Back with director David Cronenberg this evening. Watching for the first time the Blu Ray of his 1986 remake of the classic 1958 The Fly. Honestly, no one, but no one, does horror quite like Cronenberg. If you follow his earliest work in short films like Stereo and Crime of the Future, it is easy to see why Cronenberg would choose a movie like The Fly to make updated version of. Cronenberg's own work is obsessed with the horrors that can come with technological innovation. Take his most difficult to locate work They Come From Within AKA Shivers, it purports to be about parasites, but these are no ordinary parasites; they infect residents of a brand new high-rise, touted as the latest in technological advancements--high tech convenience. The nightmare unfolds because of the technology...it's all about the technology.
So it makes complete sense that this story, actually based on a short story (much like The Thing), would appeal to Cronenberg. He's certainly not trying to detract from the importance of the original movie(s), the first of which was released in 1958. As I understand Cronenberg, it was precisely those films that got him thinking about such a nightmarish subject to begin with.
Of course, no one does gore quite like Cronenberg either. If you have seen Videodrome or Scanners, you know this. One of the things that has always stuck me about his Fly, is that it is not nearly as obsessed with marrying technological or psychological innovation gone wrong with deviant sexual behavior. This is really a pure clean nightmare of technology from the Canadian director.
So far from what I've seen of the blu ray, it looks pretty good. Much better than the crappy double sided DVD that I have that has the awful The Fly 2 remake on the other side! One thing that I would give it a A+ for is the sound---soooo much improved!
One should remember, or just know, that Mel Brooks was the man most responsible for this film even getting made. He was a producer, and a very hands on one at that, going so far as to act the financial negotiator between Cronenbeg and Fox. Despite his heavy involvement in getting the project green lighted, Brooks desperately didn't want the public to know of his production involvement in any way; he thought people wouldn't take the film seriously if it was known. Ok I'm gonna shut up and watch!
Here's the original, rather grainy, movie trailer from 1986:
More Weird Canada:
Came across this road sign from Quebec. What the hell????
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