I am an insect, I used to dream of being a person,
-now this dream wakes up.
sci-fi movie "The Fly"
The Fly (1986)
80's treasure
Rarity
David Cronenberg's "The Fly" is a kind of "treasure" in the 80s movie: as a movie, it has Vivid and pure director’s personal expression; at the same time, it was accepted by the market and it was a very successful commercial film.
In the summer of 1986 when "The Fly" was released, the movie "online battle" with it in the cinema happened to be "Alien 2" directed by James Cameron.
However, "The Fly" didn't lose at all. It won $60.6 million in the box office with a budget of $9 million.
Even if we go to watch this movie now, we will still be shocked by the rich imagination and brain-opening special effects in the movie. David Cronenberg, the director of
"The Fly", was born in Canada and accumulated experience in low-cost horror movies before shooting the film. He is good at creating a disturbing atmosphere in movie stories. The biggest success of
"The Flies" is that the concept of visual effects and full character emotions support each other convincingly: is not only a touching love story, but also a thrilling spectacle movie.
Adolescence fable
Puberty
The charm of "The Fly" comes from the director's extremely private and personal expression.
The process of "turning into flies" tells the story of human adolescence through the Frankenstein-style thrilling science fiction model. When the protagonist of
first appeared, he was a shy and clumsy teenager. He tried to attract a beautiful science journalist, the heroine of the film, at the cocktail party.
He used his technological invention as a "bait" and invited the heroine to see his latest creation. This behavior is no different from adolescent boys who want to welcome girls through playing teams.
When he found out that the heroine had a mature and experienced ex, the hero was a little jealous. In order to further attract the heroine, the way he thought of was to rush to attract her with his "scientific progress".
He walked into the machine and completed the experimental conversion without noticing the flies that shouldn't have appeared in the machine. The change process of
"fly man" is also very similar to the state of adolescence: mysterious hair, the ingestion of junk food, the sudden power in the body, the growing self-confidence, and the appearance of acne on the face.
half-human half-worm
Brundlefly
The body changes develop step by step in the horror science fiction setting, and the mutation of the male protagonist does not stop at the stage of "strong confidence".
The dormant sexual ability in the body of "puberty" is awakened, and it also dominates his will and physical behavior.
and computer analysis also told him that he is no longer human: he is defined by the computer as a Brundlefly (his surname is Brundle).
And his part as a person is gradually disappearing. The performance of the hero
throughout the mutation process is very wonderful. A clumsy boy first grows into a mature and dominant adult male, and then develops into an angry and paranoid monster. The wonderful performance of the protagonist
allows him to still get the sympathy of the audience when he makes all kinds of "disgusting" fly-man mutation behaviors. (especially the scene of fly-like vomiting)
the uncontrollable sympathy of the actorThe movie has a rare moving feature in horror and thriller movies.
When the movie ends, the actor becomes a mixture of machinery and monsters. His appearance is like a dying old man and a newborn baby.
When he used the mutated "worm feet" to hold the gun in the heroine's hand and point it at him, we knew that he had found the final peace of mind.
What is Fear?
Horror
"The Flies" presents human sexual behavior as an irreversible dark and destructive force, which is also very avant-garde and bold in the American film market in the 1980s.
, regardless of whether it's "Flyman", "Alien", or any other horror movie. What are we looking for when we are watching horror movies? What are you enjoying again?
△All the pictures in the article are from Giphy
. The value of the horror film probably lies in the fact that after the things in people's imagination are realized by images, we can face those unreasonable and dark, and finally expel them.
Like many successful horror science fiction films, "The Fly" captures a certain deep-seated fear of us, a certain sense of shame that cannot be discussed daily. The process of watching a movie is also the process of our fear of being looked at directly, and through the movie, perhaps at some of these moments, we really surpassed our fear.
