CURSE OF THE FLY
1965
Directed by Don Sharp
A.K.A. The one without Vincent Price
PlotI'd like to preface things by explaining that I haven't seen "return of the fly", which this film is apparently the sequel to, yet I do have a rough idea of the events leading up to this third film in a trilogy: In the first film, a scientist invents a device that enables matter transportation instantaneously, which would obviously revolutionize the world. There's a hitch that he discovers: when two beings transport simultaneoulsy, they physically merge. He finds out the hard way, and gets his head switched with a fly. Unable to find the fly again, he is forced to kill himself. Apparently, in the next film the scientist's son Phillipe continues th work of his father, and somehow makes the same mistake! Luckily, he's able to find the fly with his head and swap back somehow. This movie opens on Pat, escaping a mental institution. A man named Martin drives up and sees her on the road and offers her a ride after she gives him the half-true story of where she's from. The two head off to the man's hotel in Montreal. There, he calls home and relays a message through Tai, his assistant, on to London, where its revealed that his father is in fact Henri Delambre. Apparently, since they switched actors, they decided to change the dude's name from the last two films as well. In case you haven't realized it, he's supposed to be Phillipe. Henri is apparently resting off some nasty wounds as Albert, his other son, tends to him, wistfully pining for a life of his own. Meanwhile, Pat and Martin are slowly falling love, and Martin impulsively proposes to the happily surprised Pat. Then, he gets sick suddenly and locks himself in his room, as his skin seems to be drying up like a mummy. Fortunately, Martin has a treatment on hand in the form of an injectable antidote. Seems as though Pat isn't the only one with a secret... When the less than honest couple arrive home, Tai and his apparent wife Wan are shocked to meet Pat and find out she is Martin's wife. Wan seems downright cold towards her (though that could be her desperate attempt to look Asian when she's not.) Just what the Hey is going on here?! To make matters worse, Henri requires Martin to come away from his honeymoon suite and zap him back from London with the transmat, as he forgot to bring his passport and the authorities aren't happy with his lack of proof of border crossing. D'oh! When he returns, he explains that he got radiation burns on the last zap to London and that was why Martin needed to go off on that trip--to get repair parts to stop the burning from happening again. He also seems oddly upset at the idea that Martin got married, but there's nothing he can do about it now.
Meanwhile, Wan goes out to a barn area on the estate and puts some food through a door-plate on what looks like a jail cell. She speaks through the door tenderly to a girl named Judith who reaches out and holds her hand. Then her other, more monsterous hand comes out and grips Wan more tightly, hurting her. When she finally, sadly wrenches her bloody arm a way, a pounding starts at the third of the three doors, to which Wan shouts that "You don't get any more food today!" before storming off to clean her wounds. Curiouser and curiouser... The next morning, the head of the asylum where Pat escaped from comes to the house with the police inspector she hired to track her down. Martin and Henri rebuff them, proving that Martin married Pat, and has some control over where she's allowed to be kept (real gentleman, ain't he?). Pat spies her persuers as thy leave, and she runs off, only to find herself in front of the three doors She looks in the window of the middle door, and finds herself face-to-face with a melthy monster-man. She runs off terrifyed and ends up running into first Wan, then Martin. They decide it's time they confessed their past to one another. Pat confesses that she was interred because she was a piano virtuoso who was under pressure from her parents until they passed away. Cue nervous breakdown. And that's it. Yeah, I was kinda disappointed too. Martin on the other hand, assures his bride that the things in the "cages" are just "animals" they tested on for their work. Yeah, right. Naively disconcerted that her husband is one of those types of scientists, she brushes off her fears. Meanwhile the detective, vaguely aware of the fly cases, consults with the original investigator, an old, now blind man. Upon hearing that Martin got married, the man is the most shocked of all. You see, Martin Delambre is STILL MARRIED to his first wife, JUDITH! (Dum, dum, DUMMM!) We also get some handy exposition from this character, such as the fact that the re-humanization from part 2 wasn't complete, and has lead to side effects in Martin's physiogomy, such as advanced aging and sensitivity to cold, which explains his need for constant medication. Later that night, Pat awakens to the sound of the piano playing while the boys are off in the lab. She walks down to the parlor and sees a beautiful woman playing. The woman turns into the light and the player (Judith, natch) turns to reveal she's half-monster! AAHH! KILL IT!! Oh...Sorry about that. ANyways, Wan shows up and startles Pat enough to make her faint (sheesh, what a lightweight), then leaves the parlor with Judith in tow. When Pat awakens, she's in bed, and Martin insists that she had a vivid nightmare. To calm her nerves, (i.e. shut her up) he starts giveng her sleeping medication. Constantly. Told you he was a class act.
Martin and Henri decide it's time to get rid of their evidence, and go grab the other two freak/victims from their cells. The middle cell holds a big burly monster-man, as we've already seen. The third cell contains a small, wirey monster-man we only see briefly, yet is disturbing enough. The camera quality mysteriously shifts to 8-mm hand-held, which makes it feel more real. The thing itself looks like a jumpy cross between a demonand an auschwitz victim, and it's quite ready to rush the camera. Brrr! A fter a struggly, they get both to the lab for transport, yet can't get a hold of Albert, just yet. Oh well, they think, we'll zap em anyways. With both floating in the ether, they finally get a hold of Albert, who's forced to zap the things together into a single monstrocity. IT looks like something out of a "Basket Case" film; it's just a mound of tissue, with arms and heads flailing uselessly. ALbert grabs an axe and puts the thing out its misery, with blood flying everywhere. I can't even imagine the impact this scene had on audiences in 1965. Days later, while the men are out on business, Wan lets Judith out again, this time with the intention of taking out Pat, leading to a deadly game of cat and mouse in the mansion... |
RatingI give Curse of the Fly:
Five rotting shambling corpses out of Five. |