Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:43 — 52.0MB)
What happens when you take Hollywood’s foremost cinematic comedian, pair him with the 80’s headiest gross-out filmmaker, and put them in a transportation pod along with a campy 50’s horror classic? You get something unique, disgusting, and effective: David Cronenberg’s The Fly. Produced by Mel Brooks, and assumed by many to be a comedic send up, a la Young Frankenstein, Cronenberg instead delivered one of the finest movies of his career, anchored by Jeff Goldblum, and featuring the pinnacle of practical special effects makeup. It’s super gross, you guys.
When scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly’s cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle’s girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.
Join Clay and Amanda as they get into the finer points of seemingly-endless supplies of baboons, plot dependent ex-boyfriends, jars full of body parts, sympathetic fly-men, top tier Goldbluming, the worst gastro pub you’ve ever been to, and of course, questionable parenting (but it’s a stretch!).
As one of the more commercial films in Cronenberg’s gory glory days of the ’80s, The Fly shares space with movies like John Carpenter’s The Thing, and Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu as a new, serious take on a dated horror classic. It brings all the best elements of 80’s Cronenberg to the table and covers everything in fleshy globules and existential questions, as well as gives us a rare star turn from Jeff Goldblum, who is undeniably excellent in the role of the doomed Seth Brundle. So get out your antennae, puke on some donuts, kidnap a loved one, and join us this episode as we dive into David Cronenberg’s The Fly…if you DARE!