Product Details

• Actors: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: December 7, 1992
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300248135
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,656 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of the science fiction classic about a scientist who accidentally swaps body parts with a fly is both smart and terrifying: an allegory for the awful processes of slow death and a monster movie with a tragic spin. Jeff Goldblum gives a masterful performance as a sweet, nerdy scientist whose romance with a writer (Geena Davis) makes him more fully alive. Next thing you know, a tiny oversight in an experiment causes him to transmogrify, gradually, into something more like an insect than a human. This is Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome) country, so expect The Fly to be a gross-out, but in the way that disease corrupts the body and can make a loved one unrecognizable on every level. This is one of Cronenberg's best films, and certainly one of the important movies of the 1980s. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

Seth Brundle, a brilliant but eccentric scientist attempts to woo investigative journalist Veronica Quaife by offering her a scoop on his latest research in the field of matter transportation, which against all the expectations of the scientific establishment have proved successful. Up to a point. Brundle thinks he has ironed out the last problem when he successfully transports a living creature, but when he attempts to teleport himself a fly enters one of the transmission booths, and Brundle finds he is a changed man.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent showing on Blu-Ray, January 10, 2008

By 

Stephen M. Lerch (Elkton, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Fly [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

If you're looking for review of the film itself, look elsewhere. As I've done previously I wish to focus on the quality of the picture and audio and leave the writing of the film review for those better suited to it.

This movie is encoded on Blu-Ray using the AVC codec and is brought in using 1080p that most expect from Blu-Ray. The video itself is less than stellar in terms of presentation. Let me qualify this. This is likely the best the movie has EVER looked for home presentation, but it's not a visually impressive movie no matter how it's presented. There is some film grain but there is plenty of detail to be seen. It's just that the movie has no "pizazz" to it so to speak. There are no blemishes on the film and no weird compression artifacts at all. This is as it should be for an HD release.

The audio is DTS-HD lossless. The problem is that there really isn't much that requires any directionality here. It's mostly dialog driven with not much else going on in the sound field. The thing is, 5.1 audio in a movie like this really isn't needed and I'm glad that Fox didn't try to dress the audio up needlessly. I may sound like a broken record but this is also likely the best The Fly has sounded in the home market.

The extras, as seems to be the case on many releases of films that already have DVD editions packed with extras, are all in standard definition. There are some Blu-Ray exclusive extras that aren't particularly noteworthy. The first is pop-up trivia during the film (you can turn this on and off) with fun production facts and so on. The other is a very boring and annoying "game" called "Flyswatter." You have this slow moving fly flying around the screen with some scenes from the movie playing in the background and the objective is to swat the fly with an even slower moving flyswatter. It's time wasting and really adds nothing of value to the disc.

If you already have the special edition SD release, given the video and audio doesn't really stand out too much in the HD front, you may want to think twice about picking up the Blu-Ray edition of The Fly. If you don't own it and want a definitive edition with all the previous extras and the best possible audio and video, look no further.

For a back catalog release with limited appeal, I do think the MSRP is a little on the high side however.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Terrifying and Sad, yet somehow slightly beautiful, October 31, 2007

By 

Mrs. Bronson (My Happy Place) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fly (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (DVD)

After laughing through Scanners (sorry my love), I wasn't expecting too much from this Cronenberg film. I was pleasantly surprised at how effective everything in this movie was. As much as I dispise Jeff Goldblum, I can't think of anyone better for the part. The visuals were great and I loved seeing the transformation of Seth Brundle (Goldblum) into the "monster".
For me, this was a completely new experience with horror. I actually felt bad for the "evil" in the movie. Normally it's clear cut who the viewer should be rooting for but this movie threw that concept out the window. As wonderful and gross as the transformation was, seeing Seth suffer and become an uncontrolable creature tugged at my heartstrings. Overall, the film is very well done and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

As a side note, I'd like to wish everyone a happy, safe, and horror-filled Halloween.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cronenberg's Best, August 3, 2005

By 

IvoryPuppet (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fly (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (DVD)

This is just a solid sci-fi/horror that will scare the s*** out of you and possibly make you throw up. And what's great is that there's also this emotional subtext to it. Cronenberg made this film in response to watching his father die of brain cancer (you can see similarities to this and his DEAD ZONE adaptation). As always, Jeff Goldblum is brilliant as the sympathetic scientist who becomes more and more powerless as this fly-like disease takes over his body. Carol Spier's art-direction, Howard Shore's music, Mark Irwin's cinematography, and of course, Croneberg's irreverent direction... everything is perfect. THE FLY is not as pretentious as DEAD RINGERS, not as absurd as NAKED LUNCH, and not as slow as SPIDER. It really is Cronenberg's best film, and it might just be the best Special Edition DVD that Fox has yet to release. Just don't puke on the box -- even if it does make it easier to digest.