This post will discuss the plot of The Fly in detail. Don't read until you've seen the film
Kurt Neumann's The Fly is a startling sci-fi horror film, even after 60 years and a remake that's become a classic in its own right. The most significant factor which contributes to its unsettling nature is its intimacy. The film employs intimacy in regards to its setting, emotions and psychology to make a domestic horror film. The Fly shows the nuclear family being torn apart. It's also a tragic love story about a woman seeing her husband lose his humanity.
The film begins with scientist Andre Delambre (David Hedison) being found dead-crushed by a hydraulic press. His wife Helene (Patricia Owens) calls his brother Francois (Vincent Price) to confess to his murder. She doesn't provide a motive and is obsessed with a fly with a white head. By telling Helene he has caught the fly Francois persuades her to tell him the circumstances behind Andre's death. Andre was working on a teleportation machine which could send objects from one location to another. Andre tests it on himself but a fly gets in the teleporter with him, resulting in Andre getting the head and arm of a fly. The only way he can possibly reverse the transformation is catching the fly and going through the teleporter again.
The first way the film creates intimacy is regulating most of the story's action to the Delambre's home. This is largely where my idea of The Fly being a domestic horror story arises. Despite the film's fantastical nature, keeping the action mostly in the home makes the story oddly relatable. For example, the sequence where Helene and her son, Philippe, attempt to catch the fly feels like what would occur in this situation. The Delambres having a son makes this a story largely about the nuclear family being disrupted. Moreover, it's a story about a man who is torn between his work as a scientist and his role as a father and husband. It's Andre's ambition as a scientist which interrupted the family's tranquility, bringing this horror in to the household.
The second way the film creates intimacy is the focus on Andre's physical and psychological imprisonment in this fly/human body, losing his ability to think as a human. Andre locks himself in his lab as a form of self-punishment for bringing this horror in to their home. This parallels and stresses his physical/psychological imprisonment. Also, keeping him isolated from his son further shows how the family is being separated by this nightmare. It's the lab that kept him away from his family in the first place. The lab is a constant reminder of the divide between the scientist and the family man.
The film never shows us Andre's transformation and he wears a hood so as not to scare Helene. This is another way the film creates psychological and emotional intimacy in regards its characters. Not showing Andre's accident puts us in Helene's perspective. We share her fear of what happened to her husband. Helene gets Andre to go through the Teleporter again, without the fly. She wants to believe this will reverse his condition. After he comes out she takes off his hood, revealing him for the first time. Her joy at the possibility Andre is restored provides the perfect contrast to her terrified reaction. Showing us Andre's perspective through his fly eyes is also a great and disturbing detail.
The nuclear family is restored in the film's final scene due to Francois being positioned as a father figure to Philippe, with Helene there as well. We also know from earlier in the film that Francois did love Helene. However he didn't want to get in the way of Andre and Helene's relationship. The final scene perhaps feels too neat and tidy but it fits with the motif of the family unit running throughout the film. Francois' final speech about the search for truth being important does feel like an attempt to reconcile the film's dichotomy between dedication to family and dedication to science. Andre was not wrong in his pursuit of knowledge. As Francois says, he was just careless for one moment. As I said, the ending does feel tacked on but it's attempting to resolve the film's major themes.
So, what do you think of the original version of The Fly? Do you prefer David Cronenberg's remake? Comment below and let me know.
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