Transcript

Brundlefly (The Fly)

You have to leave now and never come back here. Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects don't have politics. They're very brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. You see, I'd like to, uh, But— oh, I'm afraid, um—.

Ronnie (The Fly)

I don't know what you're trying to say.

Brundlefly (The Fly)

I'm saying— I'm saying I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.

Ronnie (The Fly)

No, Seth.

Brundlefly (The Fly)

I'm saying, I'll hurt you if you stay.

Steve

It's 2 Dads 1 Movie Shocktoberfest, a celebration of the spookiest movies of the '80s and '90s. Now here are your hosts, Scary Steve Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads, 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are continuing our Shocktoberfest theme with the 1986 David Cronenberg body horror classic, The Fly. And Nic, you brought The Fly to the podcast. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about your history with the movie and why we watched it this week?

Nic

Yeah. So this is one I've, you know, I've known about for a long time. And I had in my memory, uh, from when I was pretty young catching it like on a TV version of it.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

Because there's certain parts of this— because when I watched this, I was like, I for sure haven't seen this before, um, in its entirety. But a couple parts where I was like, I fucking remember, I've never forgotten that since I was a kid. Um, and, uh, and since my picks for horror are typically like kind of not horror traditionally, I thought it'd be cool to have something that's more of a monster movie, like a real Frankenstein-type story. And, uh, and then, you know, Jeff Goldblum, who we like. And, uh, when we first started the pod, we were talking about, uh, Jurassic Park as like the movie that's too popular for us to do and stuff. So we'll get him in in some way.

Steve

We've shifted gears since then and done a couple pretty popular movies, to be honest.

Nic

Uh, so, so I'm good. It's good to have him. But also, um, I had a few film classes in college, and one of them— I don't know if the whole class was on Cronenberg or if we just watched a couple of the movies, not this, but we watched a couple of his other films. And he's just had a lot of very impactful, uh, horror films and definitely a body horror guy, definitely a practical effects, like ultra gruesome. Like think of the most extreme parts of The Thing.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And this is what, what Cronenberg brings to the table. So I thought this would be some real spooky shit to watch for, uh, Shocktoberfest. What about you, Steve? You seen it?

Steve

I had never seen The Fly before, as I mentioned at the end of last week's episode. As although I am a huge horror fan, My sort of, you know, history and interest in horror runs, I love hauntings and possessions, anything haunted house, demonic possession, that ballpark of things I love. Any cult activity, folk horror, anything like, you know, The Ritual or anything like that, the kind of folk horror thing. And then slashers, like I love slasher movies. So body horror is not really my jam. Yeah. When I like body horror, it's because there's enough other things going on in the movie, like The Thing where Carpenter has that. Yeah, the offset. But there's enough other stuff going on. There's good like man versus man psychological things going on too. This is like straight body horror. I'll give it to you. Like, this is, I think, maybe potentially, Nic, the first time you've brought a Shocktoberfest movie that is a like really traditional horror classic. Like, for sure, this is a well-regarded movie in horror circles. Um, and, and unlike the last 2 where we both brought sort of spooky movies, right? Yeah. A sort of horror comedy-ish in The Burbs, and then the more crime thriller with like horror elements last week in Se7en. Uh, this is like a straight horror. So kudos for bringing that. But yeah, this was new to me. I'll be totally honest, I've, I'd been avoiding watching it, just knowing what I know about myself and my sort of lack of interest in body horror. But, you know, hey, it came up on the schedule, let's check it out. Dove into it this week and, um, can't wait to get into it.

Nic

Yeah, dude. And I will say, I mean, like, throughout Cronenberg's movies, there are definitely a lot of parts that just make you reflexively look away. Yeah, that's a thing that he does. Whatever the opposite of a popcorn movie is, yeah, this is like a eat 2 hours beforehand and then not until 2 hours after kind of movie.

Steve

Have like a Dixie cup worth of water nearby to just keep your lips and mouth slightly wet, but don't actually swallow anything. Right, right. Yeah, exactly, 'cause it'll all come up.

Nic

Hell yeah. All right, well, you got some facts for us?

Steve

I got some facts for us. The movie The Fly was released on August 15th, 1986 with an R rating because NC-17 didn't exist yet, and a running time of 96 minutes, directed by David Cronenberg and written by Charles Edward Pogue and David Cronenberg. It stars Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, and John Getz. And the entire listed cast for this film is 12 people. That's it. And one of them is Cronenberg.

Nic

One of the smaller casts we've had.

Steve

Small list, has to be, I feel like.

Nic

'Cause there's like one scene where probably half those people come into.

Steve

Kind of. And there's sort of like, we'll open on a crowd scene or whatever, but really like speaking roles, there's 12. Scores, Rotten Tomatoes gave this 82%. So 82% of critics gave a positive feel on this one. A 7.6 on IMDb, nice solid high score there. We get a thumbs up from Gene Siskel. Roger Ebert didn't do this one. Not sure exactly what the story there is, if he just took a week off or something. I don't know. But we got— I got no thumbs up or down from Ebert, but I got a thumbs up from Gene Siskel on this one. Awards. This is an Oscar-winning film.

Nic

This is crazy. We haven't had an Oscar winner in a while, I feel like. In a while. It's surprising that it's this.

Steve

Well, and last Shocktoberfest we had one as well, 'cause we did The Silence of the Lambs. That's right, yeah. Took home several Oscars. But yes, 1987 Academy Award for Best Makeup. This was the winner. It also had a few wins at the 1987 Saturn Awards. Best Actor for Jeff Goldblum, and Best Makeup. It was also nominated but did not win Best Actress, Geena Davis, Best Director, and Best Music for Howard Shore. This is the 2nd week in a row where we have Howard Shore in a Saturn-nominated but not winning movie as the composer. Oh, yeah. Which is funny.

Nic

We're gonna have to do Shore-tember next year or something.

Steve

Something, yeah. We actually should do a composer-focused October. That would be good. That'd be great. At the 1988 BAFTA Awards, or the British Oscars, 2 nominations, no wins. The nominations were for Best Makeup and Best Special Effects. Totally makes sense that makeup and special effects are kind of where this movie got its plaudits. That makes a lot of sense. On a $15 million budget, it pulled in $60.6 million at the box office. That is a lot of money in 1986 for such a hard R.

Nic

For a movie that's this R. And this is not a date movie in any way. No way. I mean, yeah.

Steve

Yeah. And it kind of came out in the summer blockbuster time, middle of August, it's still summertime. But yeah, pulling in 4 times its budget. As this weird and sort of, I'd assume, divisive movie, it's an accomplishment for sure.

Nic

Yeah, for sure.

Steve

Okay, how does The Fly kick off? Nic, get us started.

Nic

All right, so The Fly, we've got our credits and stuff, but when the movie starts, we're kind of in the middle of a conversation. It doesn't zoom in to establish the characters. It is the Jeff Goldblum character, Seth Brundle, talking to Victoria, played by— Veronica. Veronica. Ronnie, Veronica, played by Geena Davis. And, and young Goldblum looks— he's looking like Mike Damone. He looks good as hell in this. He looks a lot like Adam Friedland, if you know who Adam Friedland is, actually. But he's from The Adam Friedland Show.

Steve

Ah, apropos.

Nic

But he's, he's being very flirty with her. You can tell immediately that Seth is, you know, he's very cocky about what he does. He's a scientist. It's this like art and science, art meets science kind of like gala thing?

Steve

I couldn't tell. What it looked like to me is that it was a science company. They mentioned Bartok a few times. So it was like a pharmaceutical company, scientific research company, whatever, throwing a gala at an art museum is kind of what I think it's supposed to be. And then she gets sent there by the editor of Particle Magazine, which is supposed to be like Omni or whatever science magazine, the kind of thing that just does not exist anymore. And is sent there to go find a good story, talk to these scientists and see who's got a good story sort of thing. And so she's talking to Seth.

Nic

Yeah, and Seth is saying, you know, like, I'm working on something that's gonna change the world.

Steve

Change the world.

Nic

Yeah, like, it's— this is big, right? And he pretty easily convinces her to at least, hey, come see what I'm working on.

Steve

Come see my lab. Yeah,.

Nic

Come check it out. And we get to Seth's lab, and it's this— it's this big open room, you know, kind of like a warehouse type situation. Uh, there's an upright piano in the middle of it, and then there's these 2 pods that could Kind of look like, almost like bug zapper things or beehives, these metallic kind of hive-looking things, like cone, like pear-shaped. How would you describe these to me?

Steve

They look exactly like the pods that the astronauts would use to return to Earth from the space shuttle.

Nic

Yeah, that shape.

Steve

They would have the— there's like the reentry pod, and then it would have like a parachute, and it would land in like the water. It looked kind of like that, except these are like black or dark gray, and those ones were always white. Yeah, but it kind of looked like that to me.

Nic

And he's got, you know, just a ton of books and everywhere, Everything. There's this computer console in the middle, this like the computer station, which is very Halloween 3 Season of the Witch coded.

Steve

Absolutely. Very similar.

Nic

I abbreviated in my notes as H3SOTW, just so you know.

Steve

Okay. As before, I always appreciate that you cannot say the words Halloween 3 without saying the words Season of the Witch.

Nic

Well, it's an important— I love it. There's a lot of witches in that movie who need respect. So, so Veronica is kind of like Oh, cool, like, what do your phone booths do? Like, she didn't really give a shit, right? Oh, yeah. And, uh, and he's like, well, let me show you how it works.

Steve

Right. And he asks her for something specific from her. And this is like smart because it's sort of like, if I did this with something lying around the house, you might say that it was something I planned ahead of time, whatever. So give me something of yours, something that I couldn't have, you know, expected to be here, whatever. She takes off one of her stockings, uh, and gives it to him, and he puts it in one of the pods and like closes the door, types some stuff into his like crazy clackety keyboard computer, and You know, basically the light sort of shines within one of these pods, the pod with the stockings in it. The stocking disappears, and then there's light in the other one. And she goes, okay, so where'd it go? And he's like, over here. And she, you know, he shows her like, it's here and it's still intact. Like, it's, it's the exact same thing. Um, and so she's kind of like getting excited. She gets out her tape recorder and it's like, okay, talk to me. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, I thought this was off the record. It's like, bruh, you invited a journalist to your lab and you thought it was off the record? Like— Seriously.

Nic

It is, it is the classic, like, book genius guy who has no idea how, like, certain interpersonal relationships work, right?

Steve

Nice try.

Nic

Um, and, uh, he's got, like, a voice password on his computer.

Steve

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Nic

I, I like throughout the movie the way that the computer sequences look, the way that they animate it, because it's not done on a computer.

Steve

No, not at all.

Nic

It's animated, but they didn't try to make it look too digitalized.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know, it's an interesting look because it's like no computer in that day looked that way.

Steve

It doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't. Like if you watch WarGames with Matthew Broderick and the way the Whopper computer looks, the screen, it looks very much like those old monochrome monitors looked back then. This one looks different. It does look a little Star Trek-ier. Yeah, it looks a little more advanced.

Nic

Especially when it gets in like showing the diagrams and stuff.

Steve

Yeah. And I feel like that the point there was that this was meant to be almost alien technology, like so advanced that even the modern audiences at the time wouldn't think that it looked like anything that they'd seen. You know, I feel like versus WarGames, which was trying desperately to make it look like, oh no, this is really what like is at your library. Yeah. Same computers are running the fucking nuclear weapons, you know, kind of thing. So yeah, so really trying to look advanced. It's got, you know, there's a lot of this movie that vibes very much like The Thing and John Carpenter. And I feel like that, you know, the— I feel a vibe here between this computer and the chess computer that Kurt Russell like demolished at the beginning of The Thing. There's just something about it that fits like it's, oh, this is clearly the same time period and the same, kind of vibe we're going for, you know?

Nic

Definitely. So Veronica, she has a tape recording of Seth, and now she's playing it for her boss.

Steve

Well, so this is an interesting—.

Nic

The editor of the—.

Steve

He's the editor of Particle Magazine and her ex-boyfriend. And so she does not work for him, but she's a freelance journalist who gets assignments like other freelance journalists do, or did at the time. I don't even know if this really works this way anymore. But like, so the idea is that, 'cause she says at one point, well, I'll take it to Omni or something, whatever. And he's like, oh, whatever. 'Cause he says Brundle's a con man. Like he's like this. This sounds like bullshit.

Nic

Yeah, he's like I. I'm the editor of the science magazine. I hear shit like this all the fucking time.

Steve

Yeah, you got taken. Sorry.

Nic

And what this guy's name is like Stathis or it's.

Steve

The dumbest fucking name ever. Okay. Yeah, Stathis is his first name.

Nic

Once again, hey, and to all the Stathises listening, the Stathi, all due respect to you and your parents' choice in naming you, it's probably related to a long-lost relative that you loved very much. But If you're writing a script, you have to have a name that people can work with. It's the Rourke syndrome from River Wild.

Steve

So we were talking last week about Seven, and I made a point to point out character names and William Somerset and David Mills being such great character names for that. And I think both Seth Brundle and Stathis whatever, and it's like Stathis Bream or something weird. It's like they sound so bizarre. They don't sound like real people at all. And maybe that's the point. Like, I will give it to Cronenberg and Witkog, the writers. Yeah, maybe they're very specifically giving us these alien names to go with this feel, but it still stands out. And I didn't—.

Nic

Status is very weird. I don't like it. I don't like saying it. I'm just gonna say editor guy. The Seth Brundle thing, actually, I read that the— was it Cronenberg is a big fan of like car racing or something like that? And there was a race, a driver with the last name Brundle that Seth Brundle was named after. But yeah, it seems like that's the name of like a dipshit, you know? Like, yeah, it's like a McCoyle type. Oh, the Brundles. Like That's not a smart guy name.

Steve

No, I agree. That's— it's, it's the name of a moron. Yeah. And, and, and he's clearly not— the character's clearly not a moron. Right. So like, you know, but it's a weird choice, I feel like. Um, I think they also were very specifically looking for something that sounded like it could prefix the word fly. Yeah. So that we could have Brundlefly later. Because Brundlefly works.

Nic

I like that.

Steve

Brundlefly works a hell of a lot better than Seth Brundle does.

Nic

Uh, so, uh, so he says, uh, Seth wants to take— he wants to take, uh, Veronica out to lunch, right? He's like— she's talking about magic. He's like, I got a magic word for you: cheeseburger. You know, he takes her, he takes her out to lunch and he's telling her like, I can only teleport inanimate objects. This thing works and it works every time. I can only teleport inanimate objects and not living things. And she goes, well, what happens when you teleport living things? He's like, I'm not gonna tell you right now, we're eating.

Steve

Not while we're eating.

Nic

Which is funny, like he's so repulsed by it.

Steve

And the way when they're sitting there talking, and this is, this is, uh, a combination of things, and I feel like I can't tell how much of this is Goldblum and how much of this is direction from Cronenberg because it fits the character too well to be accidental. But the way Goldblum's eyes kind of dart around as he's talking, it's the thing is that Goldblum has done that before and will do it in other movies. So it's not like wholly unique to this story, but it is such wonderful foreshadowing in so many ways to what happens to him later. Yeah. And the way his mannerisms shift over time, there is already this hint of You know, an almost kind of ADHD-like inability to focus, and like you know which would fit the brilliant cast character, right? Yeah, like exactly.

Nic

Goldblum had been in stuff before this, but I don't think he was the star.

Steve

Was he? This is before or after Earth Girls Are Easy?

Nic

This is before.

Steve

Before that. Okay.

Nic

All right. So he wasn't like that. He was in the big chill. Like he was in a lot of ensembles that that were important, but but he wasn't.

Steve

Like yes center.

Nic

So whoever's decision it was to be like, hey, we gotta find a kind of a twitchy guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To cast this. Like it works very well.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And, and what Seth is telling Veronica is like, hey, don't write this piddly little article. Like, fuck Particle Magazine.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Follow me around. I'll let you in the lab. You'll get to see everything happen. You can document it. Write a book.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

But don't— you can't release anything until I've unveiled this, like, technology.

Steve

Or at least until— I think it's like, at least I perfected it. Like, like, once it works the way it needs to work, then let's tell everybody. But like, if you tell them now, it's just gonna derail things. Because people are gonna assume it does things it doesn't, and I'll look like an idiot, like whatever. 'Cause he's absolutely right. Like, you know, if you came and said, oh, we can teleport stuff from point A to point B, oh, by the way, only inanimate, solid, like carbon-based objects. Like, it's like, well, who cares? Like, I guess it's fine for shipping. Yeah. If you've got pods, like, you know, one in New York and one in LA, okay, cool, instant shipping. But like, that's not that useful necessarily the way he's doing it. So he makes a good point there. So Veronica goes home, kind of mulling over, I feel like, this choice, or she's gonna do it, whatever. But she goes home and her, you know, there's somebody in her apartment. Like, she can hear the shower going and it's like, what the fuck? And so she sees and it's fucking Stathis. And he's just in there and he's like, I was in the neighborhood, felt grimy. And it's like, what the fuck?

Nic

Jesus shit.

Steve

But this is where we find out they dated. She had given him a key when they dated and had not changed the locks. He keeps the key and even by the end of this scene mentions that he's gonna hold onto it. It's like, bruh, give her the goddamn key back.

Nic

Go to fucking Mordor and throw it in. That is not your key anymore, dude. Yeah. That he's like, well, why do I still have a key? She's like, cuz I'm lazy, and whatever she says. So good point about her self-image, or why she'd even like let him keep having the key and keep like allowing him back into her life.

Steve

At one point she sits at her dining table here to like smoke a cigarette or whatever, and her ashtray is the size of a frisbee. It looks like a dog bowl. It's the biggest fucking ashtray I've ever seen in my life. It takes up like a fifth of the dining table. It's enormous.

Nic

It's only for like Max Katie's like giant cigar that he smokes inside the movie theater.

Steve

I think it would have been awesome if it was like stacked with like 50 or 60 cigarette butts that she just never clears.

Nic

Um, so, so she's back, uh, with Seth, right?

Steve

Oh God, where does he get a baboon from?

Nic

I, I wrote down that he's got a baboon guy. He's got a baboon guy. And the one thing I'll say is like, have you ever heard of a fucking rat? I mean, right? Guinea pig. There's a reason that that's like a colloquialism. Like something, dude. Don't think that's something that you can teach a fucking multi-step handshake to.

Steve

I get that it's not an ape, at least it's not a chimp or whatever, an orangutan, but like it's close, man. It's only one step further away than that. You could have done this to a fucking goldfish. Yeah, you really could have. Like,.

Nic

So he leads the baboon into one of the teleporters or transporters.

Steve

Yeah,.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And telepod.

Nic

Telepod. Okay, we'll go telepod. And he plugs it in and you can see that it disappears from one location and then the second location Even when the stocking went to the second location, there's a lot of like fog and stuff inside there, so you can't see immediately. As you can't see anything, they're kind of waiting, and then it's like a bloody paw like kind of punches the window a little bit.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And then there's nothing. And when they walk up there—.

Steve

Well, and I'm like, why the fuck are you opening this thing? Like, this thing's gonna come— whatever it is is about to fly out at you, right?

Nic

Because I, I— my initial thought was like, oh, it becomes evil or some shit like that, right? And, uh, and they look in there and way worse than that. Yeah, it's turned inside out.

Steve

So that's a term he uses. I don't actually think that that's what it was supposed to look like, right? It's just that it reconstituted all the atoms in like random order.

Nic

It— I watched it. Yeah, I mean, it looks— it's not an exact inside out, but it does have like extremities and stuff like that, like kind of a shape. Yeah, but it's just fucking disgusting. Very The Thing.

Steve

Yes, it looks very much like when The Thing first gets into the dog pen. Yeah, it's very much like that sort of thing, although Bloodier. I feel I feel like more blood, less slimy looking. This is.

Nic

Really.

Steve

Carpenter's body horror stuff. Maybe this is why it's easier for me to take. It's far less bloody. Everything's slimy and more alien looking. Alien exactly. This is like just yeah, it looks like a fucking inside out animal. It's it's horrific. And but yeah, there it is, and it's disgusting. This.

Nic

And then who cleans this up?

Steve

Yeah, nobody mentions it, but it does apparently get cleaned up. Also, apparently this is Ronnie's kink. Because, uh, she gets incredibly horny for Seth and they make out at least and possibly bang at this point. Like, it's— it— so turning a baboon inside out is just— that gets her motor, that gets her engine running.

Nic

That really gets her horned up.

Steve

So gross that they end up hooking up.

Nic

Like, it is right there. That's the kind of thing I would be like, oh, okay, my dick is off duty for like 2 and a half years now. Like, I'm not—.

Steve

I can't—.

Nic

I, I can't be around anything. Yeah. And Seth does— he has a lot of scientist quirks, you know. One of them, she's like, what, are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday? He's like, no, these are clean clothes, they're different clothes. I have a whole closet. He has like the Ronald McDonald closet where it's just like the same outfit. For some reason has like 10 pairs of shoes too. This is like, you don't wear shoes like that. Whatever, fucking scientist.

Steve

Um, he said he learned it from Einstein. No, you didn't. Shut the fuck up. You learned, you learned it from your OCD.

Nic

Like When they're on the bed, they're kind of rolling around on the bed. Yeah. And he like rolls a— it's like a loose computer chip or something like that?

Steve

Yeah, it looks like a little module, some kind of thing that should be soldered to something somewhere else. And it's like, it like really digs into his back and kind of cuts him in a few— he's got like 3 little cuts then on his back that apparently are very important for later. But yeah, basically they're talking about why it didn't work, like what happened to the baboon. And he gets this like epiphany. And so he says something about, The, uh, you know, he— so, no, so he starts with a steak because she like brought steaks to make or something, right? So he cuts one steak in half, he puts one of the halves into the telepod. Again, apparently the other one's completely cleaned up because, oh my God. Yeah. Uh, teleports it over. Sure enough, it arrives and it looks like a steak. So then he cooks them both and he has her try them, and she jokes about his cooking not being very good, but like, oh, that tastes like a steak. And then he tries— shows her the one that's been transported, and she's like, wait, this was inside things? Like, I cleaned— he like says something about, I cleaned it up, but whatever. But she tastes it and goes, no, this tastes wrong. It tastes like synthetic or something. It doesn't taste right.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And when he goes on to explain that the computer had to like estimate what the result would be, it wasn't really moving anything. It had to like, you know, understand the decomposition in order to recompensate and whatever the thing or recompose the thing. I realized this is how LLMs work, by the way. This is literally how, quote, AI works, is that it's a computer taking in inputs and then guesstimating what an output like what's being requested might be and puts it out. It's, it's a text prediction thing. It's the same thing. This is doing it with genes.

Nic

Yeah, no, it's, it's, uh, that, that's a great point. Um, and also, if you're doing this, I would go pantyhose, steak, baboon.

Steve

Yeah, right. Poor fucking baboon.

Nic

Or what, what if he— yeah, he gets it out of the thing. He's like, oh, here's the teleported steak. She's like, this is disgusting. He's like, oh, actually, that might have been a piece of something else. I'm sorry.

Steve

Let me brush that baboon off of there for you. Sorry, just a little extra speck of baboon.

Nic

Um, but Veronica, like, when they're in bed together, she starts going crazy and talking about, like, the flesh and how, you know, she can't get enough of the flesh or whatever. And then that leads into the steak thing, which is weird for her character because—.

Steve

But except that, again, the baboon getting turned inside out revved her engine, got her horned up. So I guess she's just like that.

Nic

This— well, look,.

Steve

She's a big Cronenberg fan.

Nic

I was gonna say Cronenberg, uh, made a movie in the '90s called Crash, not the not the one that won. But it's about people who have like a sexual fetish about like gruesome injuries and like wounds and scars and stuff like that. And James Spader is like one of the main characters, and he'll like go to scenes of like car crashes and stuff to try to like get a peek. He's like perving out trying to get a peek. So it's like she is. It's like the seed of like that type of thing, and maybe Cronenberg himself because honestly like. How are all of his movies? It sounds a little right.

Steve

It sounds a little like a foot fetish scene showing up in a Tarantino flick.

Nic

For sure, dude. Veronica has been followed to Seth's lab. Here we see the the boss's Maserati with the license plate that says Particle on it. I love the fucking vanity plate that has no creativity built into it.

Steve

Are we? He's the editor. Are we supposed to believe that he invented slash is the publisher slash created it, or is he just like, "I love my company. I'm gonna get a." I'm gonna get the company I work for that could fire me at any time. I'm gonna get the fucking vanity plate for.

Nic

It. Everyone needs to realize you have less protection than the average NFL player when it comes to your job security. Like, don't, don't get a tattoo of fucking Oracle or whatever the fuck.

Steve

And even NFL players don't have guaranteed contracts, so.

Nic

Oh, they don't. Um, yeah, the boss is like, he's such a fucking dick. So now she's— she— he's followed her. Now she's like in a clothing store, right? And, uh, and he's just being such an asshole. Like, come on, what do you find out? Like, let me have it. Like, you're taking this story from me.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Like, he suspects, you know, what's going on here, uh, and she's like, fuck you, I don't have to report to you. I don't work for you anymore. Um, so while this is happening, she's like with him, and, uh, and Seth is back. He's supposed to meet up with her later that night, I think.

Steve

Yeah. And, and he's— because he's been working on sort Making this better.

Nic

Getting the meat transported.

Steve

Exactly, figuring out how to sort of do that. And so supposedly he kind of does figure it out and we get another baboon sacrifice. Although this time at least Seth is, he seems to believe that it's not going to, you know, that it'll work this time kind of thing. So he's trying again. I don't know what this guy's got against baboons. Yeah. But basically, you know, he puts the baboon through and the baboon, Makes it. Yeah, and it's fine.

Nic

Jumps out, comes out, jumps into his arms, and he is super psyched, right?

Steve

And and Ronnie's I think Ronnie either shows up or is there to celebrate with him. Like like she celebrates the baboon part, I think, and then is like, you know, well, let's let's wait a few days and see if anything happens. Like if anything, right?

Nic

We like test the baboon, get the baboon tested, whatever.

Steve

So he says he says send the baboon out to a lab or something, and then whatever. So she says she's got to go, and this is like I don't remember exactly why he's so suspicious of all this, but it's like something about. She says something about Stathis or like whatever. Like basically he, Seth here gets very jealous.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And very upset about her leaving to go whatever. And basically gets drunk and decides to try it out himself.

Nic

Yeah. This is crazy. This is definitely, he's high on his own supply like fucking crazy here.

Steve

You're fine, baboon.

Nic

Stathis did leave like under the door, there was an envelope from Particle Magazine that had like a cover story mockup of like Brundle, you know, showing him like, hey man, like let us publish your shit. Like this is, this is what you're gonna have. And that, and he's really like claiming ownership of the story over, over Veronica. And he does like openly suggest like, like, oh, why don't we just have sex? Which is really funny.

Steve

Like, yes, like not love. I'm not interested. But just, you know, just good old raw sex. How about that?

Nic

This guy, he's incredibly Ellis-coded. He reminds me a lot of Ellis. The beard especially.

Steve

Yeah, the beard. I usually like a good full beard. This guy's beard. Yeah. It turns me away. I mean, mainly I think because I've seen the actor in so many things, never with a beard. Yeah. Uh, but you know, yeah, it really threw me off.

Nic

Uh, yeah, so, so Brundle is— yeah, he's drunk now. He's, he's like, fuck Veronica, she's not gonna come here for this. Yeah, I'm just— he's talking to the baboon.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like, you're fine, this will be fine.

Nic

Like, yeah, yeah. So he decides to go into the telepod,.

Steve

Right? And when he does, a fly flies in and is inside the pod with him. He doesn't notice. He's in there naked and the fly's in there and the whole thing sort of— you can put like a timer on it. It's sort of like a selfie on an old, you know, camera on a tripod. So it's a countdown and it sends over, but only, you know, the fly doesn't come back, right? When he arrives, it's just him. And he's been filming it so that he could at least show Ronnie this, you know, when she does get back.

Nic

And he, like, before the countdown is done, when he's in the pod, he looks up and he clearly sees the fly there.

Steve

Oh, you think so?

Nic

He looks up right at it. He does. Unless the camera is just showing us that he's looking in a direction so that it can focus on the fly. But I, I think that he sees it and chooses to ignore it.

Steve

But it's—.

Nic

I, I felt like either way, he's not being careful here.

Steve

No, he's clearly not being careful. But yeah, it's like, I don't know, like, he does seem surprised when he later discovers that there was like a secondary—. The computer tells him there's a secondary life form.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

He seems surprised by that fact. But, but basically he's laying in bed now, right, with, with Ronnie?

Nic

Well, so he emerges— yeah, he emerges T2 naked from the, uh, from the pod. And the baboon jumps into his arm and stuff, and he's all excited, and he's like, oh, too bad Ronnie missed it.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

So yeah, now she's— now she's back, and he's like asleep.

Steve

And yeah, he's asleep. She climbs into bed with him, and he ends up like laying in bed, and a fly is buzzing around, and he is able to like— like Mr. Miyagi— just grab it. And it's like, okay, so his reflexes are crazy.

Nic

And then he lets it go.

Steve

Yeah, he lets it go. And then, uh, Ronnie wakes up and he's not in bed, so she walks up and he is covered in sweat, like out in the main part of his room. Doing fucking gym kata calisthenics.

Nic

I love it. It's just you know we've we've had a lot of recent randomly placed gymnastics equipment like in the Princess Bride. So yeah, it was great to see some gym kata work here.

Steve

Even was a while ago, but the Breakfast Club right has gymnastics over the book stacks. We got to do gym kata at some point.

Nic

We have to. We have to. It gets referenced too much.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Yeah. So. So he's like sitting on a chair and like pushes himself upright on the chair with his legs sticking straight out. Oh my God. Like all this crazy stuff. And then lifts them up, like it's ridiculous. And goes into a hand— like a headstand from that. And then is like swinging on this— I feel terrible for this pipe that's in his kitchen. It's like, how is this holding the weight of like a 180-pound guy just swinging? But he's doing all this crazy like parallel bar activity here. And again, you don't wanna have special effects necessarily. Yeah, right. So to use this double is a smart way of just showing like how energized he's feeling just one day after going through, as he calls it.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And, uh, and coming through the other side of the teleporter.

Steve

I love that they got an actual gymnast and put a Jeff Goldblum wig on him basically to do that, which— it looked good. I mean, you couldn't— they did the, the— everything was good. It looked like a good double.

Nic

So yeah, yeah.

Steve

But then the next day they're, uh, getting coffee together, uh, Seth and Ronnie, and his face is starting to look Funky.

Nic

He's got he's got a little quite sores.

Steve

Yes, maybe acne something, and he is dumping sugar into his coffee. She even says to me, "Do you want some coffee with your sugar?" It's like fuck you. That's a stupid joke. But you know dump dump dump sugar sugar sugar, and he's talking like twenty miles an hour. I mean so fast.

Nic

Cocaine behavior. Yes. I mean this is like very cocaine-ish, right? Yep. And and he's yeah his energy level. He was already kind of like a jittery nervous guy, right? Twitchy looking around and yeah to. Crank it up. Yeah, is, is nuts. Um, and, uh, and they end up back at his place, and then clearly he's able to have like incredible endurance in bed, right? They're fucking constantly, and she says, like, I gotta fucking stop. Oh man.

Steve

But then she, while they're naked together, she finds these coarse hairs, and it's sort of like where that, that, uh, microchip or whatever like cut his back. Now there's these really coarse, like, what look like hairs coming out And she notices for the first time and is like, well, that's fucking weird, you know?

Nic

Yeah, and she cuts them off.

Steve

Yeah, she does, she clips one. And he like reacts as if it was more than a hair. Like he reacts to clipping.

Nic

Right, like he could feel it for sure.

Steve

Like he could feel it and everything. It was interesting. And he tries to convince her to go through. And he's all like, you gotta go through. Like this has turned me into a superhuman. Like you gotta join me now.

Nic

After like 2 days, right? Oh, real fast, yeah. And he's just like, oh, it's the perfect drug. And the only, you know, except that it's all natural and there's no consequence and I will never suffer any consequence.

Steve

I will say it seems quick, but also there are definitely points in this movie where it jumps time isn't real clear to us how much.

Nic

So there's—.

Steve

It's tough to follow the timeline entirely, but it does seem quick after the thing. But they're also clearly like, you know, in this relationship now. They're not just like, yeah, you know, seeing each other. Like, they're like dating dating. And so it—. Time is passing. Um, but you know, he—.

Nic

And he's kind of going off on her about like, like, come on, go through, like, go through. And she's like, no, I know. And he doesn't even have time for her to answer, right? He's one of— like, you talk to people in that state sometimes. Fuck. And, uh, and he's like, whatever, you're a drag, you're lame, I'm gonna go find somebody who can keep up with me.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And he heads out, goes to like this like rough looking— yeah, very Double Deuce, like a smaller Double Deuce, like a—.

Steve

Yeah, kind of bar.

Nic

Um, and the bar that Sam Elliott would have worked at.

Steve

There you go. Yeah, exactly. And he sees these 2 guys arm wrestling, and he walks up to this lady, basically this woman there, and it's kind of like, hey, like, you know, you want to come with me kind of thing, whatever. And the guys are obviously with her, get up and like, you know, hey, whatever, You have a problem, bud? And he's like, well, I could arm wrestle either one of you and win. And they're like, haha, 'cause he looks kind of scrawny, right? But he knows he's got this crazy superhuman strength now. And so they're like, all right, I'll bet you $100 that I can beat you in arm wrestling. And if I win, I get to take the lady home. And she's like, do I get a say in this? It's like, no, it's 1986. Yeah, you won't.

Nic

Get a say for.

Steve

At least 10, 15 more years. But no, so he does. He goes to arm wrestle the fat guy. By the way, the skinny guy, not the guy who gets his wrist broken. The skinny guy is David Cronenberg, just so you know that that is who he is.

Nic

Oh, okay, he put himself in there too.

Steve

He put himself in there just in that part of the movie. But yeah, so he, uh, Seth goes to arm wrestle this guy, and it's really interesting because it doesn't— I figured he would just, you know, kind of quickly— I don't know if he's toying with the guy or whatever, but it takes a while to really go. And then when he finally does push through, he like rips the man's hand off, basically.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Compound fracture of the wrist.

Nic

Breaks the wrist, and you see the bone come out. It's a really gnarly effect. And then this is something that when I saw it as a kid, yeah, this is— this stuck with me, this part.

Steve

This stayed in the TV.

Nic

So I don't know, I don't know if I Was my dad was watching it or something? But I think they could show it because it's like there's not that much blood. It is just an injury.

Steve

That's true.

Nic

So certain times it might have been shown,.

Steve

Especially if it was like the late night movie, even if it was on like you know the local yeah Fox affiliate or something.

Nic

Right, right. Um, so now uh so Seth so he wins disgusting. I I wrote yuck and ooh so many times in my notes here. Yeah, so he wins and then his prize is that he's Going home with this bar floozy,.

Steve

Tanya, I think is her name. And it's like all I'm thinking the whole time is, girl, this guy is going to kill you. Like why would you go with this person? Where are you going with him? He just ripped apparently a friend of yours, or at least someone you know, ripped his fucking hand off. And you're like, yeah, I'm gonna hang with this guy some more. What the fuck is this?

Nic

Yeah, she's something like not the best decision maker. But what she says when he's like, do you want to go home? She's like, well, let's go out more. So yeah, I think we're led to believe that they go out and they're. Drinking more or whatever. Um, at least she's getting drunk, right? Clearly he probably metabolizes the liquor quickly or something.

Steve

Yeah, maybe he doesn't drink anything.

Nic

Uh, so when they get home, he's— she's like, oh, you don't have an elevator to this place? And he's like, oh, I got an elevator. And he picks her up. And this is another, another cool way to shoot this.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Is it would look stupid if you had like a clear shot of him like running up the steps holding her. So it's just showing the feet kind of like get more like hoppy as he goes up, you know? Super fast. So he's like Sprinting up the stairs with her.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And and then it cuts to you know she's they've clearly been fucking for a long time. She's very like worn down watching him, and he emerges from the telepod. You know, to be like, see now you do it. Like get in, get in. Yeah, he's he's not a good guy, right? Oh yeah. And he's like, come on, come on. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. And then Veronica has shown up there, and she goes, oh be afraid. Be very afraid. So dumb. So cheesy. Jeannie hated that. Yeah, that line. You know, so this movie was— it's not in the credits. This movie's producer, one of them, was Mel Brooks. He was somebody who made sure that this movie got made, like when it, when it came out. And he, because he was a fan of Cronenberg from something and like wanted to make sure Cronenberg gets final cut on it and everything, Mel Brooks didn't want his name in the credits because he didn't want people to see this as like a Mel Brooks, right?

Steve

Something involving him. Okay.

Nic

But his like one suggestion is that the Be Very Afraid should be like the tagline for the movie. So that was like what a Mel Brooks thing. So I don't know if he wrote this line or this line was there, but he had it like kind of emphasized or whatever. I.

Steve

Gotta be honest with you, Nick, when you started that Mel Brooks story, I couldn't tell if you're doing a bit or not.

Nic

Oh, that's my thing. I don't want anyone to know. Yeah, I thought that was, that was interesting. And, uh, Mel Brooks just like making, pulling strings in Hollywood and stuff. Um, so Veronica is telling Seth like Look, you look bad. I had these hairs analyzed at the lab.

Steve

Insect hairs.

Nic

And yeah, they were unable to identify what they are. They said it seems like insect hands. Like, you look sick.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And then.

Steve

Because his face now is— they're sores. They're not just acne. It's like bad. Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

And again, like, is this movie being an allegory for so many things? You know, it's like, like certain drugs, like a cocaine thing. Now he's in like the roid rage phase. Like he's like a steroid monster, right? His skin looks bad and everything and he's super strong. And he does one of the funniest things where she's He's like, does this look like a sick man? And then just starts punching bits of wood off his wall. Off of like a beam.

Steve

It's a beam. It's a load-bearing piece of structure.

Nic

Like an 8 by 8 inch. Exactly. Fucking crazy thing. It's.

Steve

Like, yes, you do look like a psycho, psycho.

Nic

If you ever want a girl to stay, definitely start punching the wall. Yeah, it's gonna make her—.

Steve

So this is when— and this is right about where—.

Nic

Oh, this is where the movie doesn't get good for you.

Steve

It gets bad for me in particular. I enjoyed the movie to this point. I didn't love the movie at this point, but I enjoyed it more than from this point on. Because when his fingernails start coming off, that was the first time that I was like— I mean, the baboon was gross, but that again was a little more like horror movie stuff that I got used to. But like the fingernails coming off really sent me off the deep end.

Nic

And the tooth thing. I mean, they know, you know, those things are so triggering for people to see.

Steve

It's meant to elicit a response, and it did just that. I'll give it to them.

Nic

When they show a close-up of his hand, he has very Like aside from the fingernail coming off, just very disgusting looking hands, right? And they're kind of like bulbous at the fingers and and everything. So he pulls the fingernail, and then it cuts to Goldblum like just you know his whole body. Yeah. And you see his hand, and he has beautiful perfect hands. They didn't put like a prosthetic fake gross hand on him in that scene.

Steve

That's funny.

Nic

So.

Steve

But he goes to the computer basically, and he starts doing analysis.

Nic

What's happening? Like am I dying? Like How could my perfect science have gone wrong?

Steve

Right, the thing I tried once and didn't turn the baboon inside out, so I put myself in. But yeah, basically it gets— the computer says, yeah, there were 2 life forms, there's this and this, and it's able to identify the second one as a fly, basically. And it's like, and then he types, well, what happened? Where did the fly go? Did Brundle consume fly? Like, it's a very weird little— the way he communicates with this computer. And then it's like, no, fusion of Brundle and fly was what—.

Nic

Yeah, at the molecular and cellular level.

Steve

The molecular genetic level, yeah, whatever it is. And it's like, okay, so you have been blended with a fly. You're not like— it's like neither the fly nor Seth Brundle is gone. Yeah, but it's something else, right? Entirely.

Nic

Right. And it's not like there's just a full fly in the middle of his mouth chilling. It's like, no, you're all mixed, dog.

Steve

Um, and this is one of the points where we get a hint that there's been some significant time that passes, because then when he does talk to Ronnie on the phone, he says something about like, I haven't wanted to talk to you in the last 4 weeks because like I'm trying to figure stuff out or whatever. But he is now— he's fucking disgusting now. It's like he's really starting to fall apart as a flesh and bone person.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. And he's still mostly Goldblum face, but very gross. A lot of, a lot of makeup and stuff.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, yeah, he's really gross. And, uh, when she gets to his lab, he's moving around in a very odd way. Like, he has to use these 2 canes to kind of move himself around there. And, um,.

Steve

Yeah. He's like losing bone density or something or whatever.

Nic

Yeah, and she's like, you know, talking to him, and he's like, I'm not Seth Brundle anymore. Oh, and there's like all sugary foods. Yes, like the waste of sugary foods, like all over the place, donuts and stuff. So he takes a donut, he goes to eat the donut, and he spits this goo. It's like white, you know, enzyme that flies have or whatever that.

Steve

They can't digest anything. Yeah,.

Nic

Digest the food, and that— very gross. His His ear comes off.

Steve

Oh God, yes.

Nic

Um, and then she fucking hugs him. I would be very loving from afar for somebody like that in that situation. I'm not hugging shit if your ear just fell off.

Steve

And this is where I feel like the time between them meeting and him really turning had to be kind of longer than the movie necessarily lets us know, because like, they— she needed to build up like love for him to be reacting this way. And it's like, I don't really understand how that could have happened over just a week or two, right?

Nic

You know? Good to, to see. We need the montage from, uh, so they're naked, where they clothesline the people on the beach.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Nic

But yeah, just any of those, like, the dating montage.

Steve

We need some kind of time-passing dating montage. We didn't really get it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Uh, and I feel like really it was the amount of time between them getting together and, and sort of meeting and him getting the telepod to work. That was probably a lot of time, but we don't really get a sense of how long because, yeah, she's clearly like in love with her, I mean, I mean, in love with him, but like loves him, feels for him, and is like very, you know, concerned and very worried and whatever. Whereas they also haven't spoken in 4 weeks, so like, yeah, it's a very strange relationship, right?

Nic

Because it was so short before that, potentially very short. So like your commitment is, uh, is done. And she sees him— this is a really cool effect. Oh yeah. Where he's walking on the ceiling. He's, uh, he's trying to have— he's trying to have Veronica take like a demonstration video. He's like, yo, I'm not— oh yeah, I'm not Seth Brundle anymore. I'm the Brundlefly, right? Yeah. And, uh, and he's explaining the enzyme thing again, right? And he's, oh, I vomit this onto my food and it liquefies it back up. And at this point, at this point, I'm watching with my wife. She has never been more interested in her crossword puzzle. She is fully like, oh my God.

Steve

From this point on in this movie, I pretty much was grimacing, I think, the whole time as I watched it. I'm so funny because my wife Heather, she said like, um, she— before I started, she's like, oh, have you ever seen The Fly? And I'm like, No, and she's like, "I'm pretty sure I've seen it." Like God, really? Because it's so. I've heard it's so gross. She goes, "Oh, I don't know if I remember it being that gross." We realized afterwards she definitely had never seen The Fly. I'm not sure what movie she was thinking of, but it wasn't this, or it was heavily edited or something. Because yeah, like when I was explaining something, she goes, "Oh yeah, I don't think I've seen that," which is just not. She doesn't wouldn't take me as someone who stomachs this kind of film. Never one I would recommend to her. But yeah,.

Nic

So yeah, so Veronica has discovered yes that she's pregnant.

Steve

That she's pregnant. With and has only been having sex with Seth. So, and of course it was after he turned that they had their marathon fuck sesh that like she had to quit from, right? Uh, so this is, this is Brundlefly that has impregnated her, not just, uh, pre-fly Brundle,.

Nic

Right? At least from what we've been shown, like that's the most likely thing. But even if there's a possibility, seeing what's happening to him, it's like, yeah, all right, this is, this has got to go. And she reaches out to Stathis.

Steve

Yes. And he, and he offers to like help her out, right? Right. And so they go and, and kind of like go to get the abortion done in the middle of the night, and everybody's like, really? He's like, just let's take care of this, right? So she gets onto the table or whatever, and they're, you know, it's like a DNC. They're trying to like, you know, eject whatever's inside of her, but what comes out is a fucking full thrashing maggot, like a baby fly larva. And she wakes up from the nightmare, and so that was just a dream. But what's not a dream is that she's actually pregnant.

Nic

Yeah, right. So the problem still exists when she wakes up. Um, so at this point, uh, we're back with the Brundlefly, and his face is completely transformed now. He looks like the Toxic Avenger.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I've got the style, but nothing green about him, right?

Nic

And, and what his research is kind of telling him, or what he's— the conclusion he's come to is that the way to become human again is I have to teleport with more humans. And I don't understand how he feels like this is gonna work. It's like, I just need more human DNA in me to dilute this fly DNA.

Steve

Yeah, I think that's the thing. He's just— he's basically just, uh, uh, guessing, essentially. Like, it's a hypothesis. Like, I don't think he has any reason to actually know this would work, because God knows what'll come out the other end if you're continuing to splice stuff together. Right. But the theory is like, well, if let's say it's not a size thing so much as a number of different components thing, if I'm half fly, half human, if I then blend with another human, then I'll be quarter fly, 3 quarters human. Maybe that'll be better. And it's like— and then he talks, because Ronnie's pregnant, he mentions like, well, we'll be a whole family. Yes, one person, including— it'll be the 3 of us. And all of a sudden she's like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Nic

Yeah, it's so crazy. And, um, so Brundlefly continues to lose body parts, right? And he's keeping like kind of a little museum of his shit. It looks like one has a jar with his dick in it. There's one that doesn't have a dick in it. Or, uh, or whatever. Very gross. And he's very proud of it. And so like during this time that he's becoming more gross, like he's not bothered by it. No, no, no, he's just kind of fascinated by it.

Steve

And he believes that he is like some kind of advancement of evolution as well, that he's like this new life form, right? You know, and that's very important and people should want to study him and to whatever, you know, this stuff. Um, and so he'd tell— but he tells her she needs to go. Right? I mean, because he says, I'll hurt you if you stay,.

Nic

Right? He's like, you gotta leave and never come back. And he goes into this kind of weird speech about like, you know, insects don't have politics. They have no politics. I could be the first insect politician. You know what's funny? And, and I get the purpose of the scene is to show that he's losing his fucking mind.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

But he's also realizing that like, I'm— because like, I don't— I no longer have like human capabilities of like Like love and empathy and like all this shit. Like I am bug brain. I'm becoming bug brain. Like get the fuck out of here. I saw this interview recently with Jeff Goldblum, and it was somebody talking to him about like different roles he'd played, and they'd show a clip and stuff. And it's so funny to watch an actor watch an old clip of theirs, you know, because the guy sets up this insect politics clip, and it's just devastating and heartbreaking and stuff. So you get kind of like the double screen of like it showing and then Goldblum watching it, and he's just like. Like almost crying by like how touched he is by his own performance. It just really fucking cracked me up. He had 9 scarves on while he was watching. It was cool as shit, dude.

Steve

Um,.

Nic

So, uh,.

Steve

He's like the Steven Tyler of scarves.

Nic

Yes, Steven Tyler and his, uh, mic stand got morphed together in the—.

Steve

Through the telepath with Jeff Goldblum.

Nic

So this conversation, and Veronica went in like to tell Seth that she's pregnant, right? That she's pregnant. Yeah, but she didn't tell him that.

Steve

Did she not?

Nic

I don't think— no, no, because—.

Steve

No, because he says something about blending them.

Nic

He does that a little later.

Steve

Oh, shoot, sorry.

Nic

Because when she runs out of there and, uh, and Stathis is like waiting in his Maserati like outside of the lab, and she's just like, get me to the hospital now, I don't want this shit in my body. Yeah, yeah, right. So they go to the, uh, they go to the doctor. She's all ready, like she's in the room and stuff, prepped in her robe. And we have our classic '80s glass block wall.

Steve

Yes, that's right.

Nic

Which is meant to be busted through. That's never staying.

Steve

Commando, baby.

Nic

So she's there to actually get her abortion, and Brundlefly busts Kool-Aid Man through the wall.

Steve

Brundlefly! Oh yeah, oh yeah. And then he kidnaps her and he steals.

Nic

Her. And this is super like King Kong, like old— it's a creature feature. This is a classic creature feature where it becomes a monster movie as opposed to like a sci-fi, like, for sure, what would happen with, you know.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Um, and she's like horrified, right? She's like, don't, don't kill me, whatever. And he's like, oh, you know, I have the perfect plan. This is where he talks about— Oh, that's right, to blend them all together. Don't kill me, you know. He's like, why are we gonna kill my baby? Oh, he's saying don't kill me. Yeah, he's like, if you kill this baby, you kill me. That's the last thing that's left of Seth Brundle,.

Steve

Right?

Nic

And I don't know if he knows that it's the Brundlefly. I just think he's probably saying whatever he can to have her go through with it.

Steve

And how much is he actually— how much is he actually understanding given his state and everything? But basically he wants to go do this, but they're like up on the roof or something, right? They're not at the lab. They're talking about something like a roof. And Stathis has come back to the lab figuring that's where he went. He's got a shotgun with him, so he's like putting a shotgun together and loading it and kind of looking around and all this stuff. And so then Brundlefly drops on him from above, right? And it's like, you know, he vomits his enzyme shit all over Stathis's hand, which just melts it away.

Nic

I love that it turns into like sulfuric acid.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. But I guess that's the whole point, right? It's a digestive goo.

Nic

But then earlier, like, Brundlefly is just holding a donut in his own hand and puking onto it.

Steve

Oh my God, I hadn't even thought of that. Oh, that's a good point.

Nic

Maybe the enzyme's getting more and more acidic or something like that. Weird. When Stathis walks in, he walks in and he has like a case. Yeah. And he puts it on the table and he opens it, and Genie was like, oh, I hope it's just a big fly swatter. What I love is shotgun.

Steve

You always see these, these, these assemble the rifle moments for like a sniper rifle, something. For a shotgun, it was just an interesting choice. Like, I don't know, it was weird. Um, but basically, so now they're fighting, and yeah, so Stathis has had his hand melted He like melts his foot off or something too, right?

Nic

So he's struggling with Brundlefly, and Brundlefly like grabs his foot and just melts like his ankle off so that the foot detaches basically from the rest of the leg. Super gnarly. And I heard that in, uh, an early cut, like a scene that they cut out, the fly then like picked up his foot and like ate the foot.

Steve

Oh my God,.

Nic

Which.

Steve

Gross.

Nic

Didn't need it.

Steve

Unnecessary. Unnecessary.

Nic

So, so Brundlefly, uh, you know, wants to fuse. Yeah, he wants to fuse Veronica. He's like, me, you, and the baby will be more human than human. And a young Rob Zombie watching this said, hey man, that could be a shitty career.

Steve

Um, actually a big White Zombie fan.

Nic

So, so they're fun. You like, uh, what's the song about the spooky car?

Steve

Oh, Dragula. Hell yeah, I love that song. Hell yeah, burn through the witches. No, I, I like Rob Zombie's movies. I like his music. I'll die on that.

Nic

I do. I like Rob's movies. I like this movie. Um, so, so he's like, uh, so he's about to kill— he's about to kill Stathis. Veronica steps in, she's like, stop it. And he's like, help me become more human, right? We're gonna telepod together. I'm gonna go in this one, you go in the other one, and then they'll kind of come together in the third one. So it'll be me, you, the baby, and the fly too. But you know, we don't care about that. While she's She's struggling with him. She's kind of pushing him away. And this is like, uh, it maybe inspired, uh, Swayze's character in Road House where she just rips his entire jaw off.

Steve

Mandible.

Nic

And, and what we see is that, you know, his body is basically— his human body has basically become the cocoon for the fly to like hatch out of.

Steve

Which is like not really what flies— I mean, I guess that's sort of how larvae turn into flies. I don't know, it's weird. It's, it, it, it's, it's strange. Here's the thing too. So if this is supposed to be half and half, why is the fly completely taking over the body? Like, why is the fly dominant over the human DNA?

Nic

Yeah, you know, whatever.

Steve

I'm looking for too many scientific reasonings here. It doesn't work.

Nic

So this is really gross, right? The flesh falls off to reveal this horrible fly body here.

Steve

Yeah, the weird little legs and everything.

Nic

Yeah, God. And, and the way it moves. And he gets her into the telepod. Yeah. And he's about to go into the telepod, right? All of this is like barely moving, but he's able to right himself. He's able to balance the shotgun on his stump.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

You know, and with the other hand, he shoots the power cord that's connected to Veronica's telepod.

Steve

Right, which basically saves her from anything happening to her.

Nic

Right, so she's not connected to this shit right now. And the counter's going down, and Brundlefly's trying to bust out of the pod that he's in. Yeah. 'Cause the counter's going down, he's not hooked to anything.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Uh, and what happens is, as the counter goes off, he's like just about busted out, but the door of the telepod is like inside there with him. Yeah. And he ends up getting fused Fused with parts of the metal, and we get this really fucking gruesome— you know, it's the baboon,.

Steve

Right?

Nic

Inside-out baboon plus like part.

Steve

Of the.

Nic

Door, pieces of the door.

Steve

Why is the pod getting connected to him? Or why? Because if the pod gets connected to him here, why did everything—.

Nic

Should be the pod?

Steve

Yeah, yeah, it's just— it's very strange.

Nic

I think it's because it was open that, that some of it was like inside the, the enclosure of the pod or something like that. But yeah. Uh, weird, but gave us this like incredibly gruesome creature that comes out.

Steve

Yeah, and we're now back to where I no longer find it gross because it's so alien and weird looking that it's like, who cares? It's when it's more human that it's grosser to me.

Nic

This is The Thing-ish.

Steve

This is exactly more like that. And, and basically Ronnie picks up the shotgun and, you know, is initially pointing it, but kind of it's like can't shoot him, which is bizarre, just whatever. And he sort of reaches up with his little proboscis or whatever the fuck Fly's leg, it's called. That's the mouth. But like, you know, points the gun at his own head.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it's like, basically, this is the kill me, like, moment, right? And sure enough, she goes ahead and blows his head off with a shotgun and ends his suffering.

Nic

Blows his head so far apart, you know? It's not like a bullet in the head. It's just an explosion of the fucking head.

Steve

Well, yeah, he no longer has a skull, we have to assume, right? It's all exoskeleton. So once you breach that, it's all just goo inside.

Nic

So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that is how The Fly ends. We've got a dead Brundlefly, we got Veronica there having just killed him, and we've got Stathis being like, hey, I know you're really upset by what you just did, but how about picking up the fucking phone? My arm melted off. I still have fly puke that's melting through my bone right now. So, uh, that is The Fly. That is an, an absolutely, uh, gruesome ending to an absolutely gruesome movie.

Steve

So,.

Nic

Uh, So this is my pick. Yeah. And I'm going to talk about this.

Steve

Thanks for that, by the way.

Nic

Hey, no problem. Body horror stuff is, is tough. But going into this, you know, it's like it's a movie that's meant to make you feel uncomfortable. Like it wants you looking away at the gross parts and stuff. And, and that's, you know, a very Cronenberg thing. One movie that he did called Exit Extends is kind of like the maggot scene as an entire movie. Yeah. Like, he's just like has this real fucking gross, but there's something about it that just like it sticks with you. And this movie has really, uh, really stuck with me. I like this movie a lot. I really liked, um, Goldblum. Uh, I think the, the practical effects were incredibly well done. Uh, nothing was distracting, nothing looked like shit. I'm glad they didn't use like computer effects before they were any good. Last Starfighter. That kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I did read, uh, originally considered for the role, uh, I think offered the role was John Lithgow, which would have been very weird.

Steve

Very different.

Nic

Different kind of movie.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. Um, would have been interesting to see him with whatever body double do the gymnastics athletic stuff. I don't think it would have been as convincing. Even a young Lithgow, like, it wouldn't have been as convincing.

Nic

Yeah, poor Lithgow's been bald since he was like 22 years old. I have that in common with John Lithgow. But this movie, I thought, you know, kind of classic, like monster movie, Frankenstein thing. Interesting concept. I like Goldblum. It was only like an hour and a half, an hour 36 or something like that. And I really did. I had a good time watching this one. I would revisit this one for sure. Hmm. And I think it's a classic for a reason. It's tough to watch in a lot of parts, but the stupid stuff was outweighed by the cool stuff for me. I am a 4.5 for The Fly. I really like The Fly.

Steve

OK. I did not enjoy watching this movie. And I struggle a little bit with coming up with a score because there's kind of like— there are 2 flies within me fighting. And in one way, I can look at this and say, well, I can appreciate this sort of achievement in makeup and special effects. I can appreciate the originality and creativity of the premise. Right? Like, I can celebrate these things. Um, these are all fine actors. I didn't think any of the acting was particularly good in this. The writing left a lot to be desired. Like, there were a lot of the kind of like movie components that to me, that's kind of like, yeah, I didn't, I didn't care for those. And then there's just the general experience I had of watching the movie, um, really not enjoying my time doing so. Not a movie I'm gonna watch again. Not one I can recommend to people.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

I can talk about it intelligently now and say, yeah, I understand what it is. I understand why some people are way into it. I'm not gonna like fault anybody else like considering this a good movie or giving it a high score or anything like that. To each their own. But for me, the reality is like, why have a podcast where I give ratings to movies other than to give my opinion on them?

Nic

Of course.

Steve

Obviously. Uh, and I fucking hated watching this movie.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

So, um, I'm gonna give it 1 point, and I would go lower, but I have to give some respect to the artistic effects that went into creating it. That's where the 1 point comes from, because if I, if I could justify a 0, I probably would have done it, but I just kind of couldn't. Like, there's, there's there's too much craft and art that went into making something I hated that I can still respect some of the craft and art. But like, really, this is not a movie I can recommend anyone. This is not a movie that I'll watch again. I didn't care for the experience. Uh, it's not what I look to for a movie. I think it's kind of—.

Nic

Cronenberg to you is like Kevin Smith to me.

Steve

It seems like maybe. And so, and I'm sure we'll do more Cronenbergs. I know we'll do more Smiths, and we'll see how often that holds up. But like, yeah, I am a 1 out of 5, uh, on, on, uh, on the fly. I feel like this is an exact ratings flip-flop from our Mallrats experience.

Nic

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah.

Steve

But yeah, this is just— I, I just didn't like it. So I'm a 1 out of 5. Puts us at 5.5 out of 10 as a combination that will also add it to our Contrarian Corner, where films that we really disagree as a collective, at least with the critics, along with Thief, which I also dragged down with my inability to get over fucking Tangerine Dream's score in that one. But that's okay. This is what it is. Um, so yeah, 5.5 out of 10. And I think we have one more Shocktoberfest movie.

Nic

Yeah, what, what are we doing? How are we scaring ourselves with this final movie of Shocktoberfest?

Steve

We got one more week of October, and I'm gonna go a little more traditional horror, kind of like this one. Like I said, we started off with The Burbs and with Seven where, you know, they're adjacent to the horror thing, and then this was like true horror, body horror, creature feature thing. We're gonna go very, very legit kind of mainstream horror film for our last one. In my opinion, I think I'm gonna go ahead and say it, although maybe somebody will come and correct me, but I think probably the best slasher film of the '90s. Uh, you know, it's after the sort of slasher real heyday of the '70s and '80s where a lot of the greats were created. Um, but this is a Wes Craven joint from, I think, 1997. Uh, it is one of the best movies, in my opinion, that skewers its own genre as a parody and a satire.

Nic

That's interesting.

Steve

About also being a fantastic representation of the actual genre itself, right? So it's not like a comedy coming out of sci-fi and making fun of it. Like, Spaceballs is a great satire of sci-fi but is itself not a great sci-fi movie. Yeah, right. It's in that setting, whatever. This is— we're gonna watch Scream. We're gonna watch Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and Skeet Ulrich, and Matthew Lillard. I mean, the people in this— Jamie Kennedy, freaking Drew Barrymore. Like, there's so many people in this movie that are just fantastic. Like, these sort of young actors. Yeah, a lot of great people that we haven't seen yet. Um, Scream is the movie, and yeah, it really is not only a great sort of satire of the slasher genre in so many ways, it is itself a fantastic slasher movie with one of the best slasher villains certainly that was created in the '90s. Uh, this probably Ghostface killer is probably iconic, right?

Nic

That, uh, the mask and like how many sequels it spawned and how many like scary Scary movie wouldn't exist if it weren't for Scream, which itself is like a 5 or 6 movie genre. So yeah, that's really nuts. Uh, I don't think I've seen Scream since it came out.

Steve

Okay, okay.

Nic

I, I think I saw it in the theater because like that was the time, dude, when we were probably just old enough to go see an R-rated movie in the theater and it was a big deal to go see it.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Uh, so I'm fucking excited to, to revisit this one.

Steve

That's fantastic. I think I saw it in college first. Wouldn't have been in the theater for me. I, you know, but then it was, I think, like 10 years ago I revisited it because my wife Heather, who's generally not a big horror movie fan, loves this movie.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

And she and I will quote, I'm getting woozy here, man, like over and over again to each other for whatever reason. That has stuck with us. But yeah, so next week we'll watch Scream and that'll wrap up Shocktoberfest 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Nic

Hell yeah.

Steve

All right, that's a wrap. If you like what you hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been The Fly, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.