Amazon.co.uk Review
The Fly
David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of the science fiction classic about a scientist who accidentally swaps body parts with a fly is both smart and terrifying: an allegory for the awful processes of slow death and a monster movie with a tragic spin. Jeff Goldblum gives a masterful performance as a sweet, nerdy scientist whose romance with a writer (Geena Davis) makes him more fully alive. Next thing you know, a tiny oversight in an experiment causes him to transmogrify, gradually, into something more like an insect than a human. This is Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome) country, so expect The Fly to be a gross-out, but in the way that disease corrupts the body and can make a loved one unrecognizable on every level. This is one of Cronenberg's best films, and certainly one of the important movies of the 1980s. --Tom Keogh
The Fly II
Chris Walas, the effects whiz who turned Jeff Goldblum into the gooey, grotesque Brundle-Fly in David Cronenberg's The Fly, makes his directorial debut in this equally icky sequel. Eric Stoltz is Brundle's genetically diseased offspring, a boy genius brought up in an experimental laboratory by a nefarious foster father eager to see what his inevitable metamorphosis will bring. No surprise here: like father, like son. Daphne Zuniga is his sweet young girlfriend, and John Getz reprises his role from the first film as a bitter alcoholic with a very bad fake beard. This cut-rate "Son of the Fly" knock-off pales next to Cronenberg's classic, degenerating into a gory revenge flick. Walas strains under a limited budget, and many of the more elaborate creatures (a monstrously mutated dog, the skeletal fly monster leaping about the warehouse-like lab) are rather shabby. The make-up is suitably gooey, slathered in ooze and pus, and the mayhem-filled finale is a nasty but impressive over-the-top frenzy of blood and gore climaxing in the nastiest piece of poetic justice since Freaks. The opening birth scene (with a look-alike subbing for mum Geena Davis) is an homage to Larry Cohen's It's Alive. --Sean Axmaker
David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of the science fiction classic about a scientist who accidentally swaps body parts with a fly is both smart and terrifying: an allegory for the awful processes of slow death and a monster movie with a tragic spin. Jeff Goldblum gives a masterful performance as a sweet, nerdy scientist whose romance with a writer (Geena Davis) makes him more fully alive. Next thing you know, a tiny oversight in an experiment causes him to transmogrify, gradually, into something more like an insect than a human. This is Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome) country, so expect The Fly to be a gross-out, but in the way that disease corrupts the body and can make a loved one unrecognizable on every level. This is one of Cronenberg's best films, and certainly one of the important movies of the 1980s. --Tom Keogh
The Fly II
Chris Walas, the effects whiz who turned Jeff Goldblum into the gooey, grotesque Brundle-Fly in David Cronenberg's The Fly, makes his directorial debut in this equally icky sequel. Eric Stoltz is Brundle's genetically diseased offspring, a boy genius brought up in an experimental laboratory by a nefarious foster father eager to see what his inevitable metamorphosis will bring. No surprise here: like father, like son. Daphne Zuniga is his sweet young girlfriend, and John Getz reprises his role from the first film as a bitter alcoholic with a very bad fake beard. This cut-rate "Son of the Fly" knock-off pales next to Cronenberg's classic, degenerating into a gory revenge flick. Walas strains under a limited budget, and many of the more elaborate creatures (a monstrously mutated dog, the skeletal fly monster leaping about the warehouse-like lab) are rather shabby. The make-up is suitably gooey, slathered in ooze and pus, and the mayhem-filled finale is a nasty but impressive over-the-top frenzy of blood and gore climaxing in the nastiest piece of poetic justice since Freaks. The opening birth scene (with a look-alike subbing for mum Geena Davis) is an homage to Larry Cohen's It's Alive. --Sean Axmaker
DVD Description
The Fly
A brilliant scientist becomes obsessed with perfecting a device that can transmit matter from one location to another.Successful in his initial tests, he experiments with a human guinea pig-himself. But an ordinary housefly makes the journey with him, and when they emerge, both creatures have been extraordinarily changed. This is the chilling story of a man fighting to retain his humanity,and a desperate woman's attempt to save the man she loves.
Return Of The Fly
The boundaries of science are pushed to their eerie limits in this sequel to the classic, ever-popular The Fly. Here Philipe, the son of the ill-fated scientist, naively continues his father's misguided experiments. The victim of his traitorous assistant's greedy ambitions, Phillipe finds himself in a terrifying limbo-he's grown the head and limbs of a fly! Taking spectacular revenge on his betrayers, Phillipe must also race against time and find a way to reverse the horrifying mutation.
A brilliant scientist becomes obsessed with perfecting a device that can transmit matter from one location to another.Successful in his initial tests, he experiments with a human guinea pig-himself. But an ordinary housefly makes the journey with him, and when they emerge, both creatures have been extraordinarily changed. This is the chilling story of a man fighting to retain his humanity,and a desperate woman's attempt to save the man she loves.
Return Of The Fly
The boundaries of science are pushed to their eerie limits in this sequel to the classic, ever-popular The Fly. Here Philipe, the son of the ill-fated scientist, naively continues his father's misguided experiments. The victim of his traitorous assistant's greedy ambitions, Phillipe finds himself in a terrifying limbo-he's grown the head and limbs of a fly! Taking spectacular revenge on his betrayers, Phillipe must also race against time and find a way to reverse the horrifying mutation.
DVD Description
DVD Special Features
Original Theatrical Trailors
Subtitles:Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwigian, Polish, Portugese, Swedish, English for the hearing impaired
Running Time: The Fly 89 mins appox ; Colour Running Time: Return Of The Fly 76 mins Approx; Black & White
Original Theatrical Trailors
Subtitles:Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwigian, Polish, Portugese, Swedish, English for the hearing impaired
Running Time: The Fly 89 mins appox ; Colour Running Time: Return Of The Fly 76 mins Approx; Black & White
