Movie Info
Movie Name: The Curse of the Fly
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Genre(s): Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/B-Movie
Release Date(s): May 1965
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
I really need to get a humidifier
A woman named Patricia Stanley (Carole Gray) escapes from a mental home after suffering a breakdown. Her luck seems to change when she meets Martin Delambre (George Baker) and after a whirlwind romance, the two are married. Martin however has a medical condition that could kill him. He and his father Henri (Brian Bonlevy) are working with Albert Delambre (Michael Graham) in London to perfect Henri’s father’s teleportation device. Will Patricia and Martin’s romance survive or will Patricia become another failed experiment of the teleporters?
Directed by Don Sharp, The Curse of the Fly is almost a “lost film”. The movie was never released on VHS or laserdisc and only found release on DVD in 2007 as part of a triple Fly pack. It was the last film in original Fly series.
Just give me the moisturizer!
Ok…the first big thing is there is no Fly in The Curse of the Fly. This could have caused some problems for viewers. Granted, this is not uncommon for movies with “curse” in the title since it is implied that due to the events of previous movies, the characters might not be said creature (like in Curse of the Cat People), but they are still dealing with the aftereffects of the film.
In The Curse of the Fly, you get one son named Henri (who didn’t exist in either of the previous Fly movies…that son was Phillipe and he was the subject of Return of the Fly). Henri and his one son Martin both are genetically tied to the Fly and suffer problems as a result. This screws everything up since Andre never was cured of being the Fly so he never had any children. Phillipe was cured, but here Phillipe never existed (though Phillipe’s Fly is show in the place of Andre in a photograph). Old horror movies always make these swaps and hope that the viewers would accept them…guess they didn’t prepare for viewers to watch them all together on DVD where it is a bit frustrating.
Honey…I know we just got married, but this is a little kinkier than I expected
That being said, The Curse of the Fly isn’t very good anyway. The story just kind of fumbles along from the opening shot of Carole Gray in her underwear, jumping in slow motion from the asylum window…which was much more interesting than anything in the film. The mutated people and Henri’s obsession made me wonder who we were supposed to root for since Martin seemed like a nice guy for chunks of the movie yet allowed his wife to be subjected to teleportation and imprisonment and then continued to try it on his new wife.
The Curse of the Fly is one of those poor ’60s sci-fi horror films that tried to be a ‘’50s sci-fi film and failed. By the time The Curse of the Fly was released, films were already starting to try to move on and be more progressive and The Curse of the Fly feels like a poor throwback. Watch it only if you want to see the whole saga.
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