So I watched “The Fly”

So for many years I have heard of a movie called “The Fly”. A horror movie about a man, who invented a machine that allows him to teleport, but when he uses himself as a test subject, he was transported with a common house-fly, and so his body is now fused with that of a fly. So when I found the DVD, I bought it and watched it.

What did I think of it? It was good. In fact, I dare say it’s better than most movies from around that era and with this specific theme. Most movies that were made back then are about how scientific progress is dangerous, and will destroy us all. I always found this to be hypocrite, because if scientific progress were so bad, then these people would not have been able to make a movie, and everyone working on it wouldn’t have a career. But this movie at least admitted that scientific progress is the same as the search for truth, which is something worth striving for. You just have to know when too much is too much. That is something to like about this movie.

I have to admit that, when I first heard about the movie, and with all the references, promotional material and parodies I’ve come across (like that one Treehouse Of Horror episode of “The Simpsons”), I started thinking that the titular Fly, was Andre Delambre, aka the man with the head and arm of a fly. But as I watched it, the movie wasn’t really about him, but about the characters looking for one specific fly. A fly with a white head and white arm (or more accurately, the fly with the head and arm of a human). So the title wasn’t about Delambre, it was about… well, the fly. It’s a bit like how when people hear the name Frankenstein, they don’t think about the man who created the monster, they think about the monster, despite the fact that he was never given a name. Of course, the fact that the monster is the only character to appear in every Frankenstein movie, the fact that every poster of a Frankenstein movie always has the monster on it, and rarely his creator… let’s just say that the way that people promote the movie, it caused a lot of confusion. “The Fly” is no different. It’s ironic that a movie, who cannot survive without being promoted, is also ruined because of its promotion.

Since I mentioned Delambre already, here’s another thing that I like about “The Fly”: so he first conducted experiments with life-less objects, later with living things. Including a (literal) guinea pig. But his wife didn’t like it, so she made him promise not to experiment with animals anymore. And, true to his promise, he didn’t use an animal, and instead used himself as a (figurative) guinea pig. In other words, all this would have been avoided if his wife didn’t force him into that promise.

But if I have to nitpick on one problem, it is this. So because he teleported himself along with a fly, his body was fused with that of a fly. Why? Even before he teleported himself, he teleported a bottle of champagne, which was in a bucket of ice, that was on a platter, all of which was transported at once. That means that the teleportation machine had to transport glass, paper, glue, ice, whatever material the platter and bucket were made of, and whatever is in that champagne. And yet nothing was wrong. Nothing got mixed up or anything. And Delambre, he’s wearing clothes, is probably even carrying a few germs and mites, but he doesn’t fuse with any of those when he teleported? So how is it possible that he fused with the fly? But like I said, this is nitpicking. It’s a good movie, which I recommend to anybody.