Oh, boy. I can't believe I'm doing this. Be afraid. Be very afraid...becuase this is a contender for grossest film of all time not to be unrated. It is rated R, just keep that in mind, but it is also a great film, if you can stomach it. I will describe to the best of my abilities what happens in the film, but beware. Just looking up images of the film could cause nausea. Let's see how much puke the audience brought to the screen with the grading scale.
So here's the plot:
Enter Seth Brundle. He is a scientist who just doesn't have a social life. Period, end of story. He lives pretty much on his own with two baboons. He is working on an experiment involving teleportation. At a convention for scientists, Brundle meets Veronica, who wants to do an interview, so Seth shows her his lab. Well, its an empty warehouse, but it's good enough.
He demonstrates that inanimate, non-living objects can teleport through, but he says that living objects cannot. Veronica is fascinated by this and prepares to write a story about him. He refuses, but Veronica becomes infatuated with this idea, and eventually with Brundle himself.
Inspired, Brundle gets back into heavy work on his teleportation devices. He tries a few new things and sends one of his baboons through. Unfortunately it is turned inside out and becomes a muck gross messy tangled up version of intestines. He keeps working and at one point manages to transport his other baboon through safely.
In the absence of Veronica, he tries to teleport himself through. Unbeknownst to him, a fly is inside the pod as well, which screw up the computer and manages to combine the molecular structure of a human being with that of a fly. At first he seems even healthier. He is faster, stronger, and even, well, has more sex with Veronica. He believes that this is a sort of perfectionistic quality that has entered him after his successful transportation.
But soon that all goes out the window after a fiery explosion of an argument comes up. Irate, Seth runs off and finds another girl to bring back. Soon Veronica comes back. She had gotten a few funny hairs growing off Brundle's back earlier and had them analyzed by a doctor. The results prove something non-human.
Soon Brundle physically begins to mutate. He begins to grow lesions like that of AIDS, his fingernails begin to fall off, and he figures out about the fly. Soon he begins to inherit more traits of a fly and lose more human features. Teeth, hair, and skin begin to morph or disappear. Veronica, now a little frightened, returns to Brundle occasionally.
Soon Brundle can climb on walls and the ceiling not unlike Spider-Man, and now with all his teeth gone, eats like a normal fly: he barfs up a sort of acid that dissolves the food he can then suck up. It's quite grotesque, yes, but it soon gets worse. Veronica finds out that she is pregnant with Seth's baby. In a nightmare scene considered one of the best or most horrifying scenes in a motion picture, she worries that the baby could in fact be born as a fly mutation, sort of like Seth.
She goes to tell Seth about the baby, but cannot and goes to have an abortion. Seth overhears her and her ex-boyfriend, Stathis, talking about it, and rushes off to the hospital to stop it. He asks Veronica to have the baby in case it is normal, but they both fear that may not be possible.
Stathis, who is afraid for Veronica, breaks in but is attacked by Seth. He does his food eating technique which dissolves Stathis' leg and arm. Just before he can get to his face, Veronica stops him. Brundle makes one last attempt: combine the three into one being, that being himself, Veronica, and the unborn child.
Just before this can happen, the fly transformation just about complete, Stathis, barely alive, cuts the power. Chunks of metal fall into her telepod and Brundle and the metal chunks are combined. In a gruesome final scene, Veronica shoots the mutated creature and cries as she realizes just how horrible the field of science can be in this field.
Now for the rating:
Acting: 10 out of 10. Jeff Goldblum as Seth and Geena Davis as Veronica are both Oscar-worthy.
Entertainment: 10 out of 10. Gross, disgusting, vile, but well-crafted.
Screenplay: 10 out of 10. Extremely well done.
Directing: 9 out of 10. David Cronenberg's masterpiece among masterpieces.
Technical Credits: 10 out of 10. The Oscar-winning makeup is Godawfully fantastic.
Genre Fit: 9 out of 10. A pure horror film but with a little romance thrown in.
MPAA Rating: 6 out of 10. An R rated picture, that's for sure, but the violence and gross level is really high for R.
Stupid Scenes: 10 out of 10. None.
Deeper Message: 10 out of 10. Warns of the dangers of science.
Beginning: 24 out of 30. A little bit of a slow start.
Middle: 30 out of 30. Extremely well-paced, considering the rough cut was about 2 and a half hours.
Ending: 29 out of 30. Wow is all I have to say. Well, that and eww!
Final Rating: 167/180 or 93%. An A. A brilliant, but revolting, motion picture.
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