besides NEW YEARS EVIL and BLOODY NEW YEAR, its pretty slim pickings for New years horror movies. so i my continuing efforts to bring you whatever the fuck i want, lets talk about the OG version of THE FLY. maybe now when they reference this movie in Beetle-juice i will finally get the joke.
In Montreal, scientist André Delambre is found dead with his head and arm crushed in a hydraulic press. Although his wife Hélène confesses to the crime, she refuses to provide a motive, and begins acting strangely. In particular, she is obsessed with flies, including a supposedly white-headed fly. starting at the end, this movie opens with a crime scene, and the plot quickly becomes solving and understanding the circumstances around this bizarre murder.
knowing that this movie is about a scientist who has spliced himself with a fly is actually kind of a spoiler.
i really wanted to enjoy this movie, but god damn does it open sloooooooooowly. besides opening with a grisly murder scene (that we barely see), nothing of interest really happens for the first half hour. even Vincent Price cant make this slog of an opening less yawn inducing. the good news is that the opening was only so boring because the most interesting character was stuck as a fly, but in the flashbacks we get André Delambre in all of his glory. classic monster movies are nothing without strong leading characters like Boris Karloff and Claude Rains, and David Hedisons perfectly strange scientist André Delambre feels right at home in the genre.
so this movie is started off properly, and no more long boring scenes of people talking... right? well...
this movie is basically just waiting for something to happen for a lot of it run time. there are moments when you think "oh shit, here we go! somethings definitely going to happen now!"
and more often that not it simply doesn't. about half an hour you finally get André Delambre and then you wait. at the hour mark you get a fly hand poking out from his shirt, then you wait. and did i mention you're stuck in this movies purgatory with Patricia Owens as his overacting wife in a world full of theater actors trying to convince you there real people. sorry folks, but only breaking bad can make trying to catch a fly for 30 minutes entertaining.
its strange, movies like this one that start massive franchises are almost always worth watching. this movie has its small moments that are down right amazing, but they are few and far between. i definitely think that kill counts rob some people of the experience of watching the movie, but if there was ever a movie you should just watch a kill count for its this one.
maybe work on your female characters a bit 1958.
seems like a lot of people really love this movie so that's cool for them/10
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