career. Mark Robson helms The Seventh Victim, and while he’s no slouch, the name Robson doesn’t carry the same cachet as Tourneur. Go ahead, just say “Jacques Tourneur.”

Jacques Tourneur.

Chills right? Even his name oozes atmosphere. Dark alleys. Long shadows. A man hiding in darkened room. Look out he’s got a knife!

Robson would go on to become an accomplished director across many different genres after the conclusion of his lengthy stint with Lewton. He directed Bogart in The Harder They Fall, Peyton Place, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and Von Ryan’s Express, among many other familiar titles. It turns out that this guy Robson has a pretty deft touch with the atmosphere as well.

Chiaroscured satanists. Spooooooky!

Mary Gibson searches for her lost sister Jacqueline, a troubled girl who got tangled up with those Greenwich satanists and then disappears. The first half concerns Mary’s search as a dowdy, teetotaling, milquetoast Columbo. At first I thought Charles O’Neal and DeWitt Bodeen’s script merely gave her nothing to do, but upon reflection I’m quite certain that Kim Hunter (in her first film role) simultaneously overplayed and underplayed her part. It’s not that she’s necessarily out of her element, but as she acts alongside Tom Conway (as the same character he played in The Cat People), you’ll note a disparate version of “acting.”

As the “innocent” Hunter’s Mary becomes cloying and saccharine. She’s at once too calm (should she believe her sister’s really been kidnapped) or far too scattered (should she believe her flighty sister’s gone missing yet again). The narrative drags because Hunter’s character resists moving it forward. She’s constantly running headlong into roadblocks and asking for help from her skeptical male companions.

While the first half left me listless and checking the time stamp, the second half of The Seventh Victim becomes a master class in inner turmoil represented by the interplay between light and shadow. The movie only comes together when Jacqueline (Jean Brooks, of The Leopard Man) finally FINALLY! appears on screen and gives the movie a much needed kick in the ass. Brooks emotes through her eyes and through her total lack of dialogue.

The eyes of Jean Brooks

All you need to know about the final thirty minutes can be found right there in those rigid bangs and soulful, sad eyes. This is the movie I needed from the beginning. Immediately The Seventh Victim shifts from being a slightly creepy noir to a haunting, gothic parable about a lost soul and misplaced faith.

As I consider The Seventh Victim‘s lasting impression, I’m forced to focus on one specific scene. The dialogue haunts me. The frankness with which this movie and this specific scene treats death kicked me in the testicles. It’ll do the same for you, whether or not you have any to kick. The dialogue takes place between Jacqueline and a woman named Mimi, whom she’s just met in the hallway of her apartment building.

Jacqueline: Who are you?

Mimi: I’m Mimi — I’m dying.

J: No!

M: Yes. It’s been quiet, oh ever so quiet. I hardly move, yet it keeps coming all the time — closer and closer. I rest and rest and yet I am dying.

J: And you don’t want to die. I’ve always wanted to die — always.

M: I’m afaid.

[Jacqueline shakes her head.]

M: I’m tired for being afraid — of waiting.

J: Why wait?

M: [determined] I’m not going to wait. I’m going out — laugh, dance — do all the things I used to do.

J: And then?

M: I dont know.

J: [softly] You will die.

Final Thoughts:

I won’t spoil what happens next, but it’s a damn near perfect sequence that concludes each narrative arc. Overall, I’m conflicted. Maybe I just needed a different actress in the role of Mary. It’s hard to overlook those first fifty minutes that barely held my attention.

Final Final Thoughts:

The satanist paranoia acts as the film’s tension, but that tension, as manifested in the characters’ all consuming fear of societal degradation, serves as a red herring. The film’s not about the “evil-doing” of satan worshippers; it’s about the characters’ perspective on death and our pedogogical and religious systems of belief as they pertain to the significance of life and death. Heavy f’ing shit.

30Hz Movie Rating:

val lewton collection DVD Verdict: I love this box set, but I never bothered to watch The Seventh Victim on disc so technically I can’t vouch for the quality of transfer contained within. I do like big box sets with lots of DVDs. Some day when I’m old, crazy and senile I hope to bathe in them. That day might be sooner than anticipated.

Availability: The OOP Val Lewton Horror Collection can be found here and there for a pretty pricey penny… or 9,000 pretty pennies according to this Amazon listing.

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Tags #31daysofhorror, 31 days of horror, 31daysofhorror 2016, horror shame-a-thon