The Fly (1986) on Netflix
Scientist Seth Brundle shows journalist Veronica Quaife his telepods, which transmit matter between them but mangle living tissue. He tests the device on himself, unaware a housefly is inside.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.6/10227,443 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Seth Brundle, a research scientist, has built the telepods, a pair of pods that transmit matter instantly from one to the other. At a press event he meets the science journalist Veronica Quaife and takes her to his home laboratory to see the invention. She agrees to keep it to herself in return for exclusive rights to the story and begins documenting his work. The pods move inanimate objects, but living tissue comes through mutilated. Seth and Veronica become involved romantically, and he alters the telepod's programming so that it can read living tissue, then teleports a baboon successfully. He sends himself through alone, not knowing that a housefly has entered the pod alongside him.
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Cast
- Carol Lazareas Nurse
- Shawn Hewittas Clerk
- Ann Greenas Restaurant Patron (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Fly (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film was in early preproduction with British director Robert Bierman, hired by producer Stuart Cornfeld after he saw one of Bierman's short films, when Bierman's daughter was killed in an accident during a family holiday in South Africa; Brooks and Cornfeld waited a month before asking him to resume.
- Before Jeff Goldblum was cast as Seth Brundle, John Malkovich was the top choice but declined, John Lithgow turned the part down as too grotesque, and Michael Keaton and Richard Dreyfuss were also considered; Goldblum was proposed because he was willing to wear prosthetic makeup.
- Preview audiences caused two sequences to be cut from the film: the graphic "monkey-cat" scene, removed so viewers would keep sympathizing with Seth Brundle, and the "butterfly baby" coda, dropped after a second screening at the Fox lot in Los Angeles.
- The design of Seth Brundle's telepods was inspired by the engine cylinder of director David Cronenberg's Ducati Desmo motorcycle.
- Chris Walas's company spent three months designing and executing the makeup, starting with the final "Brundlefly" creature and then working back through the stages of Seth Brundle's transformation, which was intended as a metaphor for the aging process.
- Bryan Ferry was commissioned to record the song "Help Me" for the film, with a music video built around footage from it, but Cronenberg liked the song and still felt it was inappropriate for the movie.
- The marketing tagline "Be afraid. Be very afraid." became so ingrained in popular culture that many people who know the phrase do not realize it originated in The Fly.
- Producer Stuart Cornfeld opposed casting Geena Davis because she was Jeff Goldblum's real-life girlfriend, but Cronenberg wanted her and the other actresses were, in Cornfeld's words, "all disasters"; Davis asked Cronenberg to play the gynecologist rather than a stranger.
