The title of this lesson is “other bodies, ourselves”. The two films we were required to watch for this section are Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) and Russell’s Altered States (1980). These two films seemed to fit more in the genre of science-fiction. There are definitely scary and for a lack of a better word disgusting parts of both of the films (more-so in The Fly). These films are similar in the way of scientific experimentation going terribly wrong and causing the protagonist to have their physical bodies changed drastically. Aesthetically the films were similar to many other movies on how dark they were. Both The Fly and Altered States were excellent films and interested me greatly, but I did not find them scary and that is what a horror movie’s main goal is. I consider these types of films to be mainly sci-fi with aspects of horror in them.
Before watching The Fly I already had high hopes because I am a big Jeff Goldblum fan and the film did not disappoint. In The Fly the main character, Seth Brundle, has made a scientific breakthrough and invented a teleporter. Personally I have always wanted to have the ability to teleport so this film enticed me instantly. Brundle’s teleporter at the start of the film could only teleport inanimate objects, his goal is of course to be able to teleport living beings in the near future. The saddest part of the movie was when he was testing the teleporter on the innocent baboons and one got turned inside out. The image of that baboon being turned inside out was difficult to get out of my head. I thought that would be the most disgusting part of the film, but I had no idea how gross the film would actually get. The film of course shows Brundle transformation into a human/fly combination or what he called “Brundlefly”. At the end of the film when he goes full Brundlefly and throws up acid on that guy’s leg and hand was something I am sure I will never forget (it was disgusting). This was the first film from Cronenberg I had ever seen and I don’t think I was mentally prepared beforehand of how weird the film would get. These disturbing images is what made this a semi-horror movie. It is also what made it a unique film, and I can honestly say I had never seen anything like it before.
Altered States was a little hard to follow for me. I know the protagonist, Eddie, was a strange scientist who worked at Harvard and was experimenting with a drug he obtained in Mexico and an isolation chamber. I just don’t know why he was doing all of this. What was he trying to prove by doing these experimentations? He must have just been curious to see if hallucinations can manifest into physical changes. If this was what he was trying to prove, then he definitely proved it. The more times he got into the isolation chamber with the Mexican drug in his body the more temporary physical changes were made. At first, his anatomy changed for a very short period of time into what the radiologist claimed to be gorilla-like. Then his body completely changed into an ape like form, he broke into a zoo, and ate an innocent sheep. The last time he did his test he turned into some weird type of deformed looking creature, and claimed he went all the way back to the beginning of time. The final scene of the film really confused me. I am not going to lie I had no idea what was happening, but I think this was intentional by the filmmaker. Altered States was a good film, but it could have been a little clearer about character motivations.